O-bon lanterns! Let's make some.

I haven't been able to get to the o-Bon festival at 松風荘 this evening, so I think I'll make lanterns for my windows. We need 季語 kigo, seasonal words, appropriate for o-Bon; we consult this kigo site, among many, and choose 魂祭 tamamatsuri, soul festival—what right-thinking ancestor wouldn't be attracted by that? 

Next, we need examples. (I don't mind writing badly if only I and the dead will see it.) Hao86—Chinese site, so I think 书法 shufa, vs 書法 shohou; both vs 書道 shodou, "the way of" calligraphy—has examples of everything, in multiple scripts, attributed—or, at least, it seems to be trying to, as some areas are a bit bare—so we look there. Hao offers five style categories:

行书　(行書　gyousho　semi-cursive/"running" script)

楷书　(楷書　kaisho　standard/regular/"block" script)

草书　(草書　sousho　cursive/"grass" script, very stylized)

隶书　(隷書　reisho　clerical script*)

篆书　(篆書　tensho　seal script, for stamping documents)

*"Clerical script" may be a euphemism, as Jisho defines 隷 as "slave, servant, prisoner, criminal, follower".

Helpful, for picking out forms we find interesting and would like to practice a bit. 例えば:　 

魂　

This one preserves the shape nicely, has the shape I like for the "animal legs" radical (stab left, sweep right!), and sort of casts off the little two-stroke oni 鬼 triangle, into almost a barbed tail:

(about the artist, YU Boqing 徐伯清, current, Shanghai)

...but this one is irresistible—look how it stacks the radicals:

 

(about the artist, ZHANG Ruitu 張瑞圖, 1570–1641 / works) 

Maybe handle the "speech" radical 云 (which I somehow think of as steam/mist/vapor, which certainly works here) with sort of a rightward dot, strong horizontal, elbow, take a moment at the end, launch into the vertical for 田; loop and tie, then into the legs, and the styling final dot that makes your 厶 but also seems a quintessentially 書道 thing to do. I think. Or something. Anyway, it looks fun to try.

 祭はねー。。。

Matsuri is pretty much a prayer/altar (示, 礻) under the "dotted tent" radical (癶); Henshall says the parts are literally a hand placing meat (⺼, with interesting/confounding overlap with 月 moon) onto an altar. Seems to pack in the connotation of sacrifice. Perfect for a soulfest. I'm not finding the right thing on Hao, so on to general search; we don't want to mix styles, but I'm loving this lean one, because it looks a bit like a person releasing 灯籠 tourou paper lanterns:

(about the artist, ZHANG Jizhi 张即之, 1186–1263)

In gyou and sou styles, the altar tends to look a bit like a hiragana ふ fu, which derives from kanji 不.

But it's fun when kanji look like stuff. Maybe there's some room to play with that "meat" radical, since it suggests both the moon (月) and night (夕)—great for a lantern. (I'm thinking of examples of 月 I've seen that recline, almost to a 夕-like angle.)

I have two big windows, so maybe I'll make two lanterns and not worry about matching styles. Next up: ink! And to choose a 筆 that will be kind to me. I have some glasses, so the thought is to write the kanji on whatever (paper or maybe napkins—not good paper, but something with some kind of character) and wrap it around a glass so the candles won't cause a 盆fire. Vamos a ver. イクゾね。

I've been hoarding recyclable egg cartons and an old window screen because one of these years I'm going to make paper, I swear.

Also on the list to explore: shufalife.com.