mid-autumn festival

I'm in HK at the moment, for various projects, and loving the mid-autumn festival. It's a long holiday weekend, and even with the occasional rain (and thunder) it's a time for families to enjoy the evening, wonder at the moon, and carry bright lanterns...Happy festival everyone!

Kansas visit

I've just got back from a wonderful visit to Kansas. I spent a day doing a spot of teaching at Emporia State University and giving a presentation there. Here's a great poster one of the students made for my talk:I went to Lawrence, to set up a collaborative exhibition with my friends Yoonmi Nam and Katie Baldwin at the new Wonder Fair gallery downtown.We had our opening on saturday evening, which was super busy and fun!We showed our project wood + paper + box, along with a special silk-screened poster of our complete box (available to buy from Wonder Fair).We each also had space to show our own individual work. Here's mine, hung salon style.The show will be up until mid November, so please do pop in and take a look if you're nearby!

stationery set

I've collaborated with my friends Katie Baldwin and Yoomni Nam on a hand-printed paper stationery set for Wonderfair's Letter Writing Club, in Lawrence, Kansas. This is a photo of all the elements before they're packed together. I made the letter sheets with envelope, and also did the calligraphy for the top label (which Katie then screenprinted). The letter sheets are relief printed in green/gold. Here's the gold block,and the tests I printed to choose exactly the colour that would work.Here's the final set all put together. They'll be for sale at the club, and then afterwards at Wonderfair. The club meetings are held regularly, to encourage good ol' fashioned writing letters, and we'll all be attending the next one on Sunday 20th September. Hope to see you there!

Marc's wedding

We attended our friends Marc & Liz's wedding at the weekend, which was a beautiful, sparkly, glamourous event in downtown Los Angeles.I sat to one side, and had a wonderful view of all the pretty bridesmaids, and loved the way they all had the same dress, and yet managed to look individual.My favourite sketch of the evening is this one of the bride and groom cutting the cake, it really makes me happy!We sat at a table full of wonderful people, surrounded by glittering glass and soft lights in the trees.Congratulations Marc & Liz! Happy days to follow...

botanical garden

I went to the botanical garden inside the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco with my friend Aude Van Ryn when she was visiting, to do a spot of sketching.I have a soft spot for succulents and cactii, so I spent quite a bit of time looking at all the colours and textures...

birthday!

It's my birthday weekend, yay! We had a picnic in the park......where we ate many tasty cakes and enjoyed the sunshine.So wonderful to spend time with friends. Thank you all!

social media update

Hello! I'm finally upping my social media presence, and am now on twitter and instagram, as well as facebook. Tweet me, follow me, and let's all be online more together. Here's a sample of what you could be seeing on instagram every day... I'll still be blogging, I've grown to love this weekend ritual, but there'll be extra treats to see mid-week on other platforms, hurrah!

kokeshi

I've been trying to do more mokuhanga, and recently completed this print of Japanese kokeshi dolls for my new collaborative project with Yoomni Nam and Katie Baldwin. This time we're calling our project alabama + california + kansas. You can find out more on our blog. We'll again be travelling to visit each other in our studios in these locations, and sending work to each other. Here's a pic of the wood block for this print, as I was carving it.

flowers

A friend gave me a lovely bunch of flowers, and I was inspired to do a watercolour sketch. White flowers are always my favourite.

Palm Springs

I'm visiting Palm Springs, for a post-Christmas break, and the clear desert air, and surprisingly chilly nights are crazy beautiful...  

happy Christmas!

Hope it's a cosy and restful Christmas for everyone this year...Love to all, see you in 2015, Mariko x

umbrellas in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is the city of my heart, and it's totally breaking. I can't believe what's happening. I was there just over a month ago, and although there was tension in the air, it was nothing like what's going on now. Please show your support and spread the news.I love you Hong Kong!

Tokyo print exhibition

Our collaborative mokuhanga print project wood + paper + box is on show until sunday at the Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidei). You can read all about it here.This is the installation, which shows a generally chronological view of our 1 year project.Each print was framed in perspex and had its own individual shelf. We showed each artwork as a physical object.This uchiwa fan is my final print. It's double-sided and when the light shines through the white jugs, you can see the reverse print pattern through it. Hope you can make it see the show!

Tokyo

I'm in Tokyo for the 2nd International Mokuhanga Conference, where I'll be giving a presentation as part of our group project wood + paper + box, and also showing some work in the corresponding exhibition. Photo to follow of that next week! In the meantime, here's a tasty picture of our okonomiyaki dinner last night...

happy birthday me!

I've spent a lovely few days celebrating my birthday: I went to the De Young museum to sketch, and then to the wonderful State Bird Provisions for dinner with friends. OMG it was totally amazing. It was sort of dim sum style, with waiters coming round with selections of tasty little plates. The pancakes with corn & Mt Tam cheese were absolutely to die for! Everyone was casual and friendly and they gave us extra ice cream sandwiches which was a lovely touch. And then today I had a picnic in the local Washington Park in the sunshine... I made cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and everyone brought something to share. My friend made these amazing individual jellies...Another lovely birthday. Thank you everyone!

Alabama

I recently visited Huntsville, Alabama as part of 'wood paper box', and was fascinated by the skies that were the remnants of some scary local tornadoes...It's been a while since I've been to the south, so it was lovely to see those wooden houses and porches again. Something about this style is just so appealing.

slice of pear

This year I'm working on a collaborative mokuhanga project with my friends Yoonmi Nam and Katie Baldwin. We're going to give a presentation and hold an exhibition of the work we produce at the International Mokuhanga Conference in Tokyo in September. It's very exciting! Here's a preparatory sketch for my first piece of work for the project...and a test print of the colours.You can follow the group's progress on our blog woodpaperbox.

ice hockey

I went to see the San Jose Sharks play ice hockey recently. It was pretty amazing. Especially when the players all skated into the rink through a huge shark's head!I tried to sketch them as they played, but they moved so fast! Especially as they slammed into the walls. Here are my first sketches of ice hockey players in action...

pizza cake

We went to a friend's pizza party last week and made these amazing dessert pizza cakes! The bases are sponge cakes, with coloured buttercream for the tomato sauce, white chocolate ganache for the melted cheese, fruit leather pepperoni, hollowed-out liquorice allsort olives, dried pineapple, gummy pepper pieces, and grated white chocolate for the parmesan. We used real pizza boxes from Pizza my Heart et voila!Kind of messes with your mind when you bite into it, but super sweet and tasty!

season's greetings!

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season full of warm and tasty treats...