Yama

Some good progress on my mountain painting today. I think nihonga is difficult for me because it requires planning. My drawings, and digital artwork before that, are more of an evolution of an idea. Rarely is the image fully realized in my head before I start working, and things change along the way. I enjoy working like this, but it is a weakness as much as a strength.

Osaka-Seikei University has visitors, a group of artists from Germany. They have been traveling in Kyoto, visiting different studios and museums, I'm not clear on their purpose for being here other than independent research, but I'm sure they are having just as much of an experience as I am. Today I met one of them, a woman named Britta. She works mainly as a printmaker, but was getting a lesson in Japanese painting from Muraoka-sensei when I came in. They were talking about paper and priming materials, but having small language difficulties. Britta speaks German with some English, and Muraoka-sensei speaks Japanese with some English, so I had the advantage by speaking good English and broken Japanese. I'd have to say Britta was more prepared than me, having both translated business cards and little wrapped up packets of postcards from her own portfolio to give out to. My time here is obviously different, but when next I come I will have the same.

Before heading home, I had to stop into the office and pay my rent. I had used a bunch of 10¥ and 5¥ coins to do this, because I've been accumulating change and those 'dimes' and 'nickels' aren't of much use. I also have a bunch of 1¥ coins, which are of absolutely no use, the Japanese tend to use these small coins to pay their taxes. While in the office, I learned I need to write a Scholarship essay before I leave, telling Osaka-Seikei about my time here, what I've been doing, and how I've been spending their money. I have a month still to go, and a lot of work to finish, before I can report with confidence on time well spent.

I really look forward to August though, when I can wander and experience with more freedom. I still have much planning to do, but at the beginning of the month, there are two matsuri, festivals, in Northern Honshu that just so happen to correspond to where I would be going anyway. The Kanto Matsuri and the Aomori Nebuta.