A wonderful art filled week

Aaah, what a wonderful art filled week that was! Since my Japanese class was rescheduled to Thursday last week, I had a chance to join some friends on a trip to a local museum and tea house on Tuesday. We visited the Furukawa Art Museum where they had a beautiful exhibition about the jour seasons of Japan. I particularly enjoyed the vibrant colors and beautiful lines and was fascinated by the painting techniques used. It was very interesting to see the different traditional ways of presenting the artworks, instead of a frame the paintings are mounted using a combination of fabrics to create hanging scrolls or room divider screens.

At about three minutes walk from the museum there is a traditional Japanese tea house, which is part of the museum. The tea house is huge for Japanese standards and includes several exhibition rooms as well as a beautiful hidden garden. We enjoyed walking around the garden and exhibition rooms before settling down for the traditional matcha and sweets which was served in beautiful matcha bowls which were created by different pottery artists.

Pictured were not allowed inside the museum and tea house but I will share some pics from the beautiful garden below.

On Friday we had our first Yamato-e class of the year! As my painting was almost finished I was very eager to get back to it. I managed to finish it most of the way, except for some very special gold dust techniques which sensei will teach me about in the next class. I did already pick my next painting, which will include more of the gold dust, just so I can get a bit of extra practice with this new technique!

At the end of the week we were surprised by a beautiful blanket of snow here in Nagoya, which made for some nice views from my studio window! It also made snuggling up in my warm, cozy little studio extra enticing, I managed to finish one of the pieces I was working on and get a second one most of the way there. I expect this week I will be able to finish that second one and hopefully get a good start on the third!

Fun filled weeks

I can't believe we're almost at the end of January already! Time flies when you're having fun! I've been working hard on my Japanese language studies, sensei told me there is going to be a test this week, so I'll have to put I some extra hours this week! I also had my fist calligraphy class of the year last week, which was awesome. This time I learned how to write Wa Ka Sei Jaku, which means Harmony, Respect, Purity and Tranquility, a good one to start the new year with! It was quite tricky though, since this phrase consists out of four different Kanji so you not only have to worry about the balance of each individual character, but also the balance of all four of them on the page. My goal is to make this into a hanging scroll but I'll definitely need some additional practice before I can move forward with that!

I managed to spend some quality time in the studio, as I mentioned in my previous post,  am currently working on 5 new pieces! They're all in the finishing stages now so I have been eager to spend some quality time with them! I expect to finish at least one of them this week :)

I'll also have my first Yamato-e class of the year this upcoming Friday and I have plans to experience some Japanese art at the museum with friends tomorrow. It is shaping up to be a full and exciting week! 

明けましておめでとうございます (Happy New Year)!

We were treated to some amazing views of Fuji san when leaving for Holland

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! We had an amazing trip to Holland to celebrate Christmas with family and friends, something we haven't been able to do for at lease 8 years so it was extra special to be able to spend time with loved ones over the holidays! 

I had an awesome evening with my parents in Amsterdam, we went on this awesome night time boat tour through the canals to see the art installations for the Amsterdam Light Festival. There was some pretty cool stuff, Moving images projected on netting, strips of light that showed the sound pollution under water, a map of the canals floating in mid air and a tunnel of lights that made it feel like you were entering a time portal. The art installations were really awesome and all the holiday lights made is look extra magical. 

Now that we've arrived in 2018 I am pumped to get back to the studio! I prepared 5 pieces before the holiday break so I am very eager to finish those, there will be some Japanese influences in these new pieces, I cannot wait to share them with you!