Sumi-e Jutsu (the discipline of ink-painting) is one of the meditational practices which have been most dear to the Samurai and Zen Monks of pre-Meiji Japan. It has been so, because the combination of "martial" and "peaceful" disciplines upgrades them both to spiritual paths, in a manner that helps all those who follow them combined to avoid slipping towards violence or self-indulgence, and to walk thus towards the Knowledge of Self and the Internal Peace.
The only condition for an apprenticeship in Sumi-e Jutsu is the genuine intention to apprentice. That condition fulfilled, age and any educational background or "talent" in the Fine Arts are irrelevant. The "right" is the one at which one will decide to begin. Any background is best to be temporarily abandoned during any Zen practice. "talent" is a notion extremely misunderstood in the contemporary phase of western civilisation.
Teaching is based on four standarised depictions – known as "the four Gentlemen" - of the Bamboo, the Orchid, the Plum-tree Branch, and the Chrysanthemum. Once the apprentice has learned to reproduced these in a meditational sate, without any hesitation or thought, through a process as spontaneous as breathing, he/she will be capable to attempt to paint anything, with the Sumi-e technique.
Such an achievement is possible if the apprentice paints the "Four Gentlemen" many times over – the number of repetitions depends on each apprentice's peculiarities – with patience and self-discipline, following exactly the master's directives.
Those who apprentice in the Martial Arts will find the above method of teaching very familiar, and will easily correlate the "four Gentlemen" with the Kata.
The apprenticeship lasts as long as the apprentice honestly feels to need it. It can start at anytime. It is done in weekly 90' sessions.




Michael Odysseus Yakoumakis was born in 1956 at Athens of Greece. At Naples of Italy he studied Painting, Geological Sciences, Sumi-e, Comic Design and Shinbunkan Kenjutsu (shodan). At Athens he studied Computer Science, Incision & Printmaking, Artistic Book-binding, Graphics Design, Kobayashi Shorin Ryu Karate-do (shodan) and Matayoshi Kobudo (shodan).
He worked as a Geologist, Systems Engineer and Visual Artist until 2003, when he decided to focus exclusively on the Visual Arts. Since then he lives in Athens where he works as a Painter, Illustrator/ Writer of Fantasy Fiction and Visual Arts Instructor.
He founded the "Romantic Anonymous Fellowship", Athenian group of the "Stuckism International" movement of Fine Artists.
He writes and illustrates two series of fantasy fiction graphic literature: "The Chronicles of the Archipelago" and "The Chronicles of the West".
His painting oeuvre has, until now, been presented at several personal shows in Greece and at several group shows in Montreal, Nicosia, Rome, Florence, Hamburg, London, Liverpool and Athens.
His oeuvre is mainly symbolist with several references to the International Gothic, the Italian Renaissance, the Flemish and German Primitives, the Japanese Sumi-e, to the "Sezessionstil", to the "Neue Sachlichkeit", to Surrealism, and to some schools of European Comic.