It’s a very big park that I often took my children to.
The park and the river are called Nanase.
It is in a region called Wasada which is on the outskirts of Oita city.
It’s a beautiful rural area with a wonderful view of distant mountains.
I’m very happy with this painting.
It has a feeling of summer and joy.
And I enjoy looking at the light and cheerful colors.
My later paintings became much darker.
And the colors of the figures are very good.
I can’t, though, remember this particular trip to the river.
But looking at this painting does stir up memories of happy times at this river.
And this painting makes me wonder how many enjoyable times have sunk below the surface of consciousness and into depths of the unconscious or forgetfulness.
Luckily, I sometimes remember such enjoyable times through old paintings like this one.
At one time I often went there because I loved the old wooden buildings with their beautiful architectural details and the peaceful atmosphere.
And the picture here shows one of my favorite views of this place.
I believe this is the wall of the main temple building.
It leads into a dark room which I once saw and where I think the monks do meditation together.
The very thick wooden block hanging from the wall has been substantially hollowed out in the middle by repeated hitting with a hammer.
The monks hit this block slowly at first and then gradually increase their strikes until eventually it becomes a crescendo.
In my view, it’s one of those ludicrous customs that characterizes all religions.
In other words, deep significance is given to something that means absolutely nothing.
Although I suppose it can alleviate the monotony of life.
And I think people do all manner of crazy things in order to alleviate such monotony, myself included.
Anyway, I was once painting the scene above when one of the monks came up to me and pointed out that I had spilt a drop of blue paint onto the pristine white concrete below me.
It was a tiny drop.
He had to point it out to me otherwise I wouldn’t have seen it.
This man, who gave me the impression of having more authority than a normal monk, was not big on pleasantries.
There was no: Hello. It’s a nice day, isn’t it? Are you well? Or even, God forbid: That’s a lovely painting.
For some reason, secular people seem to have more ability at social niceties.
Well, I wanted to explain that it was just watercolor and would soon fade away and that it would also just dissolve in the rain.
But I felt that I would be wasting my time and besides my Japanese was probably not good enough to explain this correctly.
In fact, if I had used Japanese there is a good chance I would have offended him because my Japanese was – and still is – so bad that I would probably have said something offensive by mistake such as “You are a problem” when I intended to say “What is the problem?” – to give an example.
And I think this monk just wanted to attack me.
Perhaps he didn’t like my presence, which he saw as intrusive or impertinent.
Or perhaps he wanted to exercise his authority.
Whatever the reason, it is a puzzle that will never be solved.
But it made me think what baloney Buddhism is.
Basically it is supposed to be a religion based on non-attachment to things but here was obvious attachment.
He cared.
Well, at least about the building.
I think we all have the image in our minds of the quintessential Buddhist monk in deep meditation who is not bothered by the mosquito flying around his head because he is completely detached from the world and all its affairs.
I used to be the naive kind of person who believed such stuff but life has a way of defecating over such delusions and showing the less savory truth.
I’ll admit, I think there are a tiny few spiritual beings who get close to such non-attachment or exceptional humanism but their efforts, at least for me, are eclipsed by the many who fall, and not just simply fall but create such a scandal that it beats any kind of drama on TV, such as with Eido Shimano in New York.
Sadly, it is common rather than rare to find out that spiritual types are all too attached to the world, to things, to money, sex and power.
Anyway, I dutifully cleaned up that speck of blue.
And I have to mention that I have met many friendly monks at this temple.
It is often the case that there is always going to be one bad apple in any group.
And perhaps I should look at this from a completely opposite viewpoint.
Instead of complaining perhaps I should praise this monk because for me the best thing about spirituality is the buildings: it is the churches and the cathedrals and the shrines and the temples.
In other words, and what an irony, the physical manifestation.
And possibly it is men like the one who told me off that keep some of that architectural beauty of old Japan alive and for that I should be grateful.
And I am.
Perhaps then a little attachment is good.
So I will leave you with the following Koan: Is a little attachment a good thing for a spiritual person?
And this painting reminds me of my first painting holiday.
I think it was around 2010.
It was summer.
And I had decided that that summer holiday I wasn’t going to sit under the air-conditioner all day.
Instead, I was going to go out into the countryside and have my first painting holiday.
And it would not just be a day trip.
I intended to stay somewhere beautiful for several days.
I thought that it would be a great adventure and I became very excited.
I already had the destination in mind.
It was a place called Kikuchi Keikoku.
This place is deep in the Japanese countryside.
It is famous for a mountain river that has many waterfalls.
Soon my head was filled with thoughts of painting those beautiful waterfalls.
I think this was going to be my first time at painting a waterfall so it would be a challenge too.
I’d been there once before but it was just a brief visit.
