Week 18: Summer Fun

Hi everyone!

So we all took a break from the blog over the summer as we were all travelling, busy with work and settling back into our daily routines. Before jumping back into the theme list we have, we decided to make a piece that reflects our summer – anything goes!

 

Su’s Piece

Su says “I tried really hard to sum up Japan with one image but I couldn’t, there was just too much happening and too much excitement.

So I gave Japan the 4 by 4 treatment.

Fukuoka was summed up with the brilliant prison cafe with some fabulous friends, the magical owl cafe, the shinkansen, (I geeked out about a train more than I thought I would) and the magic trick show at the little bar we visited, typical Japanese hospitality!

Kyoto was bae, I summed up the historic city with the effervescent Inari shrine, the Chion-In shrine (where The Last Samurai was filmed!) The Kyoto Tower where Vicki and I have a sophisticated drink and the amazing Maiko show.

Osaka was nuttier than a bag o’ nuts, and I picked Osaka Castle, the delectable Dotonbori, (heaven = Osaka street food + Highball after Highball!) And of course the random ginormous vegetable that had appeared outside our hotel neighbours’ room. The doggy was Rex, he lived in our hotel, he was really sweet, I like dogs.

Tokyo was nutty like Snickers, reasonably so. My Tokyo highlights included watching lots of funny videos with plethora of drinks which was kindly bought for us (before hours of karaoke til 4am), the beautiful Sen-soji shrine where I bought a Daruma doll, the Ramen we ate after karaoke which was delicious and Harajuku which was so much fun, lots of window shopping but the outfit I bought will be forever treasured!

Long Live Japan!”

 

Vicki’s Piece

Materials – Craft paper, Watercolour, Chalk pastel, digital edit

I have had such an immense summer that I found it hard to summarise it in one piece. Initially, I wanted to do a collage piece where I drew multiple items that reflected my holiday. But it was impossible!

Recently I have been wanting to bring papercraft into my artwork. I very much enjoy working with traditional mediums, but have been so inspired by the gorgeous stationery and materials you can buy here in Japan.

I decided to do a very simple piece to experiment with the new materials that I bought. Summer in Japan has been filled with beautiful matsuri and fireworks festivals. I decided to use a variety of mixed materials with cut paper. The result is pretty basic but I learned a lot from it in terms of working with the actual paper, and that I could push the materials a lot more. It led onto me working on this rather cute little piece that I will be posting onto my portfolio page sometime soon!

So that’s all for now! We’re happy to be back on the project and designing all over again. We have plenty of themes from before the summer that we will continue working on each week – so check back to see what we get up to!