Rice Art?!

  • Rice is probably the most widely consumed food in Japan. It is an enormous part of our traditional Japanese food culture and I personally have never gone a week without eating any rice (trust me it’s not just me). A lot of people may already correlate Japanese people with eating rice. And that is of course very true, but there is another way in that some people have decided to have rice in their lives: through art. Now, personally, as an artist in training, I do NOT understand how these people are able to do this.

    Drawing on each individual grain of rice has become a popular art form in Japan. Each rice grain is about four millimetres. The drawing process begins with choosing an appropriate grain of rice. Each grain of rice is shaped differently and therefore grains of different shapes are used in various parts of the piece. Apparently the artists do not use any type of magnifying glass, they just use their natural eyesight. They use extremely thin brushes to draw and write on these incredibly small grains of rice. The amount of concentration needed for this kind of work is insane so kudos to all of these rice artists.

    Some people draw individual works or art on a single grain while others make a picture using multiple grains of rice.
    Personally, I like how some of the artist use a grain of rice to write their signature on each of their works.

    Some of the Works

    This is a cherry blossom tree made from rice grains. Each individual flower and leaf is made from a grain of rice.

    This is a sunflower field made from rice grains.

    You can actually order your very own piece or rice grain art from the site below!
    Kometsubu website *Japanese only