Monday, October 17, 2011

A is for Amikiri

Today is a red-letter, red-monster day: the beginning of a new alphabet project, AlphaBeasts!

Successor to Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet, this one is hosted by Andrew Neal & will center on mythical creatures. I think it may be even more fun than the last! I'm hoping to do all 26 letters, & looking forward to discovering many new oddities along the way.


My first AlphaBeast is the Amikiri, or Net Cutter, from Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yakō. I'd never heard of this curious creature with its very specific form of mischief before. I certainly hope it leaves my curtains & fishnets alone!

While this is AlphaBeast No.1, it is also Her Odd Materials No.13. Hmm, sounds like something from mystic numerology.... Acrylic on a cutting from a Larkin Catalog, c.1940, ~5"X6", found at the Fleam of course.

By the way, if you'd like to see my entries for the last series, Animal Alphabet, you'll find most of them on my sketch/process blog, Curious Art Lab. I was late to the party though, so you won't find all 26 letters there, alas!



6 comments:

  1. Nicely streamlined design there! So pointy (and so alien)!

    How did you find the Amiriki? And are you planning to do the whole alphabet on "odd materials"?

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  2. Thanks, Isaac! I found the Amikiri via the Obakemono Project. The two links above go to their site; the main page is http://www.obakemono.com/index.php & the Spook Index is http://www.obakemono.com/list.php?order=alpha

    As for my "plan"... it probably won't shock you to learn that I don't have one... we'll just have to see what happens! %\

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  3. This is scary! I checked this evening all my curtains but , luckily, nothing found!!! I can sleep well tonight.

    BTW the Japanese site is amazing ( it is from1776!!!) I love it!

    Again, nice creature !!!

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  4. Leah, I wonder whether an outside observer would call your plan (for the alphabet) more crazy / odd / elaborate than mine. (I had to resort to a spreadsheet to get mine figured out, but the drawings surely won't reveal any of that...)

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  5. I'm glad your curtains are safe so far, Art. (And I hope my creature didn't give you nightmares!)

    Isaac, no reasonable observer would call either of us sane, I'm quite sure of it. ;-)

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  6. Ooh, I'm so excited that we have another whole alphabet series from you to look forward to!I love the trompe-l'oeil effect you've achieved here with your beast so integrated into the drawing!

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