I've been working on gosuakae, which one of the styles of akae , for a while now. Since my current piece is large, I've only been painting at my teacher's studio. My painting lesson for this year has started with this piece. Last week, I went to my teacher's painting studio in Kyoto with a couple of friends.

In Japan, we have special phrases to greet people at the beginning of the year. When we met, we exchanged greetings with the traditional phrases, Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu. Kotoshimo yoroshiku onegai shimasu. (あけましておめでとうございます。今年も宜しくお願いします。) While saying this, we bowed.

After the greetings, I started painting the gosuakae bowl.

The bowl is designed for traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. We place sweets in the bawl and serve it when we drink matcha. I added some colors inside of the bawl and my teacher fired it for me.

The green color I used for the bowl is a traditional Japanese color containing glass, so it gives a transparent effect. Kutani ware is famous for the unique colors. The style is called gosaide, and the main colors are green, purple, yellow, blue and red. I feel like my green is still a bit too pale, so I need to make it deeper.

Today, I returned to my teacher's studio to continue working on the piece. I’ve now started painting the outer surface.

After finishing the lesson, I asked my teacher to fire it for me again. When I go there next month, I'll keep continuing it.

After the class, two of my friends and I stopped by a sake shop.

We were attracted by the sake aroma from the shop like bees were attracted by flowers even though none of us were drinkers. The shop has been selling a wide variety of sakekasu (sake lees) displayed outside. My painting teacher's studio is in Fushimi, Kyoto, which is very famous for its sake browsers. I ended up buying two different types of sakekasu.

On another note, I also received a kintsugi order from my other friend. The item is a plate of Meissen porcelain from Germany. I'm thrilled fixing it!

(4678)