Akashiya Tsuketate Painting Brush, Large

Akashiya Tsuketate Painting Brush in the Large size is a traditional Japanese sumi-e and nihonga brush made in Nara by a brushmaker founded in 1716. The tsuketate (付立) brush is built for the painting technique of the same name: drawing forms not with outlines but with shaded, ink-loaded strokes that carry dark, medium, and light tone within a single press of the bristle.

This is the larger of the two Tsuketate sizes Akashiya offers, sized for full-page sumi-e, larger flowers in nihonga, broad ink washes, and the kind of work where a single stroke needs to cover several inches without re-loading. The thicker bristle pack holds more ink and stays loaded longer than the Small size; the handle is correspondingly larger to balance the additional weight in the hand.

The bristles combine horse-tail hair (馬尾毛) for spring and ink capacity with raccoon-dog (狸毛, tanuki) hair for control and flexibility. Horse tail gives the brush its body and snap; tanuki adds the give that lets the same bristle bundle produce a dark masstone at the base of the stroke and fade gradually to a transparent edge as pressure releases. In the Large size, the extra ink reservoir lets that gradation extend further across the page.

In a sumi-e or nihonga workflow this is the broad brush that paints the bulk of the image: petals, leaves, drapery, large washes of background tone. The smaller Tsuketate handles tighter compositions, and the Menso brushes come in afterward for fine outlines and detail.

For smaller-scale work, see the Small Tsuketate size. For the fine-detail brushes that finish the painting, see the Weasel Hair Menso Brush (Large) and the smaller Medium. The brush pairs naturally with Boku-Undo Gansai Japanese watercolors for broad color washes.

How to Use

1. Wet the brush in clean water and squeeze out the excess between two fingers; the bristle should be damp, not dripping.
2. Load the tip with the darker tone of ink or paint, then dip the body of the bristle in a lighter wash; one bristle pack now holds two tones.
3. Press the bristle down at the start of the stroke (dark) and lift gradually toward the end (light) to draw a single shaded form across the page.
4. Rinse clean between colors, reshape the tip, and store with the bristle uncovered so it can dry through.

Details

• Bristle: 0.39" D × 1.9" L (1.0 cm D × 4.8 cm L)
• Handle: 0.53" D × 10.9" L (1.35 cm D × 27.8 cm L)
• Weight: 0.69 oz (19.5 g)
• Materials: horse-tail hair and raccoon-dog (tanuki) hair (bristle)
• Firmness: slightly firm
• Origin: Made in Nara, Japan
• Brand: Akashiya

The Story of Akashiya

Akashiya was founded in 1716 in Nara, the city where Japanese brushmaking has been practiced for over a thousand years and which remains the country's main center for handmade fude (writing brushes). The workshop spent its first two centuries making traditional calligraphy and painting brushes (bristle bundled, glued, and shaped by a single artisan from start to finish), and that one-brush-one-maker discipline is still the standard for every piece in the line today.

Over the past century Akashiya has extended that craft into adjacent territory: the Sai brush pen series, fountain-pen-style brush pens with their own ink reservoirs, watercolor brush pens in traditional Japanese color sets, sumi-e and nihonga brushes for fine detail and broad strokes, and even makeup brushes. The common thread across all of them is the way the tip holds and releases ink, which is the part of brushmaking that takes the longest to learn and is hardest to mechanize.

What you are holding is a small piece of a 300-year continuous practice, made in the place where Japan's brush tradition began.