Author: Gareth Naylor

Watercolor painting of a beautiful Japanese river and waterfall

Finally, I went to Ogata to paint tulips.

When I arrived, though, I discovered that most of the tulips had gone. That said, I quite liked the scattering of tulips I saw rather than the almost overpowering bright lines of tulips that look so unnatural.

And all was not lost as there were other interesting things to paint in this place. So I left the tulip fields and went to the river where there is a suspended footbridge.

“A View from Above”

The bridge is very elegant. In Japan, most bridges are not. They look like they are built for tanks to cross. They are probably made so sturdily because of earthquakes.

What was really exciting about this bridge in my painting was how the walkway, which looked like a white line across a dark background, acted as a directional line leading the viewer’s eye to the focal point which in this case was the people at the far end of the bridge.

And what a background. A dramatic gorge with beautiful spring foliage and rocks.

In this painting, the figures are a little too big and in a future attempt I will make them a little smaller or the bridge a little bigger depending on which works best.

Next, I went down the gorge to see the waterfall. I’ve done a few paintings from this spot in the past and I couldn’t resist doing another painting from this spot on this occasion. It is such a beautiful scene.

“Waterfall Mist”

I read that the waterfall is about 20 meters high and forms a perfect crescent shape.

Despite being a beautiful scene I spent quite a long time hopping over countless stones in order to find a good composition.

But I don’t mind because the composition is critical and the first thing to think about before doing a painting. I believe that even a beautiful scene will not necessarily become a beautiful painting if the composition is not good.

One of the magical things about this scene is the mist that wafts across the bottom of the waterfall. It was also nice when the mist wafted over me because it was a very hot day. Although at first I thought, in a sudden panic, that it was raining.

It was a very sunny day with a warm breeze. Ideal conditions for drying clothes and watercolor paintings. In fact, my paint was drying out so quickly that I had to keep spraying it with water.

I folded the cover of my watercolor pad above the paper so it acted as a little “parasol” over the paper blocking out the sunshine over half the paper.

Despite the “parasol” the paint still dried really quickly. Truth be told I am a little disappointed with the waterfall part of the painting but I will have another attempt at home.

I ate my lunch while my first wash was drying out completely. Then I did my second wash.

However, I started to feel bad. Especially my head. It felt like a baked potato. I had been out in the sunshine too long.

And it was a great relief to finish the painting and go to a restroom where it was shaded and cool.

Next to the restroom, there was a shop. And I wandered around this shop just to enjoy the cool shade.

But I had spent too long in the sunshine and even in the cool shade of the store I felt dizzy.

After recovering sufficiently, I painted the final picture. This scene is of the river just before the waterfall. When I painted this picture the waterfall was behind me.

“Japanese Torii in a Misty River”

Sadly there is a road across the very top of the waterfall. And there is also an artificial channel in the river. I find that the Japanese have a tendency to do an excessive amount of construction. I wish they could have left the waterfall and the river in its natural state.

Perhaps there is a good reason for such construction.

And despite such construction the river is still beautiful.

I think one of the reasons this river is so beautiful is because of the little grassy islands in it.

Another reason is the gate, or torii as they say in Japanese, which is in the middle of the river.

The whole scene was really inspiring especially as the river was set against a very dramatic sky that imparted a wonderful mood. I literally live for this.

A group of Japanese people even came by and showered me with smiles and compliments before they continued on with their sightseeing. I don’t know about you, but I very much enjoy compliments.

I’m not happy with the painting I did of the Japanese Torii on that day. So the painting that I’m showing here is another version I did. I’m not sure if I did it in the same year but it is inspired by the same scene.

After finishing the painting, I returned to the shop and bought some Japanese sweets called manju for my family. These are basically buns with a very heavy doughy texture and an adzuki bean paste filling. They are very tasty.

I bought these as a kind of peace offering to my wife as she had looked after our toddler all day while I had been out painting.

It was wonderful to return home and to hear my toddler’s excited feet coming to the door. Young children don’t walk, they skip.

She’s only one year and eight months old but she gave me a bow as I entered the house – adorable. Her sparkling eyes, wide smile and rich chuckle of a laugh touched my heart.

By the way, torii means bird abode, perhaps this is because birds perch on it, but that’s just my guess.

Postscript

I originally wrote this story in April of 2014. I’m editing it in April of 2021.

At some point, I threw away the painting of the bridge. I probably wasn’t very happy with it. What I am using here is an image of the painting that I had on my computer. Sadly it was a small image and I had to blow up the image a little and then sharpen it using a photo editing app. I think the final result is pretty okay but it is obviously not ideal.

Since this story was written, I’ve visited Ogata several times and I now have a small series of paintings of this place. However, I never did another painting of the bridge with smaller figures. Maybe one day.

