San Francisco walk

This week I spent a day walking and riding buses in unfamiliar areas in the city. I took lots of pictures and was reminded how beautiful this city truly is. I did a quick brush pen sketch of a view of the hillside from Eureka Valley. All the fancy houses were so pretty in the sun.

I love all the different kinds of houses and buildings there are in the city, all sorts of shapes and colours…

…and because of the hills, I had many different incredible views across the landscape towards the downtown and even the Bay.

There were little pockets of delightful details in the residential streets, and I was reminded of my daily constitutionals in Tokyo. I should go into the city more!

Calaveras

We spent the long Memorial Day weekend in Arnold, a tiny town in the low hills of the Sierra mountains, for a break from the city. We stayed in a cabin surrounded by trees and ate our breakfasts on the deck enjoying the clean air.

The main reason to visit this area is the Calaveras Big Trees State Park, home to groves of sequoias, the largest trees in the world!

The weather was perfect for walking peacefully amongst the giant trees and enjoying all the forest sights and sounds. There were beautiful white dogwood flowers and many types of tiny flowers along the ground. It is always incredible to see these huge trees, some of which are thousands of years old!

On saturday evening we took a picnic blanket and went to Brice Station Vineyard for one of their live music evenings. We ate freshly made burgers, relaxed on the grass and listened to the Dave Luning Band play country music. It was great! I felt like we were in a movie…

We drove back to the Bay Area via Columbia State Historic Park, a preserved Gold Rush town, and wandered the wide streets, visited the little museum, enjoyed watching the people dressed in period costume, and even panned for gold! I think that was maybe the highlight of the trip. I can see how it might be addictive, the hope that you’ll find some gold and make your fortune…

It’s always nice to get away for a few days, and I love this season, the almost-beginning of summer, when everything is starting to bloom and nature is fully enjoying itself.

Tucson

We recently visited Tucson, Arizona, as a special anniversary trip. It was heavenly. We stayed in an absolutely wonderful airbnb, in a quiet residential area, with our own pool (!) surrounded by flowering trees. It was restful and comfortable and gave us lots of ideas for a future home…

We had a lovely meal at Bata in downtown Tucson, with all sorts of local foods and specialities. This was my favourite, a tiny savoury tartlet of all different greens.

And then we spent two days exploring both the East and West sides of Saguaro National Park. It has always been one of my dreams to see the Saguaro, the famous standing cactus, reminiscent of old Western movies. It’s only found in the Sonoran Desert, and it was truly everything I’d hoped for. Wide open expanses with nothing but brush and cactii for miles in every direction.

It was crazy hot though. We could only walk about outside for short times because of the weight of the hot sun. And apparently this was a ‘cool’ weekend! I can’t imagine it in the summer.

We were also lucky as all the cactii were in bloom. All the different types had amazingly bright colourful flowers in pinks, reds and yellows. We couldn’t get too close to the Saguaro flowers, as they are like crowns right on top of the tall stems, but they looked like white and yellow fried eggs.

I sketched these Prickly Pear and giant Aloe plants and felt like I was drawing alien lifeforms.

I also visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens - they had wonderful desert areas full of different cactii, but also shady paths and corners with more leafy plants, where I could sit on the shade and sketch.

This was my favourite animal encounter - a desert spiny lizard that turned to look at me as I photographed it. It had brilliant viridian breast scales, like a miniature dragon.

It was only a few days, but I loved Tucson, and would definately recommend it to see the magical Saguaros!

Eurovision

Yesterday was Eurovision! While we watched, I managed to sketch each country’s entry (I added colour to the ones that performed particularly amazingly). 

We were all upset that the obvious winner (Kaarija from Finland) didn’t win - later found out he got double the people’s votes of the winner (Sweden). It does seem like the system is broken if the performer the people who watch Eurovision want and vote for, doesn’t actually win. Hopefully they’ll be able to fix this problem. It was a perfect show right up until they announced the winner. 

Maybe a solution is to have 2 winners? - 1 is the jury’s winner and the other is the people’s winner. 

Gustaph from Belgium and Lord of the Lost from Germany were real highlights - absolutely incredible to watch!

We had a watching party and made a retro pineapple-cheese with European flags. It was great to enjoy the spectacle with friends and vote for our favourites!

