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Art lane

Sumi

An engine-agnostic style recipe: a wide hero, proof shots across subjects, and a portable prompt.

Sumi hero
Sumi proof 1
Sumi proof 2
Sumi proof 3
1 hero · 3 proofs
Prompt template
An ink-wash brush painting of {subject}, rendered as sumi-e brushwork: built from a few decisive loaded-brush strokes and soft graded washes of a single dark pigment drawn from {palette} on absorbent off-white paper. Large areas of bare untouched paper carry the composition as negative space. Visible brush tooth, dry-brush drag, and bleeding wash edges where ink meets damp paper, with faint horizontal paper grain. One small restrained seal-stamp mark in the most saturated accent from {palette}, placed in the open space as the single colour accent. Calm, spare, high contrast, generous emptiness. NO text, NO letters, NO logos.
Slot recipes
hero — A wide ink-wash scene of {subject} with the inked form pushed to one edge or corner; reserve the larger remaining area as calm bare-paper negative space for the headline overlay, with one small seal-stamp mark low in the open space.
feature — A single iconic {subject} centred in a wide field of bare paper, built from a few decisive loaded-brush strokes and one graded wash, hard at the core and feathered at the edges.
avatar — A three-quarter ink-wash portrait of {subject} emerging from bare paper, a few brush strokes for the planes of the face, much of the frame left empty, one small seal mark in the margin.
empty-state — An almost-empty composition of {subject} as a single faint brush mark floating in a wide expanse of bare paper, one tiny seal-stamp accent.
illustration — A spare diagrammatic ink-wash of {subject} built from a few confident brush strokes and thin rule lines, washes only in the mid-tones, bare paper between every element.
sumi-eink-washbrushworknegative-spacemonochrome-pigment
Credits · in the lineage of
  • Sumi-e (Japanese ink-wash painting)Traditionthe monochrome brush tradition this technique abstracts: one pigment, graded wash, decisive loaded strokes, and bare paper as structural space.
  • Chinese literati ink painting (shuimo)Traditionthe broader East Asian ink-wash lineage whose wet-into-wet bleeds and dry-brush drag are reproduced here.
  • Sesshu ToyoArtistthe spare, architectural ink-landscape economy of mark echoed in the technique's confident strokes and wide emptiness.
  • Hasegawa TohakuArtistthe soft mist-and-void washes and reserved negative space this technique leans on.

A generated style is an aggregate of many influences — credit is given to the artists and traditions it draws on, not a claim of authorship.

images by gpt-image-2

Do
  • · Carry the image with one dark pigment plus the bare paper; let graded wash and dry-brush drag do the work.
  • · Leave large areas of untouched paper as structural negative space — the emptiness is part of the picture.
  • · Make each stroke look decisive and loaded, hard at the core and feathered where the brush lifts.
  • · Place exactly one small restrained seal-stamp mark in the most saturated accent as the only colour.
Don't
  • · Do not use smooth photographic gradients, glossy renders, or soft drop shadows.
  • · Do not fill the frame edge to edge — bare paper is the composition, not a background to cover.
  • · Do not add a second accent colour or let the seal spread into a wash.
  • · Do not bake any text, letters, or logos into the image.
try it

remix with this style

Apply Sumi to any UI language and swap the palette — the preview takes this style's hero image.

Needs a Published language and palette to remix.