February 9, 2022

Japanese rice field at evening time – Watercolor demonstration – Intermediate lesson

In the autumn of 2022, I visited a village called Akitsuki. This is a beautiful village in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. It was a family trip. And at the end of the day, I wandered around some rice fields and came across the beautiful scene below.

In the video lesson below, I show you how to paint this scene in 5 simple stages.

Video lesson

Main materials

3 Brushes

Mop or quill brush	10 mm or just over 3/8” width
Pointed oval	10 mm or 3/5” width
Liner

6 Paints

Phthalo Blue (Red Shade)	Ultramarine blue is also okay.
Cobalt Turquoise Light	Cerulean is also okay.
Permanent Alizarin Crimson
Yellow Ochre
Imidazolone Lemon	Aureolin is okay.
Titanium white	Any white will do.

Note

If you don’t have these colors and can’t wait then just use the colors you’ve got.

Paper

Watercolor paper

34 x 24 cms (13” x 10”)

Reference photo

Rice field reference photo Download

Reference painting

Rice field reference painting Download

February 6, 2022

Watercolor paintings of the Cherry blossom in Japan

“Refreshing walk by the Cherry blossom trees”

It is cherry blossom time and people are gathering under the cherry trees, called Sakura in Japanese, and having picnics.

And that’s what I did today with my family. It’s all very festive and sociable.

My father-in-law, who loves Japanese history, was trying to tell me about cherry trees being gifted to America by the Japanese in 1912. They were first planted along the Potomac river and have become a symbol of friendship between Japan and America.

Although beautiful, cherry blossoms are difficult to paint in watercolor because of their lightness of color and it is necessary to leave white paper in order to achieve this lightness.

A few years ago when I attempted to paint cherry blossoms I was so disgusted with my results that I just gave up.

Last year, however, I had another go and was a little more pleased with the results. And so this year I had another go.

To be honest, I still feel that I haven’t captured that delicacy and beauty. However, I am happy with these results and look forward to doing more cherry blossom paintings in the near future.

Sadly, the first painting I did on this day wasn’t very good. So I’m not going to show it.

However, while I was painting this picture, a tourist from Honolulu stopped to talk to me and tell me about his life and travels.

He’d wanted to visit the city next to Oita which is called Beppu. It is famous for its natural hot spas and hot sand baths. But by mistake he’d ended up in a hotel in Oita.

It was really enjoyable to speak to a native English speaker as sometimes I go for weeks without talking to such a person except for family on the phone.

I am somewhat of a recluse.

Well, I can’t waste valuable time socializing that could be used for painting. And also there aren’t so many foreigners around in Oita.

Below is my final painting of the day. To be honest, I’m not very happy with this one either.

“Picnic under the Cherry blossom”

While I was painting this final one I got numerous compliments from people, especially old Japanese women

And two Chinese girls came and talked to me and even took a picture of my painting and a picture of me next to one of them.

This used to happen a lot when I first came to Japan but is now quite rare. Perhaps it is because I’m getting wrinkly.

I left with the sun going down and large groups of people coming with crates of beer and barbecue grills. It looked fun.

The next day

“Cherry blossom by a Japanese castle”

The sun shone again today so between housework, job and daughter I found a gap for painting. I’m an artist with clipped wings!

So, I cycled down to the castle again to paint the Cherry blossom. And I found the beautiful scene above right next to a bus stop.

I received quite a few compliments from passersby. The most memorable was by an old Japanese man with a warm smile who said: “I also paint but you are much more excellent than me”.

If these compliments stroked my ego, my wife soon remedied that at dinner time. About fifteen minutes after she had told me it was April Fool’s day she said that the raisin bread I was happily chewing on was two days old.

To be honest, I would have still eaten it even if it was two days old, but her remark did make me pause in mid-chew with a look of concern; and this really delighted my wife, her smile was almost glowing.

The day after next

“Walking beneath the falling Cherry blossom”

I could have painted the cherry blossom by the castle again today, but I felt the urge to move out of this comfort zone and try another place.

So I went to a place by the river.

I instantly regretted this urge when I felt the very cool breeze by the river blowing against me.

But I had decided so now I was following through come hell or cold breezes. Okay, maybe a tsunami would make me turn around.

And I found a beautiful scene to paint after all.

It took me a while, though, to find a good composition. I would say this is the most important element of a painting. You really are doomed if you don’t get the composition right and for this reason I don’t mind spending quite a long time looking around and making rectangular frames with my fingers.

If you want to learn about composition I recommend the Complete Guide to Watercolor Painting by Edgar A Whitney. This book helped me a lot.

When I did finally find a good composition I discovered that I had no easel! Is this senility slowly creeping up on me? Is this a portrait of the artist in decay? I chose a very down to earth solution and sat on the grass.

As I painted, the frail cherry blossom began to fall like snowflakes all over me: on my paper, on my palette and in my water bucket – where it subsequently got stuck on my brush.

