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”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
