New Colors

Last week I opened the box of colors I got from my sister. This week I tried them on a painting. They were not what I expected. Working with color on washi is always indirect. Colors wet are richer, darker, more saturated, and lighten when they dry. This time it was more indirect. I had the colors in the solid sticks, then the colors as I ground them on black stone, then the colors in the white dish, then on paper, then finally different again when dry. All different versions of the same color.

These new Chinese sticks will take getting used to. I like new things, even very old new things like these.

A box of color

My sister gave me these. They are cakes of color. You grind them with a little water the way you grind sumi ink. They make color that is light and fine, the opposite of oil paint, or what the modern Japanese call, “Japanese Paint,” Nihonga. They add subtle color touches to an ink painting.

This box came from China. Japanese used to make these too, in simpler days.

My little studio is bursting its seams with tools and materials. It makes a terrible clutter.  But one never knows which one will become absolutely necessary. Today's is the time for this Chinese box. Wish me luck.

Pulling weeds

Zoom, teaching - On Demand, I stretch my legs with a 10 meter walk down the alley to the temple in front. The temple has been here since the Edo Era. The gate has the bullet holes from the 1868 civil war.

The garden has a gift for every season. It refreshes.

I noticed new weeds and am tempted to pull the invaders. I begin to feel proprietary you see. But it isn’t my garden so I leave them. I walking back down my alley and notice even bigger weeds. I leave them.

In my little alley they are not invaders. They are green.

An old friend

I picked up an old sketchbook this morning and a little drawing slipped out. I made it when the Sky Tree was brand new. It still seems new to me. Wonder how many years old it is. Google says 2010, so 11 years old.

This little sketch seems like yesterday and forever ago.

I was experimenting with new ink and paper. Things were newer then. Yesterday I walked through Jimbocho I noticed something new. Jumbled collections of used brushes. Three different book stores had them in their piles of cheap books on the sidewalk.

I had noted the stores that sold brushes, washi paper and ink closing down. That was a few years ago. Now it seems the old folks that used to patronize them are turning in their brushes. Hand crafted expensive, now old and junk.

It reminded me of trying to sell my father’s law books after he died. They had cost a fortune to buy. But

The cherry tree behind Starbucks in the park, late in the day

Showing a work in progress is a little like showing one’s underwear. Not a thing I do very often. But today was fun. I moved the rock today, and put the beginning of three kids behind the hedge, where they like to hide. The main event, the blossoms on the cherry tree are yet to appear.

I guarantee the finished painting, if it is ever finished, will not look like it does now.

My Eggs

An egg tree is my only concession to Easter this year. I may relent and boil and paint an egg for my youngest. He likes to eat them. He does not like chocolate so no Easter bunny for him.

My sister Jenny paints very pretty eggs. Mine aren't. I find I am not a decorative painter, to my economic deficit. This year I painted a fish egg, a dragon head, and a black ship, the sort sent by Millard Fillmore to force the opening of Japan.

The Japanese gobbled up Christmas and Halloween but have left Easter alone. I don't blame them. They have the cherry blossoms. It is the finest sort of spring celebration. That and the vernal equinox visit to the family graves. Enough.