I had to shake myself down when I got up. This is part of what it means to be a plein air painter; an intimacy with your subject that is a true oneness.

Painting the cherry blossom, as I said before, is a challenge and the best approach is to throw away carefulness by throwing paint onto the paper. And I literally did this: it is a technique called splattering but it could also be called fun.

Splattering is a good technique for a medium that doesn’t respect timidity and reveals it’s best through boldness.

Amazingly all this splattering and dashes of blue sky worked wonderfully well. It was nerve-wrecking and exciting at the same time, which is normally a good sign, and it felt the same as I was painting the greenery and getting those subtle variations.

After this dried I added shadows, tree forms and figures.

I returned home with numb fingers from a cold spring breeze. Although when I rode back home on my bicycle that same breeze was behind me and it was blowing me so strongly that I almost didn’t have to pedal.

“Enchanting walk beneath the Cherry blossom”

I am so delighted with these two paintings.

Sometimes before I start painting, I have a vision of what I am trying to paint and this happened here.

And the final image was very close to my vision.

What I didn’t express was the falling cherry blossom. I’m not yet ready for that challenge, perhaps next year.

Obsessed with the Changing Cherry Blossom

“Stroll by the Cherry blossom on a beautiful spring day”

Yes, I just can’t stop. It’s really amazing that I’ve lived here for seven years and not realized how beautiful the changing foliage of the cherry blossom tree is. It’s like suddenly seeing a gift on my doorstep that has been there for seven years.

Perhaps I never really noticed the beauty of the changing Cherry blossom because until last year it was beyond my painting abilities.

And now that I can paint it I’ve started to really fall in love with the changing foliage as the white Cherry blossom falls away and green leaves begin to appear. It is so beautiful.

So, I went again to the castle.

This time I met a group of drunken Japanese women. They were very friendly. And I wished that this was twenty years ago! Because these women now look like my older daughters!

They were trying to get me to eat some food which was very kind of them. The problem was that I was full and I was trying to paint a picture. It is not easy to paint with a rice ball in one hand. I took a little food just to please them.

And, then, they tried to convince me how handsome I was and I was trying to convince them that I was an old man. It doesn’t help that they are kneeling at your feet with a paper plate of food and dishing out lots of compliments.

And here is the painting I did.

“Barbecue smoke and Cherry blossoms”

So in this painting there are three friends having a barbecue together.

In reality, this is where the group of drunken women were.

They were in the foreground and I thought that having people in the foreground in the painting would make a good composition.

Of course, if I kept looking in their direction it might get taken in the wrong way and so instead of staring at them and copying them I replaced them with some figures from my imagination.

I thought three men next to a barbecue would look good. I often paint a lot of my figures from my imagination.

I also draw people all the time in my sketchbook so drawing figures has become quite easy.

I really enjoyed adding that barbecue smoke. I think it works really well.

The second painting was more difficult to do because it was getting quite cold and I was losing sensitivity in my hands.

“Family reunion in the long evening shadows of the Cherry blossom trees”

In this painting, you have a little story of a mother and son seeing father coming back from work. It’s a friendly scene of a family reunion after a busy day.

What I think both paintings have is a wonderful sense of atmosphere. I can really feel this when I look at them.

Sometimes I forget about the atmosphere when I paint because I’m so fixated on making a good looking painting.

However, when I look at these paintings I can see that atmosphere is the most essential thing because the viewer can feel something.

In other words, the viewer experiences an interaction with the painting.

But it is not just the Cherry blossom that is catching my eye. Everywhere the foliage is looking beautiful because you can see the refreshing green color of Spring.

And the countryside, as you’d expect, is especially beautiful looking in this season.

In fact, it is driving me a little crazy not being able to get out there and paint it. I have that awful missing out feeling but there are family responsibilities and work.

I console myself with the thought that I have the cherry blossom trees near the castle and just this has inspired me and developed my abilities so I have to learn gratitude for that.

That’s all for now,

Gareth.

Postscriptum

This story was originally about 4 or 5 stories. But I joined them together into one. They were written around April of 2014. I edited them in January of 2022.

February 1, 2022
Watercolor painting of a moonlit sea scene

I’m writing this in 2022.

And I’ve been painting for about 16 or so years now.

To be honest, I’ve not been financially successful as an artist.

So far, I think that I’ve sold about 40 paintings.

It may be more.

I wish that I’d kept a record.

But I didn’t.

And I cannot remember some of the paintings that I have sold.

I know this because of one very surprising and somewhat disconcerting experience.

I was visiting a Japanese family for a tea ceremony event.

And during the event, the man in the family took me to a room.

And this room was full of paintings.

And one of the paintings was by me.

It was one of my earliest paintings that I had sold.

And I was surprised because I had completely forgotten this image.

I felt as though I was looking at a painting done by another person.

I also wish that I’d kept not just a written record but a visual record of these sold paintings.

