Your cart is currently empty!
Category: Painting trip in Japan
-
Epic painting trip to the island of Shikoku – chapter 1
Video
The story
In August of 2022, when it was super hot and super humid in Japan, I left the island of Kyushu and travelled to the island of Shikoku.
They are next to one another.
This was my summer holiday painting trip and I was very excited.
I was staying on the island of Shikoku for several days and I would be traveling around the prefecture of Ehime.
The big highlight of the trip though would be the lighthouse that is situated at the end of a long narrow peninsula.
It is the narrowest peninsula in Japan.
The beginning of my trip was as exciting as I could have hoped.
The ferry ride over was amazing.
It was windy and as I arrived in Shikoku I got a very dramatic view of the lighthouse itself.
Then the drive along the peninsula was an adventure all in itself.
Although the lighthouse was not quite as amazing as I hoped, I was able to get some great shots of it.
I also used my drone. And later at home, with a lot of creativity, I produced some paintings of the lighthouse that I am really happy with.
In this first chapter you see my trip to the lighthouse as well as my painting of the lighthouse.
At the end of the video, I show several paintings that I have done of this lighthouse.
The originals are available to buy. Just contact me on discord.
My username is: garethartist
All the best, Gareth.
-
Getting lost in the Japanese countryside at night
Sometimes when I paint outdoors remarkable things happen and I don’t even know that they are happening but they later come back and influence my life.
For instance, last year, a man who I can’t remember spoke to me while I was outside painting. It turns out that he is a sculptor and quite famous here.
He knows another man who has a cafe with an exhibition space and told him about me which in turn led to a meeting with the cafe owner and having a talk about doing an exhibition.
The next step was a visit to the cafe which is in a remote area of my prefecture. It is called Kuju and it is a beautiful national park. The owner gave me a map to help me find the place. But even with the map I thought on several occasions that I’d made a wrong turn. Luckily, I hadn’t but it took almost three and a half hours to get there when it should have taken about an hour and a half.
I did though stop at one point to do a painting. I have learned to always be an opportunist when painting outdoors!
The cafe is very new and still smells of fresh wood. It’s beautifully designed and the tables and chairs are handmade. There is even a wood-fire stove of American design.
It’s situated very dramatically at the bottom of a mountain. The site had originally been a small pine wood but the owner and his brother had spent five years chopping all the trees down to make a clearing for the cafe.
The owner, Mr. Akizuki, (whose name means autumn moon in English), had been a ladies fashion designer and worked in France for a while as well as Tokyo. And he is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. And I don’t say that just because I received two cups of good coffee and cheesecake for free – although that is a first. I say it because he really wanted to befriend me.
We had a wonderful talk about art, his cafe and everything else. It was a nice day. He showed me the gallery space and we arranged a time for my exhibition.
Then I went home and did very little. Well, I already had the paintings and the frames. By slow degrees I did though prepare for the exhibition. But to my regret I have always been someone who leaves things to the last minute. Well last week in this case.
So when the day of setting up the exhibition came I wasn’t really fully prepared. Although in my defense, I would say that I’m getting better.
When I went to the cafe to set up my exhibition it took about 5 hours. I had assumed that it would only take about 1 or 2 hours. And I had also assumed that I would be going home in the daylight but by the time I finished it was getting dark outside.
It wasn’t all work though. There was another free cup of coffee and a piece of cheesecake. And then it was time to go home. Mr Akizuki asked me if I’d be okay traveling back. I replied nonchalantly that I’d be fine.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
On the way home, I saw a sign for Oita, the city where I live, and it was the main route, but much longer than the small road I’d come by. I chose the small road and what should have been the shortcut. I wish that I’d heeded the saying that shortcuts make for long delays which I read in The Lord of the Rings.
Well, my choice was a mistake.
At some point I came to a crossroads which I wasn’t expecting. I had come this way in the morning but it was now pitch dark and I had no sense of direction.
I took the road on my right. After 20 minutes on this road I knew that I had taken a wrong turn.
To add to my disconcerted feeling it was starting to rain heavily and become very misty. Sometimes it was so misty I had to slow the car down to a crawl.
I reversed into a side track and looked at my map but I couldn’t understand where the crossing was and where I was now.
I knew this road went to Shonai, which is a small town, and that from Shonai I would find a road that would lead me to the city where I lived so I decided to continue along it. After all, how much further could it be?
A lot as it turned out.
I continued along this road for about another 30 minutes until eventually reaching Shonai and finding a sign with the name of the city where I lived.
In all that time, I saw only two cars and no people. There were no houses and no signs of civilization. It was just an endless line of trees.
It felt spooky.
Although I felt relief to finally reach Shonai and get my bearings, I knew that I had taken a very long detour and that from Shonai it would also take a long time before reaching home.
I arrived home after 9. Everybody had finished dinner. The welcome I expected from my incredibly cute daughter (two years old) wasn’t there, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.
