Fox Fires on New Year's Eve

Media: Watercolor, India ink

Size: 13 x 20"

Original: $250

This painting came about because I was assigned to copy any one piece of ancient Chinese/Indian/Japanese art of my choosing as a semester

project for my Asian Art History class. Obviously I'm a bit biased towards Japanese art, and I ended up choosing Hiroshige's "Fox Fires on New

Year's Eve at Oji" woodblock print, part of his "100 views of Edo" series. Here's the original.

In Japanese folklore, foxes are believed to have magical powers, and the legend goes that every year at Oji all the foxes would gather and have a

meeting to discuss their mischief and plan for the next year. As I was working on it, I began thinking that the legend was really rather neat, and it

might be fun to try my own take on it. So I did.

I added in a few extra bits of kitsune lore for my piece-- notably the nine-tailed fox. Foxes are believed to gain one extra tail for every 100 years

they live, with nine tails being the wisest and most powerful. Nine-tailed foxes are also believed to turn gold or white upon receiving their last tail.

So in my picture I ended up drawing a nine-tailed fox sort of "schooling" the rest of them.

I'm quite pleased with how the lighting turned out here-- it was quite difficult to get the reflections correct, especially in the snow, but it turned out

really well; even better than I hoped.

 

(12/04/2008)