This is because I sometimes can’t remember what a painting actually looks like from a written record.

It would have been so useful from a business viewpoint too as I could possibly see what kind of paintings people buy.

Also some of the paintings I’ve sold were very beautiful.

And I was very proud of them.

So it would be nice to be able to see them now and again even as just an image.

Luckily, with the painting above, I had a visual record.

I remember the person who bought this painting.

And I remember how much I liked this painting.

I think this picture came straight from my imagination.

At that time, I felt a strong creative urge to paint a moonlit sea scene.

I’ve learnt that it’s wise to listen to such creative urges.

And this painting was the result.

I think my numerous trips to Beppu bay had taught me how to paint a sea scene.

And this is why I was able to paint such a scene straight from my imagination.

That’s all for now,

Gareth.

January 18, 2022
Watercolor painting of a traditional Japanese building

Trip to Yufuin

I have a friend who is a metalwork sculptor.

He will soon have an exhibition in a small Japanese town called Yufuin.

And he asked if I would show two of my paintings in his exhibition.

I eagerly said yes. It would be a great way to promote my work.

And I thought it would be a good idea to visit this town and do some paintings of this place for the exhibition.

So Yufuin is a very popular tourist town in Japan.

And the main feature of this area is the twin peaked mountain next to the town.

It used to be a beautiful, even idyllic, place. But then the tourist industry came and started building.

But it still has a few nice features left such as the building in the painting above.

I drove to Yufuin.

It took about one hour.

It was a very pleasant drive through some beautiful Japanese countryside.

However, driving through Yufuin town wasn’t so pleasant.

In fact, it was very stressful.

I took a wrong turn and had to navigate through a maze of very narrow streets that were crowded with tourists.

I drove very slowly down the narrow streets. But still the car was almost brushing up against people. And these people were giving me very pissed off looks.

I know how they feel because I’ve had the same experience.

First painting

It was hard to drive slowly though because I was desperate for the toilet.

And my first painting was done about ten meters from a toilet.

This is the painting above.

I’ve painted this building before but I couldn’t resist painting it again.

And I’m sure this won’t be the last time I do a painting of this building.

I love the design of traditional Japanese buildings.

And thatched roofs are a particularly beautiful feature.

After painting this building, I soon found another subject to paint.

I’ve learnt not to waste time looking for painting subjects but to quickly find something, even if it isn’t ideal.

After I’ve done one or two paintings then I can relax, look around more and explore.

Second painting

So my second painting was done only about a hundred meters from the first one.

It was a painting of a lake called Kinrinko. The name means “golden fish scales”.

And it’s a beautiful scene in spite of some modern changes such as a big white concrete restaurant on the very edge of the lake.

I had to walk around a little to avoid such eye sores and also to find a spot where there were few people and thus no fear of being accidentally pushed into the lake by over-enthusiastic tourists, And despite it being a weekday, there were many tourists.

A near entanglement

Having found just such a spot I set up and was about to make my first pencil mark when a fisherman, or should I say an angler, appeared out of the blue and stepped in front of me.

He threw his line behind him, in other words right at me, and started to fish. After a few minutes he would move over to the left of me and then return.

Perhaps I should have moved but I thought I was here first and so I just continued to paint.

If I had moved It would have taken away the anxiety about having an eyeball plucked out by a fishing hook.

An artist with an eye-patch certainly would be memorable. In fact, there’s just such an artist and he has been incredibly successful. However, I’d still prefer to have both eyes.

Luckily, I finished the painting with both eyeballs intact.

The angler unfortunately had a mishap.

He cast his line when he was to the side of me and I heard a sharp crack.

I don’t know if he snapped a branch or his fishing rod but I realised, somewhat later, why he was casting his line in front of me.

He wasn’t a territorial angler, antagonistic person or sociopath, he was trying to cast his line without getting it caught on any trees.

I just happened to be in the place with the fewest trees.

However, I just kept looking at my painting and the scene in front of me just in case he had broken his fishing rod and wanted to let out some of his frustration on me.

However, nothing happened except a few tourists coming and standing in front of me to take photos. They didn’t even ask. But then again it’s not my land.

I did though really enjoy painting this scene in spite of these distractions.

Sadly, I was very disappointed with my painting so I’m not going to show it here.

Gallery

With two paintings under my belt I felt that I could now relax a little and do some exploring.

Also, I wanted to visit a gallery that my friend had recommended.

There was the possibility that I could show my work in this gallery.

So, I returned to the car and got my portfolio and went looking.

After a 10 to 15 minute walk I found it and it was closed.

This was surprising because it was Monday and the gallery leaflet said it was closed on Wednesdays.

Walkabout

I left this place in a very despondent mood.

And I then went on a long walkabout that lasted over two hours.

During my walkabout I was constantly looking for something to paint but I couldn’t find a beautiful scene.

