SAATCHI Gallery -Gu Wenda-

I went to Saatchi Gallery.
My friend whose name is "Sachi" recommended me to go there before.
And today, Finally I have been there.

I was surprised to find it was FREE entrance.
But the exhibition "United Nations - Man and Space" were so interesting.
All flags were made by human hairs.
Shanghai-born artist Gu Wenda made them.
I could see the varieties of hairs in each pieces of works.

Bye Bye Grandpa...

It's my dad's birthday today. But I received the message from my dad that my grandpa passed away today in Japan.
He was getting old, but he has been ok for last few weeks. It was very sudden.

He was really my favorite person and I really loved him.
I hope he is enjoying Japanese sake in heaven.  

Stone Lithography

I have tried stone lithography today.
There were supposed to be more people in the workshop, but somehow there were only me and Richard who is may favorite technician .

So, he taught me everything about stone lithography one to one. Although it requires a lot of preparation to get ready to print on stone, all the methods were like a science experiment and which was exciting.

stoooooone!!

materials to draw pictures.

put white powder after drawing

mix powder and some gel

covering by the liquid

printing!!

the use of water is important!

great technician, Richard!!

★Starting Final Major Project!!★

I have been joining the one year Graphic Design course in London College of Communication(University of the Arts London) since last September.

As part of the curriculum, we were allowed to choose any topic we want do for our Final Major Project(FMP)!!
And I would love to make an another Children's picture book as my final major project!!!!

Thanks to my great tutor at college, she has been letting us to try a lot of experimentation and we really didn't have to stick to the genre of "Graphic Design", which made us discovering ourselves more. I feel so lucky that my tutor was her.
So, In last six months, I have made a sound movie installation, children's picture book(illustration), e-book(painting),branding posters and cups(Lino-cut&digital) while I have still been doing my own project at the same time.

Before I joined this course, I wasn't really sure what the best way to combine my writing and illustrations. But after making my first book "My place" last year, I finally felt "this is what I have wanted to do"!!!! So, I now know what I want to do in the future, and I would like to take this final project as practical as I can.

Therefore, I have decided to make new children's picture book as my final major project. It's 2 months project (by middle of April).

I will start the project from researching what kind of successful children’s bookmaker there are. Mainly I plan to focus on the area in Europe as I plan to make a book in English this time. I will see what kind of narrative and design were used. Also I plan to visit bookshop as many as I can to find out the current children’s book market and what kind of bookshop there are in London.

At the same time, I will keep making the life journal, as I tend to get inspirations of stories from my daily life. What is more, In end of this project, I'm planing to go to Bologna Children's Bookfair in Italy with the new book, if I could managed to finish making it by then. The one of my dream is to publish my book, so I guess it's important to get contact with professionals such as publishers, other illustrators and writer, and get feedback from them.

Anyway, I will try to keep updating my project on this blog, so I hope you enjoy it;)

The label will be #FMP, #learning!

"SOUND OF LIFE IN LONDON"

My image of London:)

I created these images with the sounds I hear in my daily life in London. 

London is noisy but I love the variety of sounds!!!

Length: 04:13 mins

I thought I gave a delicious doughnut to my friend....

I've just eaten my doughnut which I shared with my friend today and I'm quite shocked to find out the taste is horrible!!! It's like a ROCK(STONE)‼
but when my friend was eating this doughnut in front of me, he seemed to be normal..well maybe I didn't notice as I've bad eyes...orz

It's NOT the time he can leave!!!

My grand dad in Japan fell into a critical condition yesterday.

What a coincidence, I was sick in the beginning of this year because of the influenza and my granddad was also catching influenza in Japan at the same time. I didn't know this until I get message from my father yesterday.
I recovered from the influenza more than a week ago, but his sickness developed to pneumonia.

I received the message from my father that the doctor told him grand dad may die in 2days.
I really worried whether I should go back to Japan as I've close relationship with him. I even imagined that maybe my mother wanted to have a company in heaven, so she was inviting him.

However, very surprisingly, he has started to recovering!!
Nobody knows what happened, but he is ok now!!

I just want to him to stay healthy, happy and live a little longer until his lovely granddaughter go back to Japan someday:)

Happy New Year!!

Wish you a Happy new year.
I hope you all have a wonderful 2015:)
A-nya.PoPo xxx