Oekaki

Oekaki (お絵描き^?) (お: O = Formal prefix, 絵: E = picture, 描き: KAKI = to draw) is a Japanese term used to describe the act of drawing a picture.

In Japan, songs that describe how to draw animals and/or favorite characters are called "Ekaki Uta". These songs are supposed to help children remember how to draw something by incorporating drawing directions into the lyrics. (E.g., first you draw a circle, then you dot the eyes, draw a great big smile, etc....) If they memorize the song, which is easy to do because it is usually a catchy melody, effectively they have remembered how to draw what the song describes. Children at play often sing these songs as they doodle on paper or in playground sand. Drawing songs exist for many children's cartoon characters in Japan, for example Sgt. Frog, Doraemon, and Kirby of the Stars.

Oekaki on the Internet refers to a bulletin board system allowing artists to draw online and share their pictures. The drawings are generally not uploaded; pictures are done using an online drawing program inside the web browser. However, some versions of oekaki software do allow uploads, and usually the rules of that oekaki will state that only x number of uploads in a week are allowed. Drawings can be done with a computer mouse, a graphics tablet, or a touch screen.

The underlying computer technology used in oekaki can be a Java applet or ActiveX. Some oekaki systems offer enough features to create high quality images. The resulting picture is usually in dimensions of a few hundred pixels wide or long. The most popular applets used on English internet forums are OekakiBBS, PaintBBS, and Shi-Painter.

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