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How to Make a Japanese Scroll

Objectives:

1. Students will understand how scrolls were used in Japanese culture (historical and cultural understanding).

2. Students will learn about the materials, methods and techniques used to create scrolls (perceiving, analyzing and responding).

3. Students will find their own solutions in the process of creating a scrolls by exploring materials, design, line, shape, color and texture (creating and performing).

New Mexico State Content Standards
Arts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Social Studies 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14

Materials: rice paper 12” x 24” (or smaller), drawing paper cut to the same size, watercolors, brushes, water containers, pencils and erasers, sharpie markers (indelible), 2 dowels each 18” long, glue sticks, markers (optional), string, pipe cleaners or raffia, masking tape, newspaper to cover tables.

Motivation
1. Look at images of Japanese scrolls, or the real thing, if you have access to one. Ask the students what they see and discuss the composition, especially noting whether it is oriented in a horizontal or a vertical direction. Note the content, the style of painting, what colors are used and how brushstrokes are applied.

2. Tell the students that they will be making their own scrolls. They can tell a story, something that happens over time, paint a picture of a scene, a person, an animal, or write a message.

3. Discuss the difference between a scroll and a book. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the scroll form? Show students how a scroll can be unrolled to show the entire depiction or just to reveal selected sections, mysteriously revealing its content.

Procedure
1. Use pencil and the drawing paper to draw the outlines of the idea for the images on the scroll. As mentioned above, it can be a scene, a person, an animal, or a written message. It can be held vertically or horizontally.

2. When the drawing is complete, place the rice paper on top of the drawing. Tape the edges to secure it in place.

3. Trace the outlines of the important shapes and details with an indelible marker.

4. Demonstrate watercolor painting techniques, laying down a wash, wet on wet and dry brush. Paint the rice paper utilizing those techniques within the drawn composition.

5. Color the dowels with marker (optional). Place the dry rice paper against the dowels and mark with pencil. Apply glue stick to the dowels in the area indicated.

6. Roll the edge of the rice paper around the dowel. Repeat.

7. Roll up the dowel and secure with a pipe cleaner, piece of string and/or raffia.

Evaluation
1. Display the students’ work on a bulletin board. Have each student write a label and describe their scroll either in a story or a poem.

2. Have your class make a group scroll (a very long one). Determine a theme or a story or simply have the students paint their names or create a symbol for themselves. Assign each student a section of the rice paper. When it is complete display the entire scroll unfurled and then several sections at a time.

Math

Have the students prepare the rice paper for the project. Give them the roll of rice paper and have them determine how long each piece of rice paper should be cut. Have the students make calculations on how many pieces of rice paper they can cut out of one roll.

Literature
Have your students read Japanese folk tales and Japanese poetry to identify topics, styles and themes.

Creative Writing
Have your students write a story based on their scroll or story that incorporates the process of papermaking or uses a Japanese literary form.

Music
Listen to Japanese music and have your students research the different types of instruments that are used in traditional Japanese folk music.

Social Studies
Review the history of paper making in Japan. Explore the reasons that the paper making process integrated well with the farmers who live in Northern Japan.

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