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Nihonga Day 14

Today, I pushed myself hard.  And by hard, I mean I spent 15 hours in the studio – only taking an hour break for coffee.  [on days like this, I question my sanity!]  But I’m so glad I did it– I knew it was one of my last chances to work in this space and [...]

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Nihonga Day 13

Sadly, there are only 2 more days left!  So we’ve all been working extra hard to try to take full advantage of Mako’s expertise and input, as well as the beautiful studio space on UBC’s campus.
Today,

I pushed myself hard on these 3 pieces again.  (My goal is to have them done by Friday evening!)

I added [...]

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Nihonga Day 12

Today

we showed the class one piece we’ve been working on,

and we had a mini critique session.  These are always so helpful and I wish I had one every week!

Then the rest of the day was spent working hard on these 3 panels.
[prepare yourself for a lot of process pictures]

At first, I wasn’t quite sure where [...]

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Nihonga Day 11

Today

I sized the inside of a book cover

to prep the surface for working on it later!

And spent some time working on these 3 panels:

adding mica,

and burnt umber,

then spraying water on top to get more texture.

There are plenty of more layers to put down on these pieces, but for the rest of the afternoon I worked [...]

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Nihonga Day 10

We have reached a point in the class where Mako is doing less teaching and we are doing more independent work.  So today I spent most of the class time (and much of the afternoon)

mounting these little guys on canvas boards,

and adding layer

after layer

after layer of oyster shell white to these 3 cradled boards.

And finally [...]

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Nihonga Day 9

Today

Mako demonstrated how to mount the Japanese paper onto our substrate.

And then we all asked lots of questions and took lots of notes.  [When you have a unique opportunity to learn from someone like Mako, you try to ask as many questions as possible!]

I wasn’t able to spend a full afternoon in the studio, so [...]

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Nihonga Day 8

Today
We all experimented more with our newfound knowledge of Nihonga materials.

Meet Peggy: a superstar Nihonga painter.  :)

I love seeing what everyone comes up with!

First, I returned to my experiments and added white pigment (mixed with glue).

Then I spent some time lightly sanding the top surface (on the left side) on one of my pieces.  Then [...]

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Nihonga Day 7

Today

Mako talked more about minerals [passionately]

like Azurite blue

and he tried out my microscope.

So then we each took our turn, ooohing and ahhhing at the sparkly minerals.  It felt like going on a treasure hunt!

Then it was time to get down to business.  First thing on the list: getting set up in a new space.

It was [...]

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Nihonga Day 6

Today:

We learned how to make rice glue

(which looked a lot like tapioca).

Jess made a batch of oyster shell white on her own

and Laura worked hard on experiment pieces.

It’s a brand new week, which means brand new experiments!  I set up a new batch of 5 4×4″ pieces to work on.

For the first layer on each, [...]

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Nihonga day 5

Today was probably my favorite day so far.

Mako showed us how to grind oyster shells,

add glue,

and taking the mixture, pound it and roll it to a good consistency  - this makes the “best” white pigment.  Fascinating huh? White pigment from oyster shells.  Who knew?!

Then we began the process of making color.  (but only as a [...]