4 season tree

My January goal was to make a 4 season tree for a birthday gift for my sister, Julie.  With the tree, I included decorations for each season.  I made snow/snowflakes for winter, green leaves/flowers for Spring/Summer and colorful leaves for Fall.  The picture posted is the tree decorated for Valentine's day!

-NB

Sumi-e

My January creative goal was to take a Sumi-e art class.   This is a form of Japanese ink painting using rice paper, sumi-e ink, and a bamboo paint brush.   Below you will see the practice paintings.  The whole two days of the art workshop focused on bamboo, stems and leaves.  It was much harder than I thought!  I wish to continue practicing and buy a Sumi-e book that comes with an instructional DVD by Shozo Sato.

  (I still have a lot of rice paper left over).

- JM