The new houses are bland boxes with none of the beauty of traditional architecture. Many of the fields have been replaced with greenhouses, which are not particularly beautiful. And there was a huge and brand new car park without even one car in it and that too – as you can imagine – was not beautiful.

At least, they don’t have fields full of solar panels. But I expect that is coming.

Recently, they wanted to cover an outstandingly beautiful green mountain side in Oita prefecture with solar panels. That is to say, cover it all with concrete and then put as many black solar panels on it as possible.

It was only protests by the ordinary people that stopped this.

During my walkabout I got lost in my despondency about the ugliness of the modern world. And I also got literally lost. The latter I quite enjoyed.

Time though was passing. The sun was beginning its slow downward journey that became moment by moment more and more beautiful. I didn’t know it yet, but the day would end in a spectacular sunset.

Third painting

Luckily, after having walked across a few rice fields, jumped over a concrete ditch and wandered down a long lane that came to a dead end I found the river.

I knew the river would take me back to where I had started and so I followed it. And it was along this river that I did my final painting of the day.

It wasn’t a perfect scene. I took the liberty, for instance, of removing a big hotel that was by the side of the river. I hope you don’t mind!

This river was quite dazzling in the evening light and I was entranced by the beauty of that shimmering light.

I walked up and down this river quite a few times before I found the right spot.

In painting, composition is the most essential thing and that means finding the best viewpoint.

It was a delight to paint this scene. There was a wonderful mellow evening mood and it felt very peaceful to paint in such conditions.

Here is the painting that I did on the spot.

“People walking by a grassy river bank”

Although I am happy with the result, it needs improving and I will paint it again at home.

In the second version, I will lower the height of the near riverbank. And I will attempt to make the water appear more dazzling.

I will also add some ducks.

This is because there was a flock of ducks in the water and they looked beautiful.

It was also so cheering to my heart to hear these lovely creatures quacking merrily.

Of course, it may be just my imagination that they were quacking merrily.

They could have been asking who this weirdo is in the floppy hat and the huge sunglasses.

Certainly some passersby had slightly stunned expressions on their faces when they saw me.

At some point while I was painting, I realized that it was beginning to get dark.

And I suddenly had the panicky thought that they might soon close the car park.

If they did, then I would be stuck here.

So I finished the painting off in a hurry.

Then I rushed back to the carpark.

Luckily, despite the late hour, it was still open.

A spectacular sunset

In a relieved mood, I got in the car and started to drive away.

I also had a deep feeling of satisfaction as I had done some good paintings.

Yufuin is in a valley. And so, as I drove out of Yufuin, I was driving up a hill.

And it was while I was slowly driving up this hill, in a very blissful state, that I saw the beautiful evening sunlight streaming through the trees.

It was magical.

And I felt compelled to stop and take a few photos.

If I was more of a free man and less of a family man I would have stayed and painted a picture.

At home, I finally painted this wonderful scene.

It was quite a challenge and I had to experiment a lot before getting a pleasing result.

“Evening sunlight shining through the trees”

Soon, I will be going back to Yufuin to paint some more pictures for the exhibition.

Perhaps I shouldn’t as I will only show two paintings at the exhibition in this town and I already have enough paintings.

However, I have this bad habit of overdoing things.

That’s all for now,

Gareth.

Postscript

This story was originally written in March of 2014. I’m editing it in March of 2021. So 7 years later. How time flies.

There are some things I’d like to add here.

Firstly, I wasn’t proud of my second painting, which is of lake Kinrinko so I threw it away. And even though I still have an image of the painting, I didn’t want to show it.

And I did some new versions of the river painting, as I said I would. However, none of them were an improvement on the original one that I did on the spot!

And this is why I believe outdoor painting is a must.

The wonderful atmosphere you can sometimes get when painting outdoors will add a special magic to your work that you just can’t achieve at home.

I also did manage to get inside the gallery and meet the owner. We became good friends. And I now exhibit my work at her gallery. The gallery is called Dorudonyu Museum.
Here is a link to the gallery.

And here are some paintings I did of the train station in Yufuin. It was designed by a famous Japanese architect. I think his name is Arata Isozaki.

“Small picturesque Japanese train station”

“Small Japanese train station”

January 15, 2022
My disastrous art exhibition

Part 1 Preparation

This is a story about a small exhibition I had in a shop in Usuki.

Usuki is a small town in Oita prefecture famous for a lot of traditional buildings, especially temples.

It’s also famous for a bamboo candle festival that it holds every year.

The first disaster was that I couldn’t show three of my best paintings at the exhibition.

These paintings were a new larger size for me and I didn’t have enough money to buy frames for them.

A sudden cash-flow problem had taken away the money that I’d saved!

Life is what happens when you’ve made other plans. Thanks life.

Above is one of the larger paintings, probably my favorite.

I even went to Usuki and painted this picture solely for the exhibition.

The next disaster was a printer problem.

