Traveling Sketchbook: Airport waiting

Another layover at Washington D.C. Dulles International Airport.

Traveling Sketchbook: Seattle Airport in the evening

A few hours of layover at the Seattle Airport. I sat and watched the planes come and go as the night slowly fell. The air craft right front of me started to unload the baggages to the side, and its passengers to the other. Steadily, and quite rutinely.

Traveling sketchbook: Ken's Bakery

Portland Day 3. Super dilicious quiches they've got. Big open windows and great relaxed atmosphere.

Traveling sketchbook: a blue lighter

Traveling sketchbook: Will's room

Traveling sketchbook: Trip to Oregon Day 2

a view of and from the balcony, Portland, OR

marriage

A wedding gift for a good friend of mine. Pen & ink composition on two sheets of mylar, sandwiched together in between two sheets of plexiglass. (24"x36")

habitual activity no.1

A diagram of a highly habitual human activity.

wire drawing on a wall

A new style of "drawing" I've been experimenting on the walls of my studio.

Video

This summer I am taking a course for video art that was designed for painting students. We learn the brief history of video art half the time, and for the rest of the time we learn how to make videos ourselves by actually making them. This one here is a piece I worked on most recently, entitled "Lifelong Journey, big headed days."(02'30")

Thought on Toyako G8 Summit 2008

This year's G8 Summit has been taken place on the island in Northern Japan where I'm from. Though I'm in Savannah, being so far away from Hokkaido physically, I'd never felt so attached or paid so close attention to this annual event before this time around.

8 out of 10

This project was my attempt to locate the subconscious. (if there's such a thing as my subconscious, after all.)
From top left to bottom right, 1-8. Ink on mylar.

I want to capture the werewolf and work out the way to work with him. He seems to be somewhere and always in between each of these drawings.
I think I know where he is, but I cannot grasp him.

finding subconscious

A drawing of mushrooms done from life layerd on top of a drawing done of it.

lettuce leaves

Spring, 2008

Another experimental piece I made while thinking of the layers of mediation processes within the system of our perception.
...more or less, big headed.

three mushrooms

Spring, 2008

Three Shiitake mushrooms being observed and studied from many different angles repeatedly. This is rather a visual note/ sketch of my then current thoughts.

an experiment of landscape cut-out

April, 2008
I wanted to explore and experiment more on the ideas of 'layers' on different levels. This is a piece, with which I attempted to apply additional layers to a composition by physically layering pieces of vellum, that had some sections and shapes been cut out, on top of one another.

work space

April, 2008

One of the first paintings I made after returning back from Europe. It's an on-sight drawing/painting of my studio space. (Ink on museum board.)

Arles

One of the eleven drawings done under the same theme of 'layers.' This depicts my experience of visiting the town of Arles.

Pen & Ink, 40 x 120cm

Lacoste on Paris

The landscape of Lacoste is painted on top of the drawing of Paris' cityspace. The '"layered' images here represent the layers of my experiences in France.

Morning and Afternoon

The two views of the valley back to back.

"Layers of Paris" Final ver.

This is the final look of "Layers of Paris." I added the bottom part later, and the wee top one on the day before the opening of the show. (!)

Layers of Paris- painting

Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

This is where it all kind of 'started.'

more chimneys

Ever since I arrived here I've been intrigued by the chimneys on the roofs of the houses in the village. The all unique and different shapes and colors and how they change their looks in lights that change most frequently throughout the day.
The chimneys fascinate me beyond description.

Chimneys of France

Cafe Malongo

A 35 minutes sketch at a cafe called Café Malongo on Rue St Andre des Art, where we had un café au lait almost every day at while in Paris. It seemed to be a very popular cafe amongst the locals, students and adults, yet carried a very pleasant and relaxed atmosphere.

Layers of Paris

The first big excursion this quarter was to Paris. We left Lacoste at 6:30am and we took TGV from Avignon and in less than three hours there we were, in the heart of France. We were there for four full days to see the city, it's history, experience both classic and contemporary art first-hand, and had many cups of coffee and good food.
It's wild to look back and remember my first experience of visiting the same city by myself four years ago and observe how I see things and think differently now, and yet realize that certain things never change.

Fôret de Cèdres

A view from one of the peaks of the Luberon mountain. Ceder Forest is located just beyond Bonnieux, approximately 20 minutes from Lacoste. We took a short walk about the forest and sat down and sketched. From the peak, we could see the back side of La Sainte Victoire, Cézanne's mountain.

Layers of Lacoste No.2

Another'layer'sketch. It's again the view from the terrace of our studio.
(Pen and Iink wash, 15 x 19 cm)

Green field in the valley

A small color sketch from the second week in Lacoste. Our painting group (approximately three of us) took a casual bike ride down to the valley one morning. The foreground is raws of grapes. Going down was like being on a roller coaster, nice and easy, but coming back up was the hardest thing ever. I felt as though I burnt all the energy necessary to get through the rest of the week.

Lacoste

A pen sketch of Lacoste from the valley below.

layers of Lacoste

January 12, 2008
A view from the terrace of our painting studio in Lacoste, a small village in Provence.

Ever since I arrived here I have been seeing and strongly intreagued by the 'layers' that appear to be here, there, and everywhere around. Roofs, gates, hills, fields and clouds over the land, they all seem to form layers and bring the landscapes here together.