Gallery 809 exhibition opening and our weekend

On Saturday was the great day, the exhibition "Asian art: Tradition and Innovation" in LaGrange, Georgia opened.

I could not be there, but Chris, the gallery owner, took some great photos of the event.

Here are my works, which will be displayed there until March 26xt.

We spent Saturday evening at downtown Fukuoka again and checked out some nice restaurants. In the end, we had dinner at "cafe Jaques Monod", which is located in a historic building...

Delicious food, very children friendly and a fantastic atmosphere.

On Sunday, we took a walk at Aburayama to see Tsubaki (Camelia) there.

There are still only the Camelia Sasanqua, but the Tsubaki will open in a few weeks.

Anyway, we really enjoyed our walk there and the weather was nice and warm...

At home, we cut our Jamon and had a great Tapa-meal ^^



Ume and WiP

Our bonsai Plum-tree (Ume) started to blossom. I'm really happy, that we bought it at Dazaifu. It's my first bonsai and I always wanted to have one.

And yesterday was a big adventure for me., after cleaing and sorting my little "artistic corner" I took the train to Nishijin and went by bus to Karaki, where I had a painting-session with my wonderful newfound art-friends. I just brought my sketch-pad and some dyes and started to paint, what came into my mind. Here is the result...

We had so much fun, that time flew and I went home and today I continued to work on the sketch...

I'm already curious, how it will look, when it's done... I never really use references, I just do, what comes to my head. Looking forward to our next meeting in 2 weeks. But first, I will finish this painting in the next few days.

Cherry Blossom 13

After an exciting beginning of the week, I needed to let off some creative steam and painted this brand new cherry-blossom pic... done with acrylics, pen and airbrush on paper, size is about B4, original available.

Dazaifu, ume and snow

 

After our Spring weekend, winter is back, but only for a short time, so we took the opportunity to see something very rare: Snow and Ume (Plum-blossom) together. We drove to Dazaifu and visited the ancient and famous Shrine "Tenmangu" (天満宮).

The streets there are a lot like Kyoto... unfortunatelly it snowed so much and it was so cold, that it was difficult to make any photos of it (I will do that next time). So we went to a Soba-restaurant and had lunch first. It was very delicious and the anmosphere relaxing.

After the snow and storm got a little bit better, we went to the shrine. There were so many old trees there. Just beautiful !!! I could spent a whole day there, painting the shapes and patterns of them.

Here you see the shrine. The old plum tree infront of it is famous and very old.

Today, the shrine was very crowded. The god, who resides there, represents knowledge and studies and soon there will be the entrance exams for university. So there were a lot of students, who prayed for passing the exams and other tests.

Here you see some of the plum blossoms...

And we were able to see a wedding in shinto style.

After we came home, we decided to cook tomato-nabe (nabe means pot). It was my first time to cook it and it really tasted delicious. I want to make it again, maybe with fresh bamboo-sprouts.

First Spring days

Yesterday we did, what we wanted to do for so long... ride the boat across to the island "Nokonoshima" again. We came there last Summer and it really was awfully hot... now we visited to enjoy the first warm Spring days here.

The island is just 10 minutes away by ship, but there, no cars are allowed (exept for the people, who live there)... so it feels like time stands still... you feel like 50 years back in time and it's very quiet, typical japanese country life.

 

here, you see the fitst plum blossoms this year.

we walked this about 3,5km to reach the island park there. We could have taken a bus, too. But this path through the nature was so much more scenic and beautiful.

There was some mist on the sea and the colors looked very soft...

Here you see some Orange plantings... Oranges from here are very famous and really delicious.

After we reached the park on the other side. We could see the other peninsula "Shikanoshima" on the other side.

In the park there are many restaurants and also places, where you can learn crafts, like making your own ceramic bowls and painting on them. Now it's still off season, so there was hardly anybody there, but it looked so much more scenic that way.

Here you see narcissus, Suisen (水仙) in Japanese. There was a whole field of them and the smell was like perfume. The sun was shining and we layed down in the grass beside the field, while the kids played on the playground there.

 

We took the bus on the way back and I took a picture of Fukuoka skyline across...

In the evening, we discovered a new Italian restaurant in Tenjin "Hickory".

Very delicious, excelent service and children friendly...

OMG !!! I WON !!!!

When I got up this morning I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me in the internet:

I won the first and the third prize in an art contest of one of my fave webcomics, Wendy Pini's "Masque of the red death"

http://www.masque-of-the-red-death.com/

A dark, beautiful, gothic Comic-tale created after Edgar Allan Poe's short-story, which Wendy set up in a Sci-Fi world. 

Now what most of you don't know... before I did landscape-art, I was (and still am) also illustrator and do art for some small Sci-Fi and Fantasy fanzines and Wendy was the one, who encouraged me with her beautiful Comic "Elfquest" to start my whole artistic career... Without the magic of Elfquest, I would have never ever started painting at all and so this price is especially a very big honor for me !!! I could embrace the whole world now after I pinched myself long enough to actually believe it ^_^

Yuki, my youngest daughter, became a big Elfquest fan herself and asked me to take part in the contest. I'm glad I did and she will get one of the prizes, a pillow with her hero "Skywise" on it.

Here are my two entries:

"Bunchh", a vivid character of the comic, who inspired so many readers of the web-comic, by his/her lovely way to embrace life, even in sad times...

And here you see Steffan... I often was angry at him during the story, but I really loved him, because he was so hopelessly romantic ^^ AND I loved to draw his hair :)

And here is the link to the contest, with a lots of entries of wonderful and talented people, who took part:

http://www.masque-of-the-red-death.com/social/index.php?do=%2Fforum%2Ffantabulous-fanart-fiction-17%2Fmasque-of-the-red-death-triple-threat-contest%2Fpage_1%2F

All characters (Bunchh and Steffan) are (c) 2011 by WaRP Graphics

Another Butterfly

Another butterfly painting I finished today... done with acrylics, watercolor, pens and airbrush on paper. Size is B4, original available