I made postcards advertising the event and they looked really good.

It took a long time and involved translating everything from English into Japanese. That was not easy for me.

The final result, though, was spoiled by a leaky printer that made an inky tire mark over nearly all of my beautiful postcards.

The next disaster involved the printer again.

This time with the labels for the pictures.

Actually, it wasn’t really the printer’s fault, but rather the ridiculous situation of having one computer that has Microsoft Word and in which I can write the labels but is not connected to the printer and another computer that doesn’t have Microsoft Word but is connected to the printer.

So I was making labels on one computer and sending them to the other computer via e-mail and then printing them.

Although this strategy worked for the postcards it didn’t work with the labels which disappointingly came out of the printer as pure white as they went in.

That was a very stressful moment as it happened the night before the exhibition.

The next morning after a lot of hassle, and also involving the wife who was none too pleased, I managed to get the postcard size labels printed but at A4 size.

So on the way to the exhibition I was cutting the labels down to postcard size.

I don’t recommend using a cutter while in a car but it was a “needs must” situation. Luckily no fingers were lost which is especially important for an artist.

At this stage, I thought that the nightmare was finally over.

After all, I just had to put up the paintings in the shop. No problem right.

Wrong!

When I arrived at the shop I found that they had fixed hooks in the wall that were extremely close to the ceiling.

As a result I couldn’t get the short string on the back of my frames to go over these hooks. It just wasn’t physically possible unless I had bendable frames.

What I needed was sliding hangers.

So, I asked the owner for any sliding hangers.

She seemed surprised by my request.

But the truth is artists always need sliding hangers.

And for the owner of the exhibition to not have sliding hangars is ridiculously bad.

Anyway, she appeared doubtful about having any hangers but went into the back of the store to check.

And at first it looked like she had nothing because she was gone a long time.

About 10 minutes later though she returned with one.

Just one.

After informing her that one wasn’t enough, she reluctantly went in search of more.

Slowly a variety of different hangars appeared.

First a plastic one.

Then handmade ones that had been made from bending thick wire and not too gracefully either appeared.

Then, some very weak looking hangers made from string with a hook on one end and a simple loop on the other appeared. A few of the loops　unraveled when I put my finger through them.

I was less than enthusiastic to put my 70 dollar frames on these hangers but what else could I do.

So with this assorted collection of hangers I eventually had my paintings on the wall in a yo yo alignment.

However, my wife said it looked good and she especially liked the black background.

Part 2 The end of the exhibition

“Historical Japanese street called Nioza”

Today, I went to collect my paintings from my exhibition in Usuki.

I had exhibited about 15 paintings.

And I had made about 9 postcards.

I wasn’t expecting amazing results.

But I was extremely disappointed when I discovered that I had sold just 1 postcard.

And that was to a friend too!

The postcard sold for 5 dollars and the owner took twenty-five percent.

I couldn’t believe they would even be bothered to take twenty-five percent of 5 dollars but they were!

It cost 10 dollars in gasoline just to travel to this town.

So I had lost money from doing this exhibition.

Certain feelings go through you when you fail and you look to blame someone but really there is only one person.

Myself.

But what surprised me was when I entered the shop and saw my paintings.

I was myself enchanted by the beauty of them and I realized there was nothing wrong with these creations.

Not only was this original work but it was beautiful.

It was interesting how the two staff people at the shop showed no enthusiasm for the work.

Clearly, for them it was totally valueless.

That’s all,

Gareth.

Postscript

I originally wrote this story in March of 2014. I am editing it in January of 2021.

I have to confess that it has been a bit of a shock for me to read and thus relive this experience which I had pretty much forgotten.

I can’t express enough to you how soul-destroying it has been on many occasions to be an artist.

Perhaps most people think artists are egotistical, and perhaps they are, but perhaps we all are to some extent if we are honest.

However, what they don’t consider is how most artists’ egos get tortured.

And I thought it important to add to this rather dark story a bit of a golden lining.

So the painting above, which is of a famous traditional street in Usuki, and which I showed in my exhibition, was not long after this event bought by a French man who lives in America.

This man is quite a character and it is a pleasure to know him. He is a blackbelt in karate and a talented mosaic artist.

And finally if you are looking for original, beautiful and inspired art then please consider buying some of my artwork.

I still paint and I love to paint. But I have found it very difficult to make money from it.

Video

In this video I talk about this nightmare exhibition while painting a picture of a street in Usuki.

More paintings

And here are a few more paintings that I did of Usuki.

“Rooftops of Usuki”

This one was painted from the top of a hill. I did a lot of walking that day.

I like this painting’s bird’s eye view of the town. It is almost like an abstract painting. And I especially like the pattern of the numerous roof tops. I think the train line gives a focal point to the painting and as such unifies it.

“Traditional Japanese street”

And this is a beautiful traditional Japanese street. I think the buildings and the shadows look good. But I am not so happy with the figures.

