Group-exhibition in the USA - Announcement

From Feb 26 until March 26 I will take part in the group-exhibition "Asian Art: Tradition and Innovation" in the "809 Gallery of art" in LaGrange, Georgia.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/809-Gallery/315785978688

I'm so excited and happy, that my wonderful friend and fellow artist Chris Hagebak, who owns the gallery, gave me the chance to take part in an exhibition again.

He did a wonderful job matting and framing my paintings, which will be for sale there:

Unfortunatelly it's too far away for me to travel there, but I'm already looking forward to hear all the news about the opening.

Our weekend and 150 Jahre japanisch-deutsche Freundschaft

Well first of all, I want to say, that today is the 150 years anniversary of Japanese/German friendship.

Bought some anniversary stamps today and will keep them for my children.

And now, onto our weekend:

Since we all felt very tired and worn-out and the weather is still too cold to find Fukunoto or Morels, we decided to rest, Tsuyoshi did some work and later we went to our fave Thai-restaurant "Jammin Kah"

I took some pics of the course...

...it's really delicious, because you can really taste the fresh herbs and spices used in there.

 

 

One day later we drove up to Iwara yama, just to check how the weather is there. There was a lot of snow there and we could not drive further, but we stopped and the children could play a little bit in the snow.

In the late afternoon, we took a walk on the beach. It was sunny and there was no wind, so we decided to catch us some sun.

Here, you see the islands across... we always get in a good mood taking a walk here, seeing this beautiful panorama ^^

Some signs of Spring near our appartement...

...but it's still freezing cold. Especially, when we have no sun and strong and icy winds...

Oh and this is "made in Ito-shima" ^^ We had it in the evening with some German bread and salad.

*yummy*

Karatsu

After a long break I'm finally back to painting again. This is my first painting in 2011. It's the pinegrove of Nijinomatsubara (虹ノ松原) in Karatsu (唐津).

Done with acrylics, airbrush, watercolor and pens on paper. Size is about B4, original is available.

Back in Japan

Today, after we tried to get rid of our jet-lag, we decided to drive to Karatsu again. The weather was perfect... no wind, blue sky and I wanted to greet the new year at Kagami-shrine up at Kagami-yama (鏡神社・鏡山).

Afterwards, we went on a little walk on the mountain. It felt almost like Spring... we even saw the first Narcissus there.

...and we had a breathtaking view over Karatsu and all those adorable islands.

We waved the shrine good-bye and...

went to Tatekami-iwa (立神岩), which means "standing god rock".

And we went to Yobuko (呼子), which is famous for "Ika" (Squid), which was very delicious !!!

Here you see the big bridge of Yobuko...

And some other beautiful islands ^_^

In Spring we plan to stay here for a couple of days and explore more...

Happy new year

 

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR to everybody !!!

We had a great time celebrating with sparkling wine, Racelette and other delicious stuff... I really need to go back on my diet, when we come home ^^"

But first of all, let me tell you about another great restaurant, we try to visit every year. It's Italian, in the center of my hometown Hofheim-Wallau and it's called "Da Nico"

They have a lot of delicious Italian food... not only pasta and pizza. I really like that you can also have meats and fish prepared Italian-style.

Here is my fave... Gorgonzola Schnitzel. The service there is great and it's very children friendly. They have also a nice variety of draft-beers and good wine and grappa.  

Yesterday, the battery of my father's car killed itself, but at least it was friendly enough to stop working at a gas station, just 1km from our house. It could have been worse... I hope it can be fixed today, so hopefully we will do another sightseeing tour, before we go home to Fukuoka.

Heidelberg in the snow

Yesterday we went to Heidelberg. It was the first time for me to see it with snow and it was very beautiful.

Not so many tourists were there...

We went to Vetter brewery. It has famous beer with the highes "Stammwürze" 33% !!!

And it tasted very rich and delicious.

Leberknödelsuppe (liverdumpling-soup)

And here a funny phrase on the wall... meaing "don't spend all your money for drinking, rather buy beer for it!"

Schweinehaxe with beer-sauce ^^

 

And here are some scenic spots of Heidelberg...

later we went up to the castle...

the big barrel in the castle.

 

 

Merry X-mas

First of all, sorry for not updating here so long, but before the holidays, my life was so busy. We all caught a cold, I had a water damage in my appartement and this time I needed to write about 120 X-mas cards and I still did not manage to write everybody. What a year !!! It was busy, exciting and full of new experiences for us all... we went to Singapore, moved from north to south of Japan and so much more... Looking back, it feels that it was 5 years instead of just one...

O.k but enough of this... right now we enjoy a wonderful X-mas at my father's place... so let me tell you all about our stay.

When we started from Fukuoka and took the plane to Tokyo we had a wonderful view of Mt.Fuji.

At home at my father's place the beautiful X-mas decoration, my Mom made in my childhood's days welcomed us. I will never forget when she made those pics and hang them up every December. Without them I can never get in the X-mas feeling.

 

While I prepared the X-mas dinner... mostly salads with fish, eel, caviar and the crab-cocktailsalad, my Mom always made.

 

and YES !!! We really have a white X-mas this year !!!

2011 Year of the rabbit

Due to the Chinese Zodiac, 2011 is the year of the rabbit. Right now there are NewYear cards on sale everywhere over here and I love all those colorful and playful designs. In the last days I tried my own version of rabbits and it was a lot of fun.

These here are not for sale, but I can do further commissions. Please contact me, if you are interested to have your own year of the rabbit painting. 

The size of those 3 is about B-5.

Exhibition in Ginza 23-28 Nov.

This is my final group-exhibition in 2010, in the gallery "Noah" in Ginza. Unfortunatelly, I can not come, but I want to invite everybody, who lives in Tokyo area to come and see it. Here are my works, which will be for sale there.

More Koi

Had some time to paint today, so I could finally finish another painting. Done with acrylics, watercolor and airbrush on paper.

**** SOLD ****

Kuju part 2

The next morning already began with an exciting thing. The keeper of the inn gave us some raw eggs and we drove to an onsen to boil them there.

The area is full of small spa's and there is steam and sulfur-smell everywhere...

...there is even a power-plant there, transforming the energy of the earth into electricity.

 

.

 

 

I was very surprised, because the landscape there looked a lot like central-Hokkaido.

Close by there is the largest hanging-bridge in Japan.

 

We went over it to enjoy the beautiful red-leaf scenery.

The view was awesome !!! There are different waterfalls there and with the red Japanese maple and the pines it looked totally magic.

Back home, we finished the day enjoying one of the beautiful sunsets at "our beach" ^_^