Nap time

Everyone is taking a nap in good weather!



Lapwings



Black-headed Gulls



Cows

Buttercups skirt

This morning a parcel arrived from my mother, which has the skirts that she made with my buttercup pattern fabric.



The skirt she actually made was a wraparound skirt but not a one-piece. I will click a photo of it someday...but for now...



here's the one for my orangutan!
テキスタイルデザインに挑戦してみた。5月、6月にイギリスのあちこちで見られるキンポウゲとデイジーの野原のパターンだ。さっそく母が数メートルだけプリントして試作品のスカートを作ってくれた！

Snow Globe

It was one of the days when I sneaked into my grandfather's study room when I found the peculiar snow globe. It was sitting on the bookshelf in between his old books. I wouldn't have noticed that the snow globe was different from the ordinary one if I didn't pick it up and shake it. But I did and found that the snow in the globe was in cross shape and had two black dots.



"That was a souvenir from my brother."
My grandfather was standing at the door and watching me.
"I'm sorry...to come into your room." I jumped and apologized.
"That's all right. You see the island in the globe. That is where it snows in summer. I guess it should be snowing over there at the moment," he said.

Big thank you

I would like to say thank you once more to everyone who I met in Scotland! I gained a lot of valuable and unforgettable experience.



This is my first trial of carving a white bird with lino. It was tricky to think where to carve and where to leave because it's the other way round.



Guillemot monoprint with the leftover ink. I love trying printmaking!

Muir of Dinnet

After the course, I visited my Japanese friend in Aberdeen. She kindly took me to several natural areas. And guess what we saw!



カワウソ
An otter swimming in the loch!



アバディーンで生態学を勉強中のOさんが大好きなミズゴケ属の一種。

Oさんとイギリス留学情報、体験を交換するのは、とても楽しかった。同じ留学生でも、場所とコースによって、生活や経験していることがだいぶ違うようだ。
どこへ行くにもバスに乗らなくてはならないのは大変だけれど、実習や余暇に、あんな素敵な森や海岸に簡単に出かけられるのはうらやましい。そして夏の日の長さは、ケンブリッジの比ではない。
素敵な時間をどうもありがとう！　

For rememberance

Wednesday evening, my friends and I went to see Hamlet at the King's College Fellows' Garden. It was played outside with simple small stage and people sat on the grass or brought chairs to sit on their own. I love open theatre because the setting sun brings wonderful effect on the stage...of course...only when it isn't too cold or wet and have no mosquito around just like the wonderful evening we had.



When I think of pansy and columbine, I imagine those we see in a flowerbed with vivid colour. But the flowers that Ophelia picked must had been simple and small wild ones.


Here's Rosemary's blog post on that day! Thank you Rosemary for finding out about this wonderful occasion.

The farewell evening

On the last day, I went to Aberlady bay with a few others to sketch but since the weather was not that nice and there were only a few waders far away, we came back early.
But I decided to go out again to the North Berwick harbor with my sketchbook.



I wanted to continue the incredible week...

Hope rooms exhibition

On the fifth evening, we had an exhibition in a community room. Even though we simply put our works directly on the wall with blue tack, the room looked wonderful. They were all created in a week based on the same experience but by 27 artists with different ways of looking at things.



I was very impressed and inspired by others and the next morning, I felt like trying something new!



5日目の夜に集会場を用いて行った小さな展示でのわたしのコーナー。27人のアーティスト、しかも何人もの尊敬するワイルドライフアーティストに混じって展示できたことが、なんだか誇らしかった。

In rain

The weather forecast for that day was very bad but since it was not raining in the morning, some of us went to St. Abbs head again. It was foggy and windy.



When I had just finished the first wash on this painting, it started drizzling. And of course, the rain drops made marks on the wet colour. The paper got wet as if I misted it with spray water. Colours started to run and had no chance to dry. I had to put the painting quickly into a car.
But this is, in fact, one of my favorite pictures during the course!


The pink flowers at the front are thrifts. In Cicely Mary Barker's fairly series, "T" (for Ting) is a cute pink thrift fairly looking at sea and I used to love it. And just yesterday, my friend found the flower fairly book at the market and got it for me! Thank you!

St. Abbs head

St. Abbs head was also a beautiful place. As soon as I　crossed over the hill between the road and the cliff, I could hear the lively sounds, calls of kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills, echoing off the cliffs. They were the hundreds of tiny black and white dots on the steep cliffs. Beneath was the wave hitting the rocks.



