travel
It is the coldest winter in Tokyo so far in the Heisei period (the last 29 years) and last week it snowed; suddenly and violently and beautifully.
I walked outside in the early evening to take a look...
and found a little local shrine, glowing in the snowfall.
So magical, just for a night.
This week I went to the Boroichi fleamarket in Tokyo. It has been held twice a year in the same place for over 430 years, and is an intangible folk cultural asset of Japan. 
I wandered, browsed and sketched, 
and bought a beautiful little sobachoko. When I got home, I did some watercolour sketches of it...
I enjoyed it so much, I did a few more, looking at old sobachoko online for reference.
And then made a little design of my own...
Monday to Friday this week I have some prints on show in the CfSHE gallery in Tokyo. It's an exhibition of prints from all the artists who attended the mokuhanga residency in Kawaguchiko this summer.
Let me know know if you'd like to meet up there!
Date: From 15 to 19 January 2018
Venue: CfSHE Gallery B109, 6-11-14, Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, 1010021 Tokyo
Hour: 13.00/17.00
Admission Free
2017年 MI-LAB アドバンス・プログラム参加アーティスト Artists who participated in 2017 MI-LAB Advanced Program
Kathleen(Kaite) Baldwin ケイティ・ボールドウィン (USA) Kate MacDonagh ケイト・マクドナー (Ireland) Mariko Jesse マリコ・ジェシー (UK) Melissa Schulenberg メリッサ・シューレンバーグ (USA) Natasha Norman ナターシャ・ノーマン (South Africa) Patty Hudak パティ・フダック (USA) An Gee Chan アン・ジー・チャン (Hong Kong) Brenda Petays ブレンダ・ぺテイス (Canada) Fuko Ito フウコ・イトウ (Japan) Jon Lee ジョン・リー (USA) Sarah Hulsey サラ・ハルシー (USA)
You can see more information here.
I've been having a wonderful week in London, visiting museums and seeing friends and family. I'd been waiting all year to see the Tove Jansson show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and it didn't disappoint...
Her work has always inspired me (especially the black and white drawings in the Moomin books), and I feel invigorated to work harder now. I also loved the Modigilani show at the Tate Modern. I'd never seen so much of his work all at once, and it was extremely moving.
And of course the Winnie-the-Pooh exhibition at the V&A. So adorable, and a wonderful example of author and illustrator producing perfection together...
While I was in Tokyo a few weeks ago I managed a quick visit to Juri's Tearooms in the food hall of the flagship store of the Japanese department store Mitsukoshi in Nihonbashi.
I designed the logo for Juri when she had her tearooms in the Cotswolds in England, and now she has a new branch in Japan!
I also did several afternoon tea illustrations for the packaging of Juri's own blends of tea, which have now been updated with new paper packing around the foil packets.
The scones were delicious, and I can't wait to try the full high tea...
If you're ever in the area, do pop in and say hello from me!
On a quick visit to Tokyo recently, I managed a little sketch of the desserts during a very pretty meal at Hannariya.
It is a Kyoto style place and the dishes were as beautiful as they were delicious...
In September, after a short holiday on the Big Island, I went to Oahu with my friends Katie Baldwin and Yoonmi Nam, to attend the 3rd International Mokuhanga Conference at Honolulu University.
We installed Into the Fold, an exhibition of our newest collaborative mokuhanga project. It was an extension of our current project (un)fold: we invited three printmakers, Sarah Hulsey, Fuko Ito and Mia O, to collaborate with us, exploring the ideas and acts of folding and unfolding, and the lineage of learning the mokuhanga technique. We also gave a presentation about the project during the conference.
Here's a close-up of my piece Into the Garden. It represents an abstract garden, is printed so that it can be viewed from either side of the paper, and has a printed enclosure. It's lovely when it sways slightly in the breeze, and the plants seem to be alive.
My Meyer Lemon Curd Recipe was also shown in the juried international group exhibition: Beauty of Mokuhanga: Discipline & Sensibility 木版画の美：修練と感性 
I did quite a few sketches in the presentations I attended, and also at the conference opening and closings, of the speakers and committee members...
I had never participated in the open portfolio at the previous conferences so I thought I would give it a go this time. I showed a selection of my mokuhanga prints and artists books, and spoke to anyone who was interested...
Here you can see my blue Into the Garden piece in an alternative configuration.
Katie, Yoonmi and I also showed our previous wood+paper+box print collaborations on a separate table, and everyone was encouraged to open and handle each of our individual prints in the boxes.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable conference, where it was great to meet up with old and new friends and colleagues. It encouraged me to spend more time on my printmaking practice and I can't wait to start more prints.
Here's a little sketch I did from the window of our manoa airbnb, of the misty rainy mountains. I loved the area where we stayed; there were more rainbows there than I'd seen in a very long time.
Recently I went to the Big Island of Hawaii for a little holiday. We travelled most of the way round the island, visiting all sorts of different landscapes...
and sketching...
I loved seeing the sea, in pretty coves and the wide, wide open...
We stayed in wonderful retro hotels that felt like Wes Anderson movies,
and saw secret and mysterious bays,
and lush, tropical rainforests with towering trees and ferns...
and then visited the dry, ashy caldera of the most active volcano in the world, in Volcanoes National Park.
We watched bright green lizards playing,
and every morning watched the sun rise over the palms...
I can't wait to go back again. Aloha!
When we visited Yellowstone, we also went to the Grand Teton National Park, and I found it more beautiful than I could have imagined.
We stood at the same point that Ansel Adams took his famous photograph, overlooking the winding Snake River, and I did a pencil and watercolour sketch.
