Artist Paints Gorgeous Traditional Good Luck Dragons With Just a Single Stroke of His Brush

Lori Dorn
July 16, 2018

Artist Keisuke Teshima from Kyoto, Japan demonstrated the known as “hitofude-ryu”, or the painting of colorful dragons with a single brush stroke. These paintings, which go back to the Edo period, are drawn with the dragon’s head facing upwards, a sign of good luck within Japanese culture.

These stunning images show the breath taking work of an artist in Japan who can paint an entire dragon in a single stroke. …The images are used as good luck charms. The dragon’s scales appear when Keisuke presses down hard and light in small spurts.

A post shared by Keisuke Teshima (@onestrokedragon) on Oct 26, 2017 at 4:07am PDT

A post shared by Keisuke Teshima (@onestrokedragon) on Apr 24, 2017 at 10:51pm PDT

A post shared by Keisuke Teshima (@onestrokedragon) on Aug 15, 2017 at 11:12pm PDT

A post shared by Keisuke Teshima (@onestrokedragon) on Jul 30, 2016 at 6:12pm PDT

Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.