I discovered, on that occasion, that even in the middle of summer this mountain river is icy cold.
And I thought it would be nice to go to a place where I could find some coolness as Japanese summers are uncomfortably hot.
I had this idyllic image in my head of being the real artist outside and painting a beautiful waterfall.
As the day of departure drew nearer I became more and more excited by thoughts of the amazing pictures I would paint.
And finally the day of my journey came and we set off.
We only had one car and my wife did not want to join me.
So my wife would drop me off and pick me up about 4 days later.
My wife is a city person and didn’t want to endure the discomforts of camping in the countryside.
So I was going to be staying in a tent all by myself.
I could put up with the discomfort of sleeping in a tent though because this was going to be my first chance to spend several days in the Japanese countryside painting.
And I was completely free to paint.
I would be able to paint the sunrise and also the sunset.
This is something that I normally can’t do on a family trip because we start too late in the day and come back before the sun sets.
It was sunny when we left Oita city but 2 hours later, when we arrived at the campsite at Kikuchi Keikoku, we found it was raining.
The painting above is what I saw.
Already there were big puddles on the ground.
I didn’t know that mountain areas such as Kikuchi Keikoku get a lot of rain.
I think my wife checked the weather forecast and told me that it would rain for the next day too.
I was so disappointed.
But then my wife suggested another place called Shiramizu.
We had been to this place before.
Shiramizu had a beautiful river and waterfall.
Shiramizu wasn’t as beautiful as Kikuchi Keikoku but it was better than nothing.
And I didn’t want to give up on my imagined amazing painting holiday and so I said let’s go.
When we got there, I was delighted to see that it wasn’t raining.
So I decided to stay and have my amazing painting holiday there.
My wife stayed for a short time while I put my tent up.
And then she said goodbye and drove back to Oita city.
I was in high spirits.
But I think it was on that very day that it started to rain.
However, I was determined and optimistic.
I told myself that the rain would stop at some point.
But it didn’t.
It continued the whole day.
And when I went to sleep with the sound of the rain drumming on my tent, I told myself that tomorrow might be sunny and that the rain would have to stop at some point.
But it never did.
In fact, every single day of my holiday, except the final day, it rained.
One evening, I remember the rain stopping.
But what could I paint in the dark!
Sometimes there would be pauses during the day, but they were very brief.
My reaction to these pauses was almost comical.
I would jump out of my tent with all my painting gear and start to paint.
I would only have painted a little though before I started to feel drops of rain.
I persevered, though, and told myself that the rain would stop.
But the drops soon became a drizzle.
I still fought on though and found shelter under a tree and continued to paint.
But the rain would get heavier and eventually I gave up.
I angrily shook my fist at the heavens and swore at God.
But no one or nothing cared and the rain just continued.
I must admit I got very down.
And I was stuck there like a prisoner.
Ironically, if I had stayed at home I would have been able to do more painting because I had lots of space, light and photos.
Whereas the tent was cramped and dark, and I had no photos or other paintings to copy.
My only relief from the cramped space of the tent, my gloomy thoughts and the monotony was a small restaurant there.
And that’s where I spent most of the time.
Even there though it was pretty boring.
On my last night I had to sleep next to a pool of water in my tent.
It wasn’t very pleasant.
On my final day, the sun eventually came out.
My wife arrived early and wanted to get back to Oita city soon so there was no chance to do any painting.
She was so surprised to learn that it had rained every day and she was also somewhat amused by that.
She told me that every day had been sunny in Oita city.
I had imagined that my painting holiday would be so exciting.
In reality, it was a complete disaster.
I didn’t produce even one good painting.
After the holiday, I did the painting above from a photograph.
I don’t think it is a particularly good painting but I’m glad that I have it as otherwise this would just be a story without a painting.
Also I am lucky to have this painting as I would have thrown it away if it hadn’t been on the back of another painting that I liked and decided to keep.
Below is a painting I did of the restaurant interior.
This painting is from a photo that I took on another visit.
This was with my family and on that occasion it happened to be a beautiful sunny day.
“Traditional Japanese Beauty”
While I was writing this story, I realized that this was not only my first painting holiday but also my last one.
That is if the phrase “painting holiday” means something lasting more than one day.
And this holiday was about 11 years ago.
Perhaps this experience deterred me from any further painting holidays.
In more recent years, though, I have felt a growing desire to go on another painting holiday.
I almost went to a beautiful place called Miyajima for several days a few years ago.
I even booked a hotel on the island.
But near the date of my departure, the weather took a turn for the worse and, perhaps remembering this first nightmare painting holiday, I decided not to risk it and cancelled the trip.
At least if I do go on a painting holiday again I will take the car with me.
Then I’ll have a means of escape.
And also I can perhaps paint from inside the car if it rains.
