Higashiyama Kaii

Another Mt. Fuji by Higashiyama Kaii (1906-1999).  He was a traditional Japanese artist, but he did study in Germany 1n 1933.  While studying at the University of Tokyo University of the Arts, he won Nitten, the highest art competition in Japan.

He is known for simplicity.  The picture below is one of the most famous ones.



I do like his Mt. Fuji.  It looks so simple and almost identical on both left and right sides.  But the clouds that occupy lower half of the picture make us think the mountain top is just a part of Mt. Fuji; we Japanese know this part of Mt. Fuji is only top 10 % of the mountain.  Mt. Fuji looks transparent in his drawing; to him Mt. Fuji is not a massive object. This painting reminds me of why we have so many legends based on Mt. Fuji.  One of the old sayings is that Fuji means immortal; people worshipped Mt. Fuji for its immortality.  Kaii's white does show this immortality.
Higashiyama Kaii also likes blue.

Frame

This is my first time to make a picture frame.  I didn't know it involved so much muscle work; buying materials (it was not heavy, but they were so long it was awkward to carry them), cutting them (thank you, Dustyn), using wood glue (I have never used so much wood glue!), staple gun (this is my first time to use it), and nails and a hammer.  American tools are made for big people with big hands and feet, so I have so much trouble using them.  Of course, I am just too small for American tools!

Because I could not hole the staple gun properly, each wood part moved slightly; as a result, all the edges didn't match in spite of the fact that Dustyn cut them so precisely.  I just hope I can put the canvas.  Sean said putting the canvas much harder.  I will train my muscle in two days.

Ota Akira: Artist who draws Mt. Fuji

Since my theme for the rest of this semester is Mt. Fuji, I decided to find artists who have used Mt. Fuji as their theme.  There are many well-known artists such as Hiroshige and Hokusai, but I wanted to find more well-known artists.

Born in 1936 in Shizuoka Prefecture where Mt. Fuji can be seen, Akira Ota has been drawing pictures of Mt. Fuji with watercolor.  He received many awards.  His depiction of Mt. Fuji is very dream like with lots of bright colors.  It is very interesting how he perceives Mt. Fuji.  I like "full moon and Mt. Fuji."  The contrast of yellow moon, blue/maroon trees, gray surface of the mountain, and the sky with full of stars is amazingly beautiful.  Swirling clouds give a quiet and bright night a movement.  I like this picture!



http://www.kaiga-afuto.com/contents2.html

Oil painting

It has been a couple of years since I learned oil painting so I forgot a lot of techniques that I had learned.  I could spend a lot of time in painting skulls, so I felt OK about the result; I feel I could have done better if I had spent more time even though I was not really interested in skulls.  Skulls would be the last object of my choice to paint; however, while I was painting them, they became just a simple object, not a living or dead being.  When I look at skulls, painted or photoed, they look alive and breathing, making me feel very uncomfortable.  I think that is why I don't like to look at the skulls.  It was quite a challenge to put aside this uneasy feeling and to try to paint, but it was very interesting to try to paint the shades of gray.

As for the quick paintings of the sunset in two methods, it was much harder since I really didn't have enough time.  First I painted all in one color and tried to add different colors.  When I was painting the base color, I thought it was much lighter and close to the color I wanted, but when it was dry it became pretty dark.  As a result when I tried to paint different colors, I couldn't really paint over the base color.  The second one is the same.  I thought the paint was dry the next day, but it was not really dry, so I had a strange mix of colors several times. 

The sunset oil painting project reminded me of my struggle to learn watercolor last semester.  I had to try many times to produce colors that I wanted.  I wasted many papers as I could not really paint over watercolor.  But I learned to like watercolor.  Hope I get used to oil painting soon.