The wildfires in nearby Montana were making the skies a strange smoky texture, and many of the views we had were softened and mysterious.
We went on an early morning river rafting trip and I managed to paint a few quick sketches of the passing scenery and sunrise. 
We saw elk, moose, bald eagles and even two baby bears.
It was a truly inspiring place; a smaller but perfect National Park. I loved it.
A few weeks ago I spent a wonderful few days in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I had thought it would be mainly geysers and fumeroles, like the famous Old Faithful...
and the wildly colourful prismatic hot spring,
but there were also wild and barren landscapes...
and gentle green lakes with ducks and canoeists.
But it was the wild open landscapes of places like the Lamar Valley, with wide skies and meandering rivers,
where the buffalo really do roam, that filled my heart.
We finally managed to visit the French Laundry recently, in Napa, and I enjoyed every single bite.
I did a little sketch of each course and item as it was served...
The food was beautiful, as well as delicious, and it was a pleasure to draw.
I can still taste the flavours now...
This weekend I visited Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. It had forests, volcanic rocks, and beautiful lush meadows with wildflowers... 
There were tiny streams and creeks of clear icy water...
and incredible mountain-top lakes, surrounded by snow.
We watched the Perseid meteor shower and saw many falling stars.
It was like a dream...
As usual, I like to make my birthday last longer than a day, so I had three! On my actual birthday I went out for dinner to the Cliff House in San Francisco, and enjoyed a relaxed dinner with sunset views over the Pacific.
I was given a little cooking course as a gift, and spent the next morning with chef Jean Yves in his kitchen learning how to make pate a choux and eclairs. 
So delicieux!
Then my birthday picnic in the park. I love spending time with friends, eating sandwiches and cake, in the sunshine on a lovely day...
Summer birthdays are the best!
This week I spent a few days in Tokyo, visiting friends, art stores and exhibitions. First stop the Ota Museum in Harajuku, to a ukiyoe exhibition of Edo from the water, and then the Nezu Museum, to a ceramics one. Both were wonderful, and highly recommended!
Then on to Pigment, a store with paints and paraphanelia, and more brushes than I've ever seen in my life. So. Many. Brushes. And all of them gorgeous.
I love the city, well, cities generally, but in particular Tokyo, and I find the everyday urban views beautiful. Even just the railways at dusk, walking home after an exhausting day.
Can't wait to visit again soon!
This week I've been busy carving and printing, and trying out all sorts of new things. Here's a picture of my little peony print with some experimental paper cutting...
This weekend I did a little sightseeing around where I'm staying, in Kawaguchiko, Japan. There are a series of caves you can visit at the foot of Mt Fuji, formed from lava from the last eruption. The Narusawa Ice Cave is one of them, and is a National Monument. And also a little bit scary to get through due to the extremely low ceilings. 
The entrance is fascinating, as you go down under the floor of the forest, and suddenly it's literally ice cold, like you've walked into a fridge. The haze you can see in the photo is the air condensating between hot + humid and freezing!
A walk in the sea of trees, along lava strewn paths, was also truly beautiful: it had my favourite combo of moss and ferns.
I visited a site called Saiko Iyashi no sato NENBA, a recreation of a thatched village that was destroyed by a typhoon in the 60s. Each lovely building had examples of local crafts.
And of course, a visit to the opposite side of Lake Kawaguchiko, to get a magnificent view of the sacred mountain, looking just like a Hokusai print.
This week I carved a small block from cherrywood (my first) to do some paper-testing.
I printed two versions of my peony design onto many different types of washi paper to decide what sort I would use for my big project.
I'm hoping to do some bokashi printing, and wanted a paper that would show the gentle gradations well, as well as printing black sumi ink sharply. 
I'm in Kawaguchiko, Japan, for the next few weeks, on a mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock) printmaking artists residency with mi-lab. It's in a beautiful location in a small town on the edge of the lake at the foot of Mt Fuji. I'm working on a series of prints, but in the meantime, here are some little sketches of the famous mountain.
The views all around are beautiful, surrounded by mountains, wildflower meadows, and small farm plots,
but it's Mt Fuji that dominates the landscape, whenever it appears from behind the clouds...
This week my mokuhanga artists residency starts in rural Japan. On my way here I spent a day in Hong Kong...
...a few days in Tokyo...
...and am now here, through the mountains...
..at the foot of Mt Fuji. I'm looking forward to spending some time in one place, making prints.
My brother-in-law got married this weekend in London, and it was a beautiful day.
I sketched as much as I could, and loved seeing how my designs were used on the day.
For Luke & Amy's wedding stationery, I started with an illustration of the happy couple on a London bus, with pink flowers in the background, which was used for the Save the Dates. I started them off in casual clothes, and added a simple hand-drawn pink border around the card.
I developed this motif and drew a more detailed background for the formal invitation, including important places from their life together and secret elements from the wedding reception, like the ice-cream cart, the bowling pin and neon arrow, to hint at what would be in store on the day. I also put them in more traditional wedding attire.
For the welcome reception, before the wedding, I created a simpler version of the illustration, with a celebratory bottle of champagne...
....and then for all of the other stationery, another version with just a few of the details from the full invitation illustration.
It was used on the menu
for the wedding lunch, which was delicious, and the table where I sat was full of interesting and beautiful people to draw.
There was dancing and cocktails...
and an awesome sweet bar: check out the sweet bags! 
I hadn't seen this, but the bride was given a special dressing gown with the illustration embroidered onto the back. Isn't it amazing!
I also made a square-bordered version of the illustration (with an added heart detail) to have printed onto a pillow for the bride and groom as a gift.
I have more drawings of the day, but this is my favourite of the bride, my new sister-in-law. Welcome to the family!
