Forgotten scribbles

During my travels, I did a bit of drawing. Teaching was time-consuming and my ticket into Japan, but I still found time to do some wandering around on weekends. Now I'm home, I haven't been drawing much either, but it's something I think I'll have to get back into. Here are a few (not very good) scribbles from my wanderings....



This was my haven - Tully's cafe, beside the Muraskaki River in Kokura. I came here every weekend to write letters, draw and spy on people. I decided not to get caught up on colour and just concentrated on linear movement. Plus, I didn't get round to buying decent quality coloured pencils.

Despite hearing a lot about it, I didn't visit Simonoseki until three weeks before I left Japan. An old port town, Shimooseki is defned by the sea and the goodies its locals pull from it.

These include fugu - the toxic puffer fish that is famous for polishing off many a diner. Chefs have to train for three years to dissect these things and be qualified to confidently serve them up, minus any traces of their highly poisonous livers. Some may remember fugu from an episode of the Simpsons which sees Homer cheat death ater eating one, due to his steely stomach.

I never tried fugu (I'm leaving some things for an excuse for more visits to Japan), but I took this questionable sketch from the top of an impressive glass tower that stands above the coastline, looking over the bridge that divides Honshu and Kyushu.



Below are two more drawings from a few weeks after Shimonoseki when I found myself amazed at the textures, patterns, carvings and peeling paint of Beijing's Forbidden City. It's an artist's/photgraphers/film-maker's paradise and I found it hard to drag myself away.

It's worth mentioning that a huge argument erupted over the decision to allow Starbucks to house a branch in the grounds of the Forbidden City not so long ago.

Critcs argued, as well as the fact that China is supposed to be a communist nation, that the former sprawling palace complex, home to emperors for hundreds of years and entered only by commoners upon the pain of death (hence the name), was far too sacrosanct and powerful a symbol of the country's history to play host to an American coffee chain.

However, as valid as I believe this is, I would like to point out that while I was standing in between rows and rows of carefully carved posts leading down to a very impressive piece of carved stone, supposedly the largest in the world or something similar, I saw a grandma hold her little grandson mid-air and assist him in his quest to have a mammothly large pee all over the ancient monument, which ran like a very noticable yellow river down the old stone steps.

Not one of the stern-faced guards who seemed to spend a fair bit of time staring at me menacingly batted an eyelid at this. I don't know where that stands in relation to the 'sacred and historical' arguement, but it was yet another thing about China that puzzled me. I'd like to go back and try to begin to understand that country.