Japan Pottery Towns & Kiln Villages Coloring Book

About this book

Sixty real pottery towns and kiln villages of Japan — and every one of them ready to color.

Japan fires clay in more old pottery towns than any country on earth. For a thousand years its kilns have climbed hillsides wherever clay, pine wood and water meet: whole villages where every family throws pots, where the smoke of climbing kilns seasoned the sky, and where a ware's name simply means the town that makes it. This book walks that fired landscape from Yamagata to Kagoshima, and every stop is a real place in its real view: the porcelain torii of Arita that stacks like white china, the secret kiln village of Okawachiyama hidden between porcelain cliffs, the great bottle kiln of Hasami's Ceramics Park, the demon roof-tiles of Takahama and Kikuma, the tanuki-crowded lanes of Shigaraki, and the Korean potters' village of Naeshirogawa in an 1840s print.

Every subject appears as a two-page spread: on one side, a full-color guide — a photograph of the place today, or the public-domain period print that recorded it — with a short, fascinating story of the town, its clay and its kilns, and exactly how to color it; on the other side, a detailed coloring page of the very same view, converted from the real image so the scene you color is the scene itself.

Inside you will find: • The north and Kanto — Hirashimizu's pottery hamlet in the Yamagata hills, three Mashiko subjects of Hamada Shoji's mingei town (the great climbing kiln, the Hamada House at Sankokan), the Kasama pottery town and its great kiln • The Mino heartland and Tokai — four Seto subjects (Akazu, the setomono town, the Kamagaki lane of kiln walls, the Hongyo kiln), four Tokoname subjects (the Pottery Footpath, the great climbing kiln, Manekineko Street), the demon-tile town of Takahama, Tajimi, Toki, Dachi, the Kasahara Mosaic Tile Museum and Motosu's Oribe no Sato • Hokuriku and the Japan Sea — the Echizen kiln village, Kutani's museum and excavated old kiln site, Suzu at the tip of the Noto Peninsula, Sado's red-clay Mumyoi kilns • Kansai — the climbing kilns of Iga and Shigaraki, the Ceramic Cultural Park, Tamba's Tachikui village, Kyoto's Kiyomizu ware shops and the Raku kiln house, Asahi ware in Uji, Akahada and Izushi • Bizen, Hagi and Shikoku — three Bizen subjects in Inbe (the village street, the Tenpo kiln remains, the pottery center), Hagi ware, Fujina, Tobe, the Kikuma roof-tile village and the Odo kiln site of Tosa • Kyushu, the porcelain island — Karatsu, Arita (porcelain torii, Izumiyama quarry, Porcelain Park), Okawachiyama, Ureshino, Takeo under Mount Kurokami, Hasami (Ceramics Park and the Nakaogo kiln ruins), Koishiwara, Onta, Takatori, and the three Satsuma subjects of Miyama and Naeshirogawa • 60 full-color guides with the story of each place (80–100 words each) • Nine real climbing kilns (noborigama) — Mashiko, Kasama, Tokoname, Iga, Shigaraki, Bizen, Koishiwara, Onta and Takatori • None of these sixty subjects appeared in our previous Japan coloring books

Sixty towns of clay and fire, one long journey from the snows of Yamagata to the white porcelain hills of Kyushu — bring pencils, and take your time.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.