But it was nice to be home. Dinner was delicious and the red wine was relaxing.
I’ll be going back to the cafe on Sunday to deliver my promotional cards. The weather will again be bad and I may come home late. I want to say that I’ll take the long main route but I may take that short cut again. Who knows where I’ll end up this time.
That’s all,
Gareth.
Postscript
I originally wrote this story in April of 2015.
There was no painting to go with this story so I added one. Although this painting was possibly done as late as 2019, it is of a wet and dark road just like I wrote about in the story and this painting might even have been inspired by this adventure – or should I say misadventure.
-
Bicycle trip to a beautiful Japanese shrine called Yusuhara
When I woke up today it was overcast and I decided today was going to be a laid back time in the studio dabbling around with the paintbrush.
When my wife left the house, however, she remarked that it appeared to be getting brighter. I went outside and saw that one half of the sky was cloudy and the other half a light blue. 50: 50 I thought and went back to the studio.
But as I dabbled away with my paintbrush at the kitchen table (aka my studio) it gradually became brighter and brighter until with sunlight pouring through the window I was forced to admit that it was actually going to be a nice day after all.
I was, though, still in the sway of deciding it was going to be a laid back day in the studio and this had created a peculiar gravitational pull that held me back from jumping up and going out. Not until 10.30 did I manage to get myself out of the house and onto my bicycle.
I decided to cycle to Yusuhara shrine. It has been quite a while since I did a long bicycle ride. Although not too far away, it is on the top of a very high hill or should I say low mountain. I’m not sure. I wonder at what height a hill becomes a mountain.
Anyway, I have cycled to this shrine several times and done it without stopping but this time because of age or being in a very laid back state I walked on occasion which was probably good for my heart.
And I actually did my first painting before I ascended the hill. I came across a captivating scene of an entrance to another shrine. The tricky part was the background. There were houses in the background that over complicated the scene so I decided to exclude them and to make it some simple greenery instead.
“Entrance to a shrine” I almost didn’t show the painting above. I’m not very happy with it. But here it is.
Anyway, I continued on up the hill after painting this picture.
And I was pretty red in the face when I got to the top of the hill and the entrance of Yusuhara shrine which was about 50 steep steps. How welcoming!
This was the scene for my second painting. I really liked the dramatic shadows across the ground. And I think my attempt to paint these shadows in my picture is the most successful part of the picture.
“The climb to the shrine” Overall I’m not happy with this painting. But since I am writing about this painting, I thought that I might as well show it.
After this, I ascended to the shrine. In other words, I climbed an endless number of steps. It was tiring but I quite enjoyed it.
The final painting was a small enclosure next to the shrine. I really like the space and in particular the corridor on the right which is a pillared walkway. This walkway gives a spectacular view of the forest.
Painting this beautiful scene though was a nightmare as I was surrounded by a cluster of tiny flies that desperately wanted to kamikaze into my eyes or explore my nostrils.
It doesn’t help that I have cavernous nostrils. I never really gave much thought to my nostrils but they amaze my wife. She often wants to put things up them, such as a 500 yen Japanese coin which is a very large coin.
But back to the story. I think that if I’d had a can of kerosene then I would have been tempted to douse and set light to myself.
Instead I resorted to squirting the flies with extreme viciousness. Sadly, it wasn’t very effective.
And I lost all decorum. I was swearing, blowing like an angry bull through my nostrils and erratically waving my arms in front of me.
I was without doubt quite a spectacle for the calm monk in the ticket booth.
These are the joys of outdoor painting that nobody tells you about.
I did though, in spite of Mother Nature, finish the painting and was even quite happy with it.
“Beautiful enclosure in a Japanese shrine” Then it was time to go home. The return journey was very pleasant because half of the ride I didn’t even have to pedal. I just needed to keep breaking.
That night while I was sleeping I suddenly woke up with an urge to go to the toilet and as I was getting up my left calf muscle contracted into a solid ball of iron. It was excruciatingly painful and I had to rub frantically to relax it. It ached the rest of the next day.
If this was the result of the bike ride then I am glad that I walked on occasion and didn’t over strain myself.
That’s all,
Gareth.
Postscript
I originally wrote this in May of 2014. I am editing it in 2021.
I think I still have the final painting but the others I have thrown away. It was interesting for me to read this article again as I had forgotten nearly all of it except for the muscle spasm. That was excruciating.
I’m not happy with my paintings here but I included them as I think they are a necessary part of the story.
The painting at the very top was not painted on the day of this trip. Although it might have been painted in this year or sometime around this period.
I’m showing it though because it is one of my better paintings of the path to Yusuhara shrine.
-
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.
-
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” -
Disastrous painting holiday
My first painting holiday.
It was a nightmare.
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.
And I did some paintings of horses.
Below is one of the paintings.
I hope you like it.
“Wild Japanese horses”
