I hope you are keeping well and wishing you and your loved ones a peaceful Christmas and New Year holiday ☃️ With kind wishes for 2021, Year of the Cow 🐮 よいお年を、ご自愛下さい。 ブレア
Category archives: Art activities
透明観 tōmeikan – tokyo
deepening spaces –inching somewhere, somehow,absorbing and refracting 透 – tō – to be transparent, leave gap, hold light明 – mei – bright/ illumination観 – kan – observation meditation; perceive
透明観 tōmeikan – photography project
透 – tō – to be transparent, leave gap, hold light 明 – mei – bright/ illumination観 – kan observation meditation; perceive transparent and moving, perceiving interpenetrating and making space, like the bird shape of Kannon 観音 soaring, seeing and feeling My series of abstracted photographs has been expanding in the last couple of years and […]
Breathing spaces and balance – Japanese & Chinese seal engraving
It was great to have the time to work on 篆刻 tenkoku seal engraving for hansetsu sized calligraphy paper. These hakubun and shubun white and red letter 印 stamps have a face of 2cm square. After designing the two stamps with a combination of my surname, calligraphy and zen name, and painting on the kanji […]
Twisting branches, fading spaces – sumi-e ink painting
I worked outside in the North of Glasgow with my friend artist Margaret Kerr, painting in my large sketchbook a 水墨画 suibokuga ink painting (style is also called sumi-e) of silver birch trees. It was comfy kneeling on my picnic mat with my suzuri inkwell and bowls and fude brushes all laid out, and very […]
Carving seals and stamping onto calligraphy and artwork
Here is an example of stamped calligraphy (this is kokotsubun shell and bone style). You can stamp on your shodo calligraphy, artwork, poetry or sutra copying, or anything else you fancy 😊 This example is of stamped artwork by Blair was inspired by the dynamic skyline of Tokyo, using Japanese gansai pigments. To join our […]
Vista painting and punky rocks at Traprain Law
It was peaceful working with artist Margaret Kerr (please have a look at her beautiful and mesmerizing work: @megkerr245 on Instagram) in East Lothian – Margaret kindly invited me over to collaborate, she been practicing a deep creative exploration of Traprain Law and its environment and past. The atmosphere, open spaces and vistas as well […]
In reisho calligraphy – the movement and light of the seasons
I worked from Suenaga 末永 Sensei’s reisho 隷書 style of a peaceful and joyful poem by 6th C Chinese poet 陸瓊 （りく けい）Rikukei: 春風秋月恒好 spring wind autumn moon always pleasing It was very likeable too brushing this on the large hansetsu size paper, lots of fun with a long tip fude. Some of the kanji […]
Happy Valentine’s Day 2020
Portrait of Tokyo Ren Master
Many visitors to the friendly Ren Bar in east Tokyo made calligraphy and artworks to express their wishes for the new year… here is my fast ink portrait of the famous master!