I especially thought UK and Ukraine did a great job hosting such a fantastic show. I did some sketches of the hosts and some extra guests - the real star of the show was definitely Hannah Waddingham. A real highlight for me was Dadi Freyr singing an Atomic Kitten song!

It’s a whole year until the next Eurovision, I can’t wait…

pocket garden series

The third project in our wood + paper + box printmaking collaboration is (un)fold - an exploration of both the act of folding and unfolding.

Katie Baldwin, Yoonmi Nam and I each made 6 pieces, in an edition of 8. Here are my artworks:

clockwise from top left: perfume, for the most beautiful, le petit jardin, unfurled, secret garden, and hidden message.

I explored the physical nature of folding/unfolding, but also looked at stories and how they unfold, and to our relationships with nature, as well as each other.

Each piece has its own enclosure, and you can see that it’s a pretty small edition in the photo on the left.

Here are my pieces all together. I call this my Pocket Garden series. Each of the artworks can be folded down small and flat, for easy carrying (in your pocket!) but when opened up, has 3-dimensional elements that create a miniature garden.

This project will be exhibited at the Beach Museum in Manhattan Kansas later this year.

Midsomer Murders

I was watching some old episodes of Midsomer Murders this week and I suddenly realised that Mrs Barnaby was cooking from the River Cottage Veg everyday cookbook - the one that I illustrated!

This is a delicious recipe that she’s making. I somehow feel that I’ve made the big time, having my work on Midsomer!

This was a great book to illustrate, as I printed the images using actual vegetables. The endpapers were a great collection of many of the prints put together.

This is by far the most popular of Hugh’s River Cottage books that I worked on. I thoroughly recommend it, we cook from it all the time.

ceramics sale

faux, who produce my ceramic collections in Hong kong, are having a spring sale. They are making space for all the new products that are coming in, so alot of the current collections are 20-80% off! Everything is instore, so you do need to go in person to the showroom in Ap Lei Chau. I hope you can make it!

These HK icon side plates and dinner plates are hugely discounted - a stash was found of unopened stock!

pochoir print

I’ve been working on a new print for our wood + paper + box project (un)fold - it’s a little postcard-sized print called secret garden.

I started with a quick sketch and tried out some samples of pochoir technique and cut outs…

This is the stencil I cut and used to make the print. I used 2 greens and a pink, in layers to create a bit of density in the colour, on a creamy washi paper.

This is the edition drying, and then finished with all the shapes cut out with a scalpel, and fold lines added.

It is one of 6 prints for the (un)fold box. More prints on the blog as they’re completed!

Palm Springs

This weekend we visited Palm Springs to spend some time with old friends. Unfortunately I had a cold, and wasn’t up to much exploring, but we managed to sit in the sun, drink fresh grapefruit juice and walk about some desert gardens…

Seattle

Last week I went to Seattle for a few days to visit some friends and had an incredible trip. It was my first time visiting Washington State, and there were so many wonderful things to draw and all kinds of different places to see. The cherry blossom was at peak bloom, it didn’t rain, and I managed to get onto quite a few boats…

We took an hour’s tour on a ferry in Seattle harbour by Salish Sea Tours, and I just about managed a few quick sketches in the blustery winds. The sky was a perfect blue with fluffy white clouds, and it was so good to be out in the open air.

I absolutely loved the Seattle Asian art Museum - the rooms was arranged by theme, rather than country or style, and I was inspired and sketched some of the ceramics.

We passed by an enticing looking restaurant called Rione XIII in Capitol Hill and had a delicious Roman dinner. I love this little sketch I made while we were waiting. And the dessert, much more delicious than this looks, a meringue with rhubarb and lemon curd, was heavenly.

I hired a car and we took the ferry to the Kitsap islands and went exploring. I loved the far away snowy peaks of the Olympic National Park you could see in the distance.

We visited Port Gamble, with its historic houses, and also Poulsbo, with its Scandinavian heritage. I sketched and sketched…

This is the Seattle skyline from the sea. It’s a pretty attractive city I have to say. I had a wonderful time, and there were still many things I’d like to see there!

Cabinet Oak Project

Last year I applied to take part in the Cabinet Oak Project, and was chosen as one of the artists to receive a piece of wood and create an artwork.

