The Mon

[Kitagawa Natsutarou Tsubasa]

Well now that I am well and truely into making a new set of garb and armour I have decided it is time to confirm my mon. Since I began, I have always wanted to use the Vermillion Bird in some context (being the south (australia) and the element of fire (my canton is burnfield) I like to think it fits in nicely). Doing some search on the internet I found this;

images.pingmag.jp/images/article/animal-kamon-design17.jpg

the original upload is from crest-japan.net

While I like it there are two things which are a problem;

- It is complicated. I want something that I can easily reproduce. I was thinking a traditional circle with something in it (suggestions based on the above theme?)

- I dont know how period it is. While I have read that mon can pretty much be anything, I am not entirely sure how true this is.

Any and all help is appreciated

Regards,

Tsuinjin

[Saionji Shonagon]

That's a classic phoenix. I don't know if that particular form was used in mon, but it most definitely shows up as a decorative motif, particularly in textiles. (In fact I recently scored a bolt of something gauzy with phoenixes very much like this one on it.)

As for "complicated," there's nothing that says you cannot blow up or reduce an image on your computer, run it through a printer and turn it into a design template. That's how I create a lot of my stencils.

[bovil]

Jul 6, 2010 1:56:59 GMT -5 Kitagawa Natsutarou Tsubasa said:

- It is complicated. I want something that I can easily reproduce.

Silkscreen. EZ Screen Print makes photo-reactive screen media that's chemically safe and simple.

Jul 6, 2010 1:56:59 GMT -5 Kitagawa Natsutarou Tsubasa said:

I was thinking a traditional circle with something in it (suggestions based on the above theme?)

The oldest mon do not have circles around them. They are, however, often very simple and stylized.

[Noriko]

I like this website:

www.otomiya.com/kamon/index.htm

though it's unfortunately all in Japanese (and these are modern mon to boot). Google translate seems to handle it somewhat nicely. They have a phoenix motif but also some other birds for inspiration.