This picture was painted in 2014. This place is Usuki town in Oita prefecture, Japan.

January 6, 2022
Watercolor paintings of a beautiful national park called Aso

Aso is an area in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan.

It’s famous for its caldera.

A caldera is a basin surrounded by a ring of mountains.

Aso mountain itself is an active volcano and around the time of painting these pictures (2014) it erupted.

Luckily, it was just a minor eruption and spewed out only a few small stones. These small stones smashed the windows of a nearby school.

There was also a lot of dust. And for miles around Aso volcano everything was covered in a thin layer of dust.

The painting above is quite large.

I think it was done in February 2014.

I know this because that was the date given on the image file of this painting.

It could possibly have been painted at an earlier date and then photographed at a later date. This often happened in the past as I used to be extremely unorganized.

I’m happy to say I sold this painting.

“Horses grazing on a mountain side”

And this next painting of Aso was a surprise even to me.

I painted this picture around 2013 or 2014.

I originally intended to throw away this painting because I remember that I wasn’t very happy with it.

But I kept it because there is another painting on the other side that I was quite happy with.

Ironically, my opinion of this painting has now changed. When I looked at it this year, 2021, I actually thought it was quite good and I’m quite happy about showing it on my website.

This painting brings back happy memories of a family trip to Aso.

I think my dad from England came so it was also a happy reunion.

And I remember looking at the horses with my daughter. We really enjoyed looking at them.

It was especially fun because you don’t see a lot of animals in the Japanese countryside. And animals in the landscape can really make the scene come to life.

That’s all,

Gareth.

That’s all for now,

Gareth.

December 31, 2021
Watercolor painting of a dramatic sky by my local river

I wanted to paint the sky today because it was very dramatic.

It was a very cloudy sky but now and then the sunshine would burst out. It was inspiring stuff for me.

So, I went to the river as this is one of the best places for painting a sky picture.

The long horizontal lines and low verticals you get at the riverside give the viewer an unobstructed view of the sky.

Also the low vertical features by the riverside mean that the ground area in the painting doesn’t take up much vertical space and so this can be given to the sky area.

And when you want to paint a dramatic sky it is important to give as much physical space on the paper as possible to the sky.

I went to the river by bicycle because it’s quicker than walking.

My bicycle also acts as an outdoor mobile studio because my bicycle basket can hold all my art equipment.

I took the largest watercolor pad I had (45.5 x 53 cm) even though it is awkward to ride with and when it is windy it can even be dangerous to ride with.

A few months ago, when I was cycling in the city with my big pad I got smacked in the face by it. It was very painful as well as embarrassing.

But there are two good reasons for carrying a big pad.

Firstly, because I enjoy painting big.

And secondly, because it is good for competitions where big paintings are the norm and where a normal size painting looks like a postcard.

I also get the feeling that the small paintings don’t win prizes.

It was February and it was cold by the river.

A constant cold wind was blowing against the backs of my legs and as I began painting my fingers slowly started to go numb.

But I love to paint outdoors and to paint directly what I see, such as a dramatic sky.

There is a feeling of aliveness because the scene is changing moment by moment and as I paint I feel that I am alive in that changing scene.

I finished the painting with chattering teeth but a feeling of satisfaction.

I felt satisfied with my painting because it captured a little of the dramatic mood of the sky.

And finally, when I came home, it was a nice surprise to be greeted by a delicious meal made by my wife.

It was much better than the breakfast that I threw together in my haste to get outdoors and paint.

That’s all for now,

Gareth.

Postscript

This story was originally written in February of 2014.

I have edited it substantially as it was too wordy.

Also I changed the painting!

Sadly, I no longer had the original painting.

I must have thrown it away.

I did have an image of the original painting.

But it was a small image.

I tried enlarging it in an image editing app and then sharpening it but it still looked blurry.

I didn’t want to show a blurry picture.

So I replaced it with a painting from the same year.

Fortunately, this painting showed a dramatic sky with the sunlight bursting out of the clouds by the river which I described in the story.

December 28, 2021
Watercolor sketch of a Japanese river bank on a sunny day in winter

Today was a beautiful sunny day in January.

It was a perfect day for outdoor painting.

But maybe not if you have a one and half year old toddler.

I had a plan though.

So, I took my toddler, Annie, down to the river where we could play.

But I also took my sketchbook so that if the opportunity arose then I could also do some sketching.

You have to use your nous right.

But Annie wasn’t going to make it easy for me to do some drawing.

Whenever I stopped to sketch she would stomp her feet, point ahead and make lots of impatient uh, uh, uh sounds.

What can you do?

So I made some very quick and super rudimentary sketches when I got the chance.

However, these attempts were not in vain because from these crude marks I could create some watercolor sketches at home.

And I’m really happy with them.

I feel they capture the beautiful clear light you get in Japan in winter time.