In fact, this year (2021) I’m thinking about going to the southernmost point of Miyazaki where there is a beautiful coastline next to the Pacific ocean and wild horses.
It will take a day or more to drive down there.
And it would be a great painting holiday – if the weather stays fine.
It’s just an idea and not yet a plan.
If it happens then I’ll let you know and hopefully the adventures this time will be more cheerful.
That’s all,
Gareth.
Postscript
I actually went to Miyazaki.
It was so hot.
But I was blessed with two days of beautiful weather.
But this story actually happened around the spring of 2010.
It is one of my older stories.
With that said, let’s begin.
So I’m a little romantic.
Or maybe I’m just stupid.
I remember once looking at a girl’s neck and saying how it looked “swan like”.
Everybody erupted in laughter.
I was so embarrassed.
But the truth was that it did look swan-like.
But anyway this is a blog about one of my romantic painting trips into the Japanese countryside.
I think this is also perhaps as laughable as the comment I made about that girl’s neck.
I should have been doing a sensible and useful job and making money.
Instead, I was getting on a bicycle and cycling off into the Japanese countryside to look for adventure and a beautiful scene.
How foolish can you be?
But, anyway, on this occasion, I got both an adventure and a beautiful scene.
So I was following a very long and wide river called Ono river.
Rivers are the best places to cycle next to in Japan because the ground is usually flat.
The path, though, can sometimes suddenly disappear.
Especially if you cycle along it for miles and miles.
I’ve often experienced this but part of the fun is seeing how far you can cycle by a river.
And that was part of the enjoyment of cycling by Ono river.
At first this river was very pleasant to cycle along.
There is a smooth path and next to it are rice fields and it’s all very hospitable.
But at a certain point the landscape becomes more rugged and rocky.
And then you find yourself cycling along a very quiet, more neglected, path that you know very few people use.
I think it was a road but it was as narrow as a path.
And the sides of the river were no longer grassy banks but dramatic rocky cliffs.
At a certain point, I came across a big steel bridge spanning the river with a chain across its entrance.
There was a sign on the chain saying that you are not allowed to cross it.
Once again, as I often experienced when cycling in Japan, I felt myself in a forgotten place.
And then the road was cutting through the side of a rock and there were rivulets of water running down the side and forming pools of water in the middle of the road.
It had become a spooky road but also interesting.
And then suddenly I came upon the scene in the painting above.
It looked like a dazzlingly green rice field.
The picture above is a watercolor sketch that I did on the spot.
I used to take all my paint gear with me in those days.
I wish I still had that kind of energy.
At that time I felt indestructible.
Anyway, I was at that time really happy with the painting I did.
I felt that it captured that dazzlingly green color of the rice.
Now, I don’t think it’s so great.
I did a studio painting from this sketch.
And I sold that painting.
But sadly, now I only have one blurry image of the studio painting to show you.
I was hesitant about showing this bad image.
If possible I want to show only good images on my website.
Perhaps that’s vanity.
Anyway, I decided to show you because I thought you might find it interesting.
Every Christmas I remember how delighted I was to receive a pack of crayons.
But what I drew is not something you’d call it art.
For I just drew endless rectangular spaceships.
I would cover the whole paper with them.
And then there would be a big battle.
I also drew, or maybe I should say gouged, an image of a church on my bedroom wall.
It was my Sistine Chapel moment!
However, my dad, who had just painted the bedroom wall, which was a really long room, and who had very high standards of workmanship, was not impressed.
I later learnt that he said to my mum in disbelief: “I can’t believe it. He’s so destructive”.
I also painted the inside of the shed. This too was not well received.
Second time
The second time I did art began in my last year at school when I was about 15.
Now I was drawing plants, dungeons and dragons stuff and pictures of nude women.
Of course, I improved most from drawing the latter because I was very focused.
Although I passed, I spent another year at college doing art.
And according to my lecturer I had gotten worse at drawing over this year.
But I think that was because we were drawing things like folded strips of paper which is not inspiring.
If we’d been drawing naked women I think I would have massively improved or even fantasy subjects such as dragons and knights.
Anyways, I was not impressed by the art lessons at college.
And it was suggested that I should do Graphic Design which is far more cool and perhaps I could become a concept designer which sounded really cool.
So I went and did a year in graphic design and I did a few lessons in watercolor painting in my free time which I really enjoyed and which I wish I’d continued at.
Doing the graphic design course was a big mistake.
The director, or whatever he was titled, was a brilliant illustrator but he almost looked down upon art.
He would say that art was for monkeys and that it was ideas that were important.
His comments saddened me because the whole reason I had started the course was because I liked art, I liked drawing and painting, and I wanted to get better at it.
I also wasn’t very good at art or ideas.
After one year I quit the course.
And then for many years I did all kinds of other things but no art.
