• Manuscripts from Tokugawa Art Museum

    Manuscripts from Tokugawa Art Museum

    While in Japan I was also able to visit the Tokugawa Art Museum, where a number of manuscripts were exhibited, here are two which are examples of kana art and paper decoration This is a fragment known as Rokujō-gire is from the poetry anthology Hachidai–wakashō and it traditionally attributed to Emperor Kōgon from the 14th…

  • Souvenir from Japan trip

    Souvenir from Japan trip

    Been a few months since I posted but should have some more pieces soon, cut recently came back from Japan and picked up this for 500 yen from a used book store While I am not exactly sure what it is of what it says, I believe this is a poetry card.

  • Red and yellow Adora

    Red and yellow Adora

    A surprise project which is very simple but which I am most pleased with. This was done very quickly at an arts and sciences workshop the Flame Tree Ball in the Shire of Adora, the brief was it had to made of paper, made on the spot and to be themed to Adora. I chose…

  • Blue sky and snow – finished

    Blue sky and snow – finished

    The two pieces have finished now and I am quite pleased with the result, though the contrast seems to work much better with the electric blue one

  • Very sad news

    I just learned today that one of my best resources for techniques and materials has closed. Kanaryoshi.com, which is an artisan studio that specialises in Japanese collage, is no more and it seems as the studio in Japan is closed as well. Fortunately, some of the website is preserved on the internet wayback machine so…

  • Blue sky and snow – ornamentation

    Blue sky and snow – ornamentation

    The next step was to add the silver metallic ornamentation, the first part I did with silver mica powder and aluminium foil which I had cut with a scalpel into small pieces. Previously, I have used metallic origami paper and this meant it had to be placed on the page rather than scattered. Once the…

  • Blue sky and snow – Assembling the pieces

    Blue sky and snow – Assembling the pieces

    First stage was creating the shapes which meant creating the template. This I did by tracing the shape of the blue section from the original picture and then cutting it out very carefully. I then used the template as guide to perforate and tear the paper, as I did in the Ise hills piece. For…

  • New project, blue sky and snow

    New project, blue sky and snow

    I do rather like using the blue paper and this one gives the chance to use it quite a bit. This piece is again from the Sanju Rokunin Kashu, this page is from the Yamabe no Akahito collection. Firstly I traced the template from the original, this I used as a base to tear the…

  • Laurel prize at Rowany Festival

    Laurel prize at Rowany Festival

    Once again I exhibited my stuff at Laurel prize at Rowany festival, this time showing progression alongside a large pile of “stuff I wasn’t proud of” Hope to have some new projects soon

  • New piece – Ishiyama Giri

    New piece – Ishiyama Giri

    This is a new piece I am working on based on a page from the Ishiyama-giri. This is it in it’s first stages while drying, the plan is to decorate it with silver ink. The original manuscript is below.