ヤツガシラ This year my friend kindly chose my design as her new year gift bag. My mother says that my hoopoe looks like My Fair Lady, or even Oiran, Japanese courtesan. And its legs are just like those of Lautrec's dancer.
飛鳥Ⅱ It was really lucky. On the date I visited the Osanbashi pier, Yokohama with my friend, MS AsukaⅡ, the biggest cruise ship in Japan, was there. She was about to begin her cruise to Guam and Saipan. One of my dreams is to go abroad on a cruise boat, which doesn't have to be a luxurious liner like Asuka.
カワウ(Great Cormorant) This was my forth time to participate in the annual Christmas Cormorant Count, a researching event to map out the morning foraging sites of Greart Cormorants around Gyotoku area. This year, I was stationed on the bank of Edogawa river before dawn and saw a flock of more than 300 cormorants coming up the river, crossing over the housing area to the Shin-nakagawa river. It was really exciting to track the same flocks by keeping close contact with those researchers at nearby observation points.
Common Greenshank I opened my field note for the first time in a few month and found some sketches on the last page, which I drew at Kasairinkai park in September. It means that I haven't gone birding since then. What have I been doing during that time...?
I colored the greenshanks today, as a little treat for myself for getting the offer letter from univerisity.
When I took things out of my baggage, I found a leaf there. It must have fallen from the roadside trees. Yesterday, I joined Art Mucho, an art event that took place at the main street in Hachioji, thanks to Mr. Kimura, who makes excellent birds' feather accessories made of clay. The event lasted until six o'clock in the evening. By then the sun was completely down and the street full of sellers with a few lights, which reminded me of the night market in Hanoi.
Since I couldn't identify the trees above the booth at the site, I looked up some guide books to learn that they were Katsura trees(Cercidiphyllum japonicum). The leaf in my bag still smells somewhat sweet.
ガルヴェストンの夕暮れ At the end of this summer, when I breathed cold air in a quiet morning, when I saw the sunset sky, when I read the English book which smelled just like my host family's home, I often remembered the scenery from the last trip to Texas. So I started working on the painting that I've wanted to draw since the trip; the sunset in the Galveston Island.