To Laugh

by Nao

wara-u, wara-wasu, e-mi, e, shō

To laugh is wara-u in Japanese. To smile is hoho e-mu. Hoho means slightly. The suffix mu is in hiragana. Bishō means the noun, smile. Hohoe-mu and bishō use the same characters except for the hiragana character mu.

A smiling face is egao. Gao means a face, which is normally kao but it sometimes becomes a voiced sound like this case.

A sneer is chōshō of which the chō is to scoff. An explosive laughter is bakushō. Baku is explosion.

First, draw the upper part from the leftmost stroke.

1. Draw the sweeping dot.
2. Draw the stroke touching the first dot. This stroke is almost horizontal.
3. Draw the stroke touching the previous stroke.
4. Draw the sweeping stroke from near the top center.
5. Draw the stroke touching the previous stroke. This stroke is almost horizontal.
6. Draw the sweeping stroke touching the previous stroke.
7. Draw the sweeping stroke near the center. This stroke starts from between the third and the sixth strokes.
8. Draw the horizontal line from the left to the right.
9. Draw the sweeping stroke from the center of the seventh stroke to the lower left. To make a sharp edge on the left side of the stroke, make the tip of the brush go along the left side.
10. Draw the other sweeping stroke from where the last two strokes intersect to the lower right. Make the stroke gradually bolder.