Third time
But my interest in art did come back.
I’m not sure though it was a good thing.
I sometimes wonder if art has been a blessing or a curse for me.
Perhaps both.
But anyway, I was studying physiotherapy in Bath.
I had the chance at a job for life and security.
Yet, I was unhappy.
And I had started drawing again.
After a month, I quit the course.
I decided that I wanted to do a course in Fine Art.
Sadly I couldn’t because I had to first do a Foundation course and I didn’t have the financial resources to do that.
So, I started an art related degree course that didn’t need a Foundation course.
But it was rubbish.
I soon realized that and quit that too.
A year later I started a course in architecture.
I thought it would allow me to do my art.
But after one year I quit architecture too.
I was getting very good at quitting things.
After that one year, during the summer holidays, I cycled around France for 3 weeks and did some drawings.
And I wish that I had done more travelling and drawing.
But after that holiday I not only quit the architecture course but also the art.
After that I did a foundation course in mechanical engineering for one year.
And then I went and studied English literature.
And I actually got a degree in English literature.
I had even started to toy with the idea of becoming an English lecturer.
But after 3 years of studying for my degree I wanted freedom from academia.
I wanted to see the world. So I went to Japan.
Fourth time
And in Japan, around 1999, my interest in art returned.
I started going to a watercolor class and an oil painting class.
At some point I got very serious and actually started walking around the city and painting what I saw.
This is easy to do in Japan as people are pretty easy going.
Especially if you are a foreigner.
I remember once in England I was on a street doing a drawing and a car stopped near me.
There was a burly man in a car with his family and he was staring at me as though I was a felon.
He was very aggressive looking.
And he actually got out of his car.
And in a very menacing voice he asked me, what I was doing.
England is not the country of gentlemen that the Japanese seem to believe.
There’s nothing gentle whatsoever about the place.
Well, there are a few kind people.
Anyway, back to the story.
These paintings are some of my earliest artworks.
I think I painted them around 2005.
They are of a place called Shinmachi which is very near Oita city centre.
I lived in a big apartment in Shinmachi from about 2000 to 2006.
I think these paintings are the first outdoor paintings that I did.
I’m so glad that I kept them.
And I thought that I’d share them with you.
I simply wandered around Shinmachi and painted what I thought was interesting, such as the petrol station, the concrete aqueduct and the car scrapyard.
The concrete aqueduct was actually painted across two separate sheets of paper which is why there is a white gap in the middle.
These paintings are now very old and things have changed in Shinmachi.
I believe the car scrapyard has gone.
And the bridge next to the petrol station has also gone.
All that is solid vanishes into air! It seems to be true.
Here are all the paintings.
“Japanese car scrapyard”“Japanese petrol station”
Note that this painting has a date in the left hand corner. I am so happy about that. The 05 means 2005. So I know that I painted this picture in 2005. And I’m fairly sure I painted the other pictures around the same time.
“Japanese concrete waterway”
Note the car scrapyard in the distance which I painted in another picture. I think that place is visually very interesting.
Postscript
I’m writing this article in February of 2021.
It’s cold.
My right hand feels like a block of ice.
My mum sent me a pair of gloves to keep my fingers warm but they are so tight that I can’t move my fingers with them on.
It cost her about 14 dollars to send the gloves.
What a ridiculously high price.
But the sunlight is streaming in through my window and it is glorious.
I feel bathed in light.
And I just keep on writing.
Today, or was it in the middle of the night, I decided to write 250 blogs, make 250 videos and to have 1000 images on my website.
I also decided to have about 10 galleries on my website with paypal buttons, which is the kind of practical thing that I don’t do.
I would have thrown this painting away long ago but there was a good painting on the other side.
So this terrible painting got preserved by accident.
I came across this painting when I was organizing my large collection of artwork.
But I was happy to discover this painting because despite being a terrible painting it is a very old painting and it is interesting to see my old work as much of it I have thrown away and forgotten.
I’m not sure when I painted this picture but I think it was around 2010.
It is now 2021.
The style and feeling of this painting is very different to my later paintings of this river.
This river is called Oita river.
It is one of my favorite painting spots.
I can see beginner mistakes in this painting such as trying to add too much detail to the background mountains.
This painting reminds me that I tried so many times to paint a good picture of this river.
And so many times, I painted a bad painting such as this one.
The first ten years of learning watercolor painting, which is when this picture was painted, were difficult and full of frustration.
One other thing I like about this painting is the Japanese boat.
These long, flat bottomed Japanese boats are very beautiful.
This boat is no longer there.
When I first came to Japan you could often see these boats.
They were often in a bad condition but I found them interesting.
And seeing this boat in the painting reminds me of an older Japan.
And I feel a little sad because it feels like that older Japan has gone.
