Jan 31, 2009
A Snowy Night
Art classes
Twice a month on Saturday morning, I go to art class. The teacher does not actually teach me, but does critic when I ask him to and he discusses technical aspects of pictures with me. He is very encouraging, and attending the two hour classes stimulates my desire to draw. I usually do much more work at home during the week immediately following a class than during other times. In the picture below - taken last summer - I was putting the finishing touches on a pen-and-ink drawing of an outdoor Noh stage.
The completed picture is shown below, but please remember that the pictures here do not properly represent the fine lines in the drawing. I use a German drafting pen that makes line that are 0.3 mm in width. The lines in this picture are just sort of lumped together. Also due to the lighting the picture is not black and white as it should be. Actually there is a little gray in the picture as I used graphite to indicate some of the shadows.
The completed picture is shown below, but please remember that the pictures here do not properly represent the fine lines in the drawing. I use a German drafting pen that makes line that are 0.3 mm in width. The lines in this picture are just sort of lumped together. Also due to the lighting the picture is not black and white as it should be. Actually there is a little gray in the picture as I used graphite to indicate some of the shadows.
Jan 26, 2009
Stele in Mizunomori Koen
Mizunomori Koen is a park that is about half way between my apartment and Ian's house. Mizu means water in Japanese, mori is forest, no is a possessive, and koen is park. So, the name means something like the 'Forest's-water Park'. Previously I posted a picture of someone standing in the mizu in this park fishing. At present the mizu is a resting place for numerous geese and ducks. Ian and I are now walking through the park on our Sunday outings. It is much more pleasant than just following the road.
The following picture shows a row of stele near the main entrance to the park. The 11 or 12 stones are lined up and each contains an engraving naming a Shinto god or some other words. I could not read them all, partly because some of them were old and very worn and partly because I did not know the kanji on some of the others.
This is a closer view of the largest stele. There are two kanji carved into it - mizu and kami, which means god. The white things at the base are strips of folded paper that are a standard part of Shinto ceremonies, so we know that someone has recently held some sort of devotional activity here.
This shows the end of the line of steles - the point farthest away in the first picture. The last thing in the line is a small (maybe a foot (30 cm) high) ceramic house. These are seen all over in small personal shrines associated with a specific building, or structure. They symbolically provide a place for the god to live and to be worshiped.
The following picture shows a row of stele near the main entrance to the park. The 11 or 12 stones are lined up and each contains an engraving naming a Shinto god or some other words. I could not read them all, partly because some of them were old and very worn and partly because I did not know the kanji on some of the others.
This is a closer view of the largest stele. There are two kanji carved into it - mizu and kami, which means god. The white things at the base are strips of folded paper that are a standard part of Shinto ceremonies, so we know that someone has recently held some sort of devotional activity here.
This shows the end of the line of steles - the point farthest away in the first picture. The last thing in the line is a small (maybe a foot (30 cm) high) ceramic house. These are seen all over in small personal shrines associated with a specific building, or structure. They symbolically provide a place for the god to live and to be worshiped.
Jan 25, 2009
Japanese trees
The American news on the internet had an article about how, because of global warming, the old trees are dying all across the US. This made me think about trees, which in turn reminded me that I had taken a picture of a typical Japanese city tree, but had forgotten to post it here.
This picture, taken only a few days ago, is on the main road only a couple of hundred meters from my building.
Periodically the city has people come around and trim the trees. I think they do it once during the summer and then again in the fall after all the leaves have gone. The result, as you can see, is a very strange but in some ways beautiful shape. Each of the main branches ends in a knob with very small limbs coming out of the bump. Also the top of the trunk in cut so it too ends in a knob. In the summer, when covered with leaves, these trees have a very distinctive shape.
One point about these fantastic-looking trees is that they make good subjects for drawings. I have done a number of pictures with this sort of tree as the focus, and I am sure that I will do many more in the future. In fact I have encouraged by some people to do a set of postcards illustrating different sorts of trees but I have not had the time so far.
This picture, taken only a few days ago, is on the main road only a couple of hundred meters from my building.
Periodically the city has people come around and trim the trees. I think they do it once during the summer and then again in the fall after all the leaves have gone. The result, as you can see, is a very strange but in some ways beautiful shape. Each of the main branches ends in a knob with very small limbs coming out of the bump. Also the top of the trunk in cut so it too ends in a knob. In the summer, when covered with leaves, these trees have a very distinctive shape.
One point about these fantastic-looking trees is that they make good subjects for drawings. I have done a number of pictures with this sort of tree as the focus, and I am sure that I will do many more in the future. In fact I have encouraged by some people to do a set of postcards illustrating different sorts of trees but I have not had the time so far.
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