A magnificent Live Oak tree stands in front of LBJ’s large ranch house outside of Stonewall, Texas in the Lyndon B Johnson National Historical Park. A couple of years ago a thunderstorm swept across the ranch, bringing high winds which caused a large portion of the ancient tree to break and fall. The tree has hosted dignitaries and councilors and potentates under its branches and was given the title ‘The Cabinet Oak’ because President Johnson would also hold cabinet meetings in its welcome shade.

Sections of the fallen branches were given to a chosen group of artists to create artwork that would be auctioned, to raise funds for conservation work.

As soon as I heard about the Cabinet Oak project, and saw the tree, I wanted to create an artwork focusing on the chairs that LBJ and his friends/colleagues used to sit in, underneath the branches.

I researched all the existing images of the period when LBJ resided in the house, collecting pictures of all the different chairs that existed and were used at that time. I even found some grainy black and white film footage of an interview where LBJ and Lady Bird showed a reporter around the ranch, and some colourful home videos.

I sourced as many pictures of chairs around the property as I could, and then sketched all the different types.

For my artwork, I started by getting the log I had been sent cut into slices. I then removed the rough outer bark. I sanded down all the surfaces, hoping to be able to carve and print from the flat surface areas. I planned to create some woodblock prints of chairs carved from the circular rounds of wood.

I carved one piece, and printed it with sumi ink, but because I couldn't get the surface of the wood to be totally smooth and flat, the carving didn't contrast particularly well when it was printed, and there was just too much surface texture. 

I then decided to try using a stencil technique and cut out silhouettes of the chairs and inked up the wood surfaces and printed some versions like this. I was aiming for a crisp white image of the chair, against the grain of the wood.

It sort of worked, but still wasn't quite what I was looking for. I was trying to create an image that was like a memory, or ghost, of a chair, as if the wood itself remembered the chairs being there in its shade. But my prints were turning out too vague.

The stencils themselves however, that I had used in the process, turned out surprisingly beautifully, with the grain of the wood and fine details printed onto the reverse side. So I did a sort of chin-collé series with them as an experiment, and made small individual test pieces. This gave me the idea for how my final piece could ultimately be made.

I made prints from the sides of the wood slices, where the woodgrain wasn't rings and lines, but swirling grain, and made chair cut-outs using these printed papers, to ultimately create a series of collages.

I placed the cut-out shapes of chairs onto a large sheet of washi paper, and experimented with positioning.

I arranged the chairs into conversational groups, to capture the easy flow of ideas that seemed to be happening while LBJ was sitting outside with his friends and colleagues.

I partially glued the chairs down with rice paste in a variety of compositions: as time goes by, hopefully certain parts of the chairs will lift slightly. I would like some light to be able shine around and through the chairs, creating shadows to create an effect like sunlight through the leaves of a tree. I want the chairs to retain just a hint of 3-dimensionality.

These are some images of close-up details where you can see the slight shadows on the paper where the paper isn’t totally glued down.

The largest of the artworks is titled Conversations I, and while not an exact replica, references the famous photograph of LBJ and his colleagues underneath the Cabinet Oak.

I also made several other smaller versions with fewer chairs in each using this same technique.

I’d like the chairs in my artwork to evoke memories of a time when the tree overheard all sorts of conversations that happened underneath it. There’s a physical element to the layers of the collage, a printed element in the texture and pattern of the wood on the paper shapes, and hopefully a slightly wistful feeling of times gone by.

Some of the artworks will be exhibited and auctioned at a live event. All other work created will be available through online auction. I’ll put up a link to that when I have it. A gallery of the art in the project can be seen here.

daily constitutionals

I try to take a walk every day and have been photographing things that catch my eye. I love the vibrant colours of California, almost everything looks great against a vivid blue sky…

I often walk towards the local grocery store and enjoy finding foods that are new to me. I have no idea what those vegetables are in the photo below, and have never cooked a rutabaga. I love pomelo but had never seen a red one!

There are so many things to see…

sketching in meetings

One of the ways I concentrate in meetings is to sketch, sometimes it’s what people are saying, but usually it’s the person talking. And now that meetings are generally online, I have the chance to see everyone’s faces close up. I have sketched our wood paper box meetings from the beginning, and love seeing our familiar faces changing. I’m still always trying to capture features and hair in a straightforward way…

Every month my collective Mokuhanga Sisters gets together on zoom for a chat about upcoming projects and things we’ve all been working on. I love drawing these ladies!

