Japan adventures

Its been a long time since I did my last post but I got fresh sketches from our recent Japan adventure.  Our time spent there was split between the two major busy cities Tokyo and Osaka with a break on the calmness of the islands on the inland sea. During our stay we our lucky enough to attend a urban sketcher meeting with our friends from Tokyo in Ginza neighbourhood, so we meet the "locals" they were very friendly and we all had something in common to share. Tokyo is huge, there is all types of neighbourhoods, building scales and streets, but even the most anonymous street corner is interesting enough for a sketch, full of signs, restaurants and urban paraphernalia. Our major goals for visiting Tokyo according to our daughter was to visit Pokemon centre, studio Ghibli, all the 300 game centres and spin all the gachapon machines that we could find on street. Most of them became reality...

Tokyo street view

Tsukiji market

Tokyo street view

 

The main reason to flight down south to the port of Takamatsu, where we stayed for 5 days, was the  Setouchi Art Triennal that is happening during the springtime. Takamatsu is a special port city with interesting covered streets and a lot of bicycles. To complement the beauty of the landscape, this year there were art pieces and installations spread over some islands. Firstly Naoshima, which is already very art focused because of the famous Benesse house and Chichu museum designed by Tadao Ando which can be visited any time of the year. The following day we went to Teshima that has a museum designed by the japanese architect Sejima, a bubble of white concrete. The last day was Ogijima, a small fisherman's village that has a timeless sense of place. Some of the art installations were done inside old houses which gave us opportunity to see traditional architecture from the inside. In these small places time slows down compared to big cities so it end up being our favourite moment of the whole travel. 

Takamatsu restaurant while waiting for the ramen

Ferry boat and daily tickets

Ogijima view to the inland sea

Naoshima fishermen's boats

Teshima art installation with scaffoldings

Osaka seemed to be a bit more laid back compared to the busy and working focused Tokyo city but, our stay was during the golden week when japanese go on holidays, this year they had an additional 3 leave days due to the new emperor transition.  The food in general is delicious, I think its difficult to find a bad restaurant, a good ramen its almost a guarantee for a decent meal. Interesting how the electric cables are part of the streetscapes of all japan cities, but when you find very narrow streets like some in Kyoto, the complexity of the cabling becomes the main focal point and maybe the sketching subject.

Electric cables and the crows are a constant presence in Kyoto

Shichirin restaurant in Tokyo

Osaka street view close to a nice art store.

The Kishi train station is the end of the line of a rural monorail in the Wakayama prefecture. The station was near closure in 2004 because of financial problems on the rail line, in 2007 was decide to adopt Tama as a station master, her primary duty is to greet passengers, so she spend most of the day being photographed and sleeping, its a pretty hard life. The publicity from Tama's appointment led to an increase in passengers, the trains keep running and Tama became the motif for the station, the cafe, the decoration and even the roof. Tama is a cat. In Japan everything is made to look cute.

Train station, the electric strawberry train and the stamps from the temples

Foreground to background

An interesting layering of building colours and textures, with spray tag as a repetitive element.

Let’s Sketch Wellington - Sequeira Luz family

We had a great time in Wellington and were spoiled for choice of nice scenes to draw.
We met a good group of interesting people and got to go trough their sketchbooks when catching up in cool cafes. Our Sunday morning meeting point was in Aro valley, we had never been there before and loved it, the best thing was it was just a short walk from the farmers market so we went there for chestnuts and a quick sketch. Thanks Dave, Andrew and all the Wellington Sketchers for the warm welcome!

Auckland 2018

 This unexpected encounter at Auckland went really well, it was the first drawing of the year for most of us. 

The drawing level of the younger generation is already outstanding.

Zoe

Murray

Mário

Eva

Liliana

Rosa

Upcoming Drawings Exhibition

If by any chance you are in Christchurch on December and you like the Urban Sketchers, don´t miss this exhibition. 

Up the river

Fancy for a boat tour on the Avon?  Enjoy a sunny afternoon with the family on a guided journey up the river on Christchurch. Come an see the duckling, the eels and explore the botanical gardens nature on a very romantic tour.

Back facades

Christchurch city center these days is a total different place. Who saw the center 4 years ago as a fenced and closed red zone area and see it now,  with a brand new face and street life popping out everywhere, still thinks that its unreal. There are a few buildings with uncertain future though, some still carry that old brick industrial feeling but they are getting harder to find and most of them will disappear. These back of buildings facing a parking lot, did my sunny Sunday afternoon delight.

Drawing Camp at Cass

This is one of several drawings done during a weekend camp at Cass, around 20 people turn up to what could be called a marathon of art. There was drawing, oil painting trying to capture the famous Cass train station done by Rita Angus back in 1936, there was also book biding and clay modelling. The organization cooked us delicious meals, set the fireplace and provided artistic guidance, it was a wonderful time spent with the mountains on the background. 

Cuba

Meeting our family half the way between Portugal and New Zealand seems to be the way to go, it´s less expensive, we fly less hours and we can see something new so, why not Cuba. The plan was to meet Liliana´s parents there.  Hopefully get a plane before the cyclone Cook arrived to Auckland and get back before the tornado season there. A direct flight from Los Angeles took us to see the biggest island in the Caribe.

 Habana is a remarkable place to sketch, layers of history and layers of bright paint with unexpected and creative ways of using the old buildings can be seen all around the city. Every place would give a good drawing so the frustration of not sketching enough was almost guaranteed.

The transports in Habana are very diversified and follow the Cuban creativity. Starting with the bicitaxi, a tricycle mostly used by cubans, the cocotaxi a motorized tricycle which Eva loved and the horse with carriage for tourists. In terms cars there are a mix of old russian and american cars, none of each remains original, the old russian Volga car that took us until Trinidade had a Kia engine and several other parts from different cars. The music pumping loud from the speakers is a must. There is always something being repaired on the road side and it feels like those cars can last another 50 years.

 

Eva forgot her sketch book but wanted to sketch people and was constantly asking Liliana for pages of her book, we decided to find her a sketchbook or school book with blank pages, we went to the main art shop in Habana but there were only books with lines. According with the guy working there, last time he had a book with blank pages for sale was 5 years ago... "But we have free health care and good weather" he added with an amazing sense of humor. The Cubans are happy persons.