Capturing the environment through Art.- Sendai 3

Does God exist? Someone ask Deepak Chopra, and he said Yes! with little hesitation, God exist but not in any form but as an infinite consciousness. CONSCIOUSNESS! tHE KEY TO OUR VERY EXISTENCE AND YET VERY FEW TAKES NOTICE THAT IT IS EVEN THERE . a SLIP OF MY FINGER AND i WILL LEAVE IT AS SUCH.. When I sit and draw what is before me I am always there, almost one hundred percent as my mind will never allow for me to be totally lost in what I am doing. Sitting on the banks of the Hirose River in the heart of the City of Sendai. A small amount of my consciousness will always vbe occupied by the presence of sounds and smells and the relative thoughts and ideas about where i was.

Hirose-gawa (Hirose River)

Symbolic river in the city of forest

Since the inauguration of city of Sendai by a great Samurai Master Masamune Date in 1600, Hirose River has been widely renowned with symbolic status of the city. Each of many pools and bridges has its own historical legend. The natural setting of river structure has a complex appeal ranging from torrents to shallow streams. Attractions of Sendai City, nicknamed as city of forest, can not be finished without raising great natural features of Hirose River.... by Global waters

Hirose-gawa (Hirose River)

Symbolic river in the city of forest

Since the inauguration of city of Sendai by a great Samurai Master Masamune Date in 1600, Hirose River has been widely renowned with symbolic status of the city.
Each of many pools and bridges has its own historical legend. The natural setting of river structure has a complex appeal ranging from torrents to shallow streams.
Attractions of Sendai City, nicknamed as city of forest, can not be finished without raising great natural features of Hirose River.... by Global waters

The main building of the Mukaiyama Yochien was what was once a Church. The building was  an old wooden structure built some sixty years ago from when i was there perhaps even older. Most of the Japanese family that I got to meet had faith in Christianity, the rest was hard to figure out. I rarely met anyone who would claim himself or his family as having a believe in Shintoism or Zen Buddhism. The Japanese it seemed to me were more into the form of the spirituality rather than the spirituality itself. or perhaps they rarely show it in their everyday life of how spiritual or religious they were.

There are  parks all over the country from some the size of a kitchen garden to those that covers acres of natural forests, more so than anywhere else in the world, I feel and they are always well kept and evokes serenity and one being close to nature.  It is  part of the Japanese way of life it seemed to spend a great deal of their time in the parks, perhaps my take was the fact that they live in relatively small and confined homes.

I did this drawing  in a short time that we spent while stopping for a drink along one of our trips, it was also too cold to be spending too much time out in the open. This was an orchard sometime in winter in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan.

This scene is quite common in most Japanese countryside where you have the small garden with its small shrine where the boncho bell hangs and a well nearby for washing yourself..  

Another random scene where ancient trees brave the snow in Aomori Composition - is inseperable from function and purpose of a painting. A Painting's intended function the pattern in which it will be composed and the artist's philosophical is in turn realized through his positioning. of key elements of the painting in relation to each other.
The artist is constrained to follow such general prescriptions bu the power  and vitality of his work flow from his freedom and responsibility to make specific choices in subject matters and its placement.

Working with black and white for snow scenes can be very exciting and technically challenging. In the use of Black ink or Sumi-e  painting, white snow, mist, fog or the surface of water are all expressed by the absence of the ink. An ink wash is applied  to all aeas other than those the artist wishes to designate as snow, mist or water. To do this successfully  the artist must be sensitive to the type of paper used, its absorbency, this and the tone of the ink.

Temple courtyard in winter at Matsushima
Zuiganji (瑞巌寺) is one of the Tohoku Region's most famous and prominent Zen temples, and is well known for its beautifully gilded and painted sliding doors (fusuma). Zuiganji was originally founded in 828 as a temple of theTendai sect, and was converted into a Zen temple during the Kamakura Period (1192-1333). After years of decline, Zuiganji was restored to prominence by the feudal lord Date Masamune who rebuilt it as his family temple in 1609.

The unwritten rule of Sumi-e a work down to its fundamental elements; line and space, bothe stroke and space must be considered simultaneously. Each line in Sumi-e should be deliberate and meaningful, as should the space it defines. The artist should not over paint or add superfluous strokes. In the absence of extraneous strokes each line becomes important and must be carefully weighed.
 

Another temple courtyard in winter in Aomori.
The spirit of Sumi-e is to embrace chance while leaving nothing to chance. In this respect it is easy to understand why a good Sumi-e painting is at the same time deliberate and precise, yet deceptively simple or even unfinished, in appearance compared to traditional Western Painting in which space is simply filled.
 The Art of Sumi-e : Adapted from - "Realms of the Chinese Immortals."