Japanese Animal Illustrations

Size: 7” x 10” - Pages: 122 - Published: 2001 - Price: $55 - Binding: Hardcover

This book has some awesome animal images! The first half is birds, underwater creatures, insects and flowers done in full color followed by more text than images and those that are there and black and white. The text can be a little daunting in this one, but the full color images are pretty rad and definitely carry the book. A good one for anyone looking for detailed underwater creatures. 

Size: 8.5” x 11” - Pages: 176 - Published: 2011 - Price: $52 - Binding: Softcover

This just came out and it is fantastic. Nagasawa Rosetsu was an 18th century (mid-Edo period) painter and his imagery is very compelling. He did some amazing dragons and a peacock that is just gorgeous! His animals are brought to life with subtle yet powerful colors, his sumi illustrations have energy and movement - I am very impressed with his work and am already hunting some alternate publications on his illustrations so stay tuned....



TO ORDER GO HERE AND SCROLL DOWN: http://gominekobooks.com/ukiyoe/ukiyoe.html

Crabs!!

These crabs are wicked cool. They are Japanese Spider Crabs and their shells often resemble the face of a samurai. While not the heike crabs of legend they are still one of the raddest underwater creature I have ever seen....








Heike Crabs are also quite rad and on my list of "I want" tattoos. Japanese legend has it that after the battle of Dannoura the spirits of the defeated Heiki army were reincarnated into these heikegana (heike crabs). Their shells resembled scowling samura and fisherman, out of respect, would throw back the crabs with the angry man face anomaly. They look like this (for reference, I have yet to see one in person...)





Yoshitoshi was a fan of Heikegana as well....



Crabs rule.