Travel

Tea Journey

Posted by gsnader

In mid-January I had a desire to sit down and create a small piece. I figured I’d give myself some limitations. The limitations were that it’d be a watercolor and ink image (not a big limitation for me since it’s my medium of preference), something small (this is 5×7) and lastly that be am image featuring Basil Sterling and Lady Argyle. Before I knew it I found these characters adventuring up a mountain much like Mount Fuji. When we visited Japan we took a night hike up Mt. Fuji, beginning part way up at 8PM and hiking through the night to summit at sunrise. The experience was unlike any I’ve ever had. Even now it is difficult to put it into words. I returned from our trip with a desire to create a piece about the hike and just couldn’t find the right way to convey it. Now, almost 6 months after the fact I find the experience bleeding over into work where I least expect to see it. Perhaps I’m just going to have to settle for that, maybe in a bit more time I could even have a collection of pieces based on that climb.

For any readers out there, have you had an experience like that?

~Greg

A Landscape from Japan

Posted by gsnader

So this summer we took a trip to Japan. Much of our time was spent in both the city and the countryside. Some of my favorite parts of the travel (many, many hours on the trains!) involved just looking at the landscape as it passed us by. Everything appeared new and unique and I felt like my brain was just bursting with ideas for projects back home. One morning in Kobe I made this watercolor. We had been to a Japanese bathhouse the day before and this is one of the images that was still fresh in my mind the morning after. Amidst the dramatic mountains was a simple house with a small rack next to it for the bike to sit and bunches of onions to dry. As an avid gardener I also loved seeing the gardens that were all around in the country. When we were in Tokyo there were no gardens and I wondered, “what do people eat, where do they get their food here in Tokyo?” But as we took the train out to Yamanashi the houses grew smaller and almost all of them had an abundance of vegetables growing close at hand. As an avid gardener I really enjoyed the brief glimpse we got into the gardening culture in Japan. In the middle of winter I’m beginning to get garden fever again. So as I’m beginning to plan my garden for a new season I’m also thinking of the gardens I saw over the summer, dreaming of drinking cool cups of Hoijicha or eating some green tea-flavored ice cream.

~Greg