Guillemots　
セント・アブス・ヘッドでウミガラスやオオハシウミガラスのコロニーもスケッチした。
The sun went lower and there was strong shadow. But the sky and the sea was still bright blue.



This couple had a chick and mother or father, I don't know, was stretching him/her wing to shade it.





Razorbill　オオハシウミガラス
ウミガラスが岩の上で姿勢正しく立つのに対して、オオハシウミガラスは水平に屈んでいることが多い気がする。

Midsummer camping days

I brought up a tent with me, which my friend kindly lend me and camped for the week of the drawing course at caravan and camping park. I was a little nervous before I started the journey but once I set a tent, it was fine and actually... very nice! Every night I would come back to the campsite past ten o'clock and have shower afterward but the sky was still bright at midsummer in Scotland. I doubt that I used my head light more than three times. And every morning I would automatically wake up once at around four because it was so bright again. Although even I decided to go back to sleep for another an hour or so...



But I managed to spend some mornings sitting on the beach, watching birds and drawing. I loved that quiet time to think and be excited about the day a head.
チューターの話の中で、紙の大きさや形に構図が自ずと左右されるというものがあった。横長の紙があったとき、真ん中に線があるだけで、左右をそれぞれ一ページとしてみるため、構図がかわると言う。考えてみると、わたしは最近よくスケッチブックを見開き一ページで使っており、中央の綴じ代を意識して絵を描いている。どうも絵本というメディアが頭の片隅みに住み着いてきているらしい。

Blocks and lines

The course was really amazing. I had learned a lot from tutors' comments on my work, their comments on other people's work and by looking at how other artists drew and painted in the field. Every night we had dinner together and spent some time in the lounge to talk and share works until ten or eleven!



I didn't finish this but for this painting, I tried putting wash for gannets' shadow and the colour of their head first and then drew the line with pencil. I began to think about catching the shape in block rather than with the outline and be aware of the negative space. I felt as if I was looking at things in a whole new way.
フィールドでは、チューターが自分の絵やスケッチの合間に参加者を回り、いろいろなアドバイスくれた。また夕飯前後にその日に描いた絵をお互いに見せ合ったり、チューターのミニ講義を聞く時間があった。そのなかで、鳥や風景を線ではなく面で先に捉えてみると良いというアドバイスがあった。この絵はそれを受けてのわたしの習作で、シロカツオドリの影、頭の黄色を先に紙に落とし、その上からドローウィング鉛筆でスケッチした。線を描いてしまうと、ついその中を埋める塗り絵になってしまい、線と面が表すものがほぼ同じになる。一方で先に面を塗ると、線を描くまでの間に鳥がポーズを微妙に変えてしまうこともあり、時間の移り変わり、動きを含めることができる。

Landing on the Bass Rock

The real highlight of the course was to land on the Bass Rock and paint in the middle of Gannet colony! Many people would have been dreaming of the adventure after watching amazing clips from the Springwatch or the Earthflight. And I actually did it!



コースの一環としてフォース湾に浮かぶ島のひとつ、バス・ロックに上陸した。この島は全体が150,000羽というシロカツオドリのコロニーになっている。周辺にはたくさん小島があるが、陸地から飛び立つのが苦手なカツオドリが巣を作っているのは、風が強く、周囲が崖になっているこのバス・ロックのみだ。岩が突出しているので上陸は容易ではなく、聞いたところによれば、今年、上陸を果たしたのは、わたしたち以前には3組のみだという！　運良く天気に恵まれ、月曜の午後と火曜一日を島で過ごすことができた。



As we approached the island, we were surrounded by gannets' calling and the sounds of their wings flapping. We climbed up to the old chapel, where the main colony began. There was the sea of gannets in front of me and thousands of gannets flying against the blue sky above me. I was so happy. I was not only on the Bass Rock with millions of gannets but also with amazing wildlife artists, whose work I had been looking at in books and exhibitions.



色紙の上に描いてみた。このコースでは、すべてのスケッチ、絵をフィールドで制作、完成させる。



We spent whole day and an afternoon on the rock drawing and painting gannets and gannets. Sometimes my paintings got gannets' droppings but I didn't mind. That's part of my work!




Several of them were nesting on the pass up to the chapel and we had to walk right beside them.