Jim O'Neil's photos with the keyword: art-tools

I took this a few months ago when I was doing some sumi painting.

二 墨, 四 硯, 三 硯箱 (Ni sumi, yon suzuri, san suzuribako). My grammar, etc., is probably all wrong but the picture is of 2 of my ink sticks (sumi), 4 of my favorite inkstones for grinding the ink (suzuri) and 3 ink stone boxes (suszuribako) ... and two boxes for the 2 ink sticks, I don't know if there is a specal name for these boxes in Nihongo, in Japanese

I've been accused by some of maintaining a clean and ordered work area, I beg to differ..... :-)

硯箱 (すずりばこ suzurihako) and 硯 (すずりsuzuri): Inkstone case and inkstone. My newest 硯 and 硯箱 that I bought in Japan last month are on the left. On the right is the first stone I ever owned, as you can see from the size difference, I can grind a lot more ink at one time now! Sitting on the edge of the 硯 is an inkstick, sumi, 墨 (すみ)

Benedicte said: "would have like it better directly on the wood of the table with the traces of hard painting labour." It just so happens I was doing some sumi-e this morning so here is a picture of the 'tools', more or less, in use. The 'rice' paper is extremely absorbent so one works on felt to soak up the excess water in the ink. The orage rags (toweling) is to clean/dry the fude (brushes). The suzuri (ink stone); add a little water, grind for 15 minutes and youve got ink! The white ceramic, chrysanthemum, dish is to mix shades of gray from the ink. The two brushes (fude) I was using are sitting to the left on the fudemaki (brushholder). On the paper, at the top, is the bunchin, paperweight.

I've always hated cleaning my palette. Subsequently I changed, quite a while ago, to using a glass palette (a broken, recycled, window pane) , -if I forget to clean it & the paint dries on it, run a razor blade scrapper across it and it's good as new. Since then I've found a use for defunct CDs/DVDs, they're great, as disposable palettes, for small amounts of paints and a few colors. Lately I'm trying Glad's, 'Press'n Seal' sealing wrap on my old wooden palette, use it' peel if, toss it. Not bad but I'm not too comfortable with the throwaway culture, will probable stick to glass.