Occasionally I have other online work meetings to draw, always a fun challenge, and every now and then, an actual event to go to in real life!

I really find that if my eyes and hands are occupied in this way, I’m making notes, focussing on what I’m hearing and take in the meetings more effectively. I wonder if other people are like this too…

long weekend part 2

For our weekend trip down the coast we stayed in a cute airbnb cabin, about 45 minutes from Santa Cruz, up winding roads into the mountains. We were close to a tiny town called Boulder Creek, which was picturesque and charming (and it up at night!) I especially liked the old firestation and sheriff’s office.

Rockys, in Felton, provided the most delicious breakfast, giving us the energy for a good walk in Henry Cowell Redwood Park nearby. It’s glorious to walk among the tall trees, breathing their refreshing scent. Forest bathing is definitely the way to go!

I’m already looking forward to another roadtrip. And this was all within 3 hours of San Francisco. Amazing.

long weekend trip

I just got back from a wonderful trip along the coast. I love 3 day weekends! We meandered slowly down Highway 1, between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, taking in the wide variety of sea views.

We stopped in at the Natural Bridges State Beach and after a snack of pie by the beach, walked under the tall trees to spot some late monarch butterflies that gather there.

We enjoyed an afternoon in pretty Carmel, and a splendid tapas meal in Promesa, where I did a quick sketch.

I love staying in cabins in the woods and I enjoyed just standing and looking at the tall trees, in the early morning and evening, watching the light change.

Part 2 of our trip next week!

bird sketches

I did some quick sketches of a busy flock of cedar waxwings that were eating berries from the tree outside the livingroom window today.

I don’t often to get to see birds so close-up and I loved seeing all the details of their patterns.

They really seemed to enjoy those berries!

library show

My solo show of prints in Burlingame Library opened this week. I didn’t have an official reception, but was there for a few hours on the 2nd day to say hello. Thank you to everyone who came down to take a look! This is the poster I made to introduce the show.

The light is beautiful in this part of the library, and the artwork looks lovely on the walls in the curved section of the reading room.

I grouped my works in categories for this show, with birds and animals, flowers, and ceramics hanging together. It made me look at them all a new way.

The show is up for the whole month, and I’ll be there on the last day to say hello. Hope you can pop in!

Point Reyes

Last weekend, for a special treat, we went up to stay in Point Reyes, just north of San Francisco. It’s a protected seashore, and full of wonder. Once over the Golden Gate Bridge and away from the freeways, I love the winding roads through the hills and forests. After all the rain we’ve been having, the hills are unbelievably green!

We went to McClures Beach which involves a bit of a drive and then a bit of a walk…

…the beach was deserted! We sat, I sketched, and watched the waves breaking on the sand.

We stayed in a lovely airbnb cabin in Inverness that looked down over Tomales Bay. It was inexpressably relaxing to watch the colour of the sky changing as the sun set and the birds and frogs started calling.

On the way back to the peninsula we stopped in at Roy’s Redwood Preserve for a walk. It’s always good to see these gigantic trees.

One of the great things about living in the Bay Area is how easy it is get away to nature. I hope we manage to do this more this year.

CNY

Wishing you all a very happy and healthy year of the rabbit! Here’s the illustration I made for the Keswick Foundation charity this year.

work/travel

I used to travel alot for my work, and now that the world is opening up again, I’m starting to travel quite a bit again. I find myself setting up my computer wherever I happen to be at the time - work deadlines don’t care where you are! Quite often I find myself working in airports, which can be surprisingly comfortable…

…but working on planes really isn’t! Because I use a drawing tablet, there isn’t the space to spread out, but sometimes I get lucky and have two seats to myself and can sort of squash sideways on two tables. The travelling illustrator life isn’t necessarily as glamorous as you might imagine.

I almost always end up taking my work with me on holiday. I do try to limit it, for the sake of a good work/life balance, but sometimes it just can’t be helped. The lovely views on holiday do make it feel better. These are some desks where I worked in Japanese houses in Goto, Nara and Okinawa.

Working from the homes of friends is by far the nicest temporary workspace to utilise. I’m forever grateful for the kindness of friends who put up with me doing this.

It’s a wonderful and magical thing that I can take my work with me around the world. But it’s also lovely to work from my own desk at home, surrounded by my own things and all the artworks that inspire me. I’m looking forward to being home for a while…