Anyway, my strategy of taking my sketchbook with me when I’m out taking care of and playing with my daughter and then later turning those sketches into paintings proves that it is possible to make art in all manner of circumstances.

Annie, though, was playing her own strategic games.

The riverbank has a road at the top of it and there are concrete steps leading up to the road at various points along the river bank.

Annie wanted very much to climb up those steps.

But I shook my head when she pointed at the steps.

I thought it was too dangerous because of the cars.

However, Annie then sat on the bottom step and pointed to the space next to her and said uh, uh, uh.

So, I sat next to her.

As soon as I did, she ascended to the next step, sat down and repeated the sit here daddy strategy.

This continued all the way up, or most of the way up as at some point I gave up and just helped her the rest of the way up.

To be honest, you only get the occasional car on this road. So it wasn’t really that dangerous.

And when we got to the top of the river bank I saw a nice scene for a sketch.

I did my best to memorize it so that when we were safely back down the steps and on the path I could do a sketch from my memory.

This became the watercolor sketch above and this is my favorite one.

It may also be my only one because I couldn’t find the other watercolor sketches I did.

I’ve probably thrown the others away.

Later, my wife took care of our daughter so I could dash back down to the river and do a large outdoor painting.

Often when I paint outdoors I produce my best paintings, but in this case I thought that the quick watercolor sketches I did at home were much better than the large outdoor painting.

I’d love to show you the large outdoor painting so you can compare them but I can’t find it. I think I threw it away.

That’s all for now,

Gareth.

Postscript

This story was originally written in 2014.

December 25, 2021
Paintings of a road with a beautiful panoramic view

There is a lot of construction going on in the city where I live.

It’s called Oita city.

The changes to the city are really big.

For instance, where I live they have removed a whole row of houses and built a completely new road.

This new road connects to a newly enlarged road.

And this newly enlarged road connects to a new bridge.

This construction work has created a new spaciousness to the urban area.

This new spaciousness is sometimes unintentional and probably temporary.

For instance, by the newly enlarged road there is an expansive wasteland area.

And I find the wild golden brown grass that is growing upon this wasteland along with a few wild trees very beautiful.

It also gives an unobstructed and beautiful panoramic view of the city.

And the newly enlarged road has become a place where I like to paint.

The path is very wide by this road so there is plenty of space to set up my easel and paint without feeling like I’m obstructing passersby.

In Japan you really appreciate paths because the old streets don’t have any.

I’m hoping that it will be a while before they do any construction work on this wasteland area.

Normally in Japan every bit of space is crammed with buildings.

The result can be visually suffocating.

The painting above doesn’t truly capture the beauty of this panoramic scene.

And I will paint this scene many more times in the hope of capturing as fully as possible the beauty of this scene.

Strange encounter

“A road with a beautiful view”

And I will mention one strange encounter I had here.

So one day, while I was painting this road, a strange man came along.

He had long greasy hair, a very brown sunburnt face and was wearing shabby clothes.

He was carrying two big shopping bags.

I was expecting him to simply walk past me.

But he surprised me when he suddenly stopped about two metres from me and started unpacking one of his bags.

I was even more surprised when he produced a paintbrush and a pad of paper and started to paint.

I nodded at him in a gesture of camaraderie but he didn’t acknowledge me in any way whatsoever.

I might as well have just been a road sign.

I noticed that he painted with great gusto.

It was almost as if he were pretending to be an artist.

And maybe he was mocking me.

But I couldn’t be sure.

Especially as he really seemed to be deeply focused.

After about twenty minutes or so he stopped and packed up.

Then, he turned around to me and asked: “Are you bilingual?” “A little”, I replied in Japanese.

Then, he remarked, “Mmm… I wanted to do a collaboration with you. But I am too busy. Sorry”.

With that he walked away.

I was left with a bizarre mixture of feeling simultaneously rejected, surprised and amused.

It was as if a girl at the bus stop that I’d never met before had suddenly approached me and rejected me as a boyfriend without me even asking her out.

That’s all for now,

Gareth.

Postscript

These two stories were written in 2014.

I edited them and joined them together.

In the first story I had written about drops of rain falling on my painting.

But I found no painting with raindrop marks on it. Alas!

So I must have thrown that particular painting away.

However, I had another two paintings of this road that were painted in the same year.

Also, both stories were written in winter time.

And these two paintings were most likely painted around the same time as I wrote the stories as both paintings have that beautiful golden brown winter grass.

The first story was originally entitled: “Seeing the Magnificent in the Mundane”.

I thought this title was too pretentious so I abandoned it.

Also, it wasn’t very clear what I was talking about, which was the amazing panoramic view created by the wasteland area by a road.

It was written on the 20th of January, 2014.

And the second story was originally entitled: “Rejected by a Homeless-Looking Artist”.

This second story was written just a few days after the first one on the 23rd of the same month.

December 23, 2021