watercolor work-English oak acorns

I decided to blog as possible as I can; it is a very good practice of my English writing, or as I am not a native speaker of English, I do not have many opportunities to write any English here in Japan. Actually you need not use any English in this country (especially in the country sites),  it's so easy to lose it!

I really like trees in every season and draw them a lot in various colors,  golden and light yellow green in spring, then all kinds of green and  blue shades in gradation in summer, changing gradually into yellow, gold, brown, orange, bronze, purple and red, of course in autumn.
 I even adore the shabby and grim gray shades of winter as  dark colors sometimes let us know the beauty of dim lights.

Today let me share the acorns of English oak tree I met in the UK, and its fairy. This is very small picture, postcard size.

Oh, our dog Koma is now six month old and  really changing: her hair is getting long and she is soooo cute!

I love her so much :)

our dog-2

Our dog will be  five months old at the end of this month, and boy, how big she got!
Now she weighs almost 3 kilos while she was only a 600 gram-weighing tiny little puppy when we first took her our home.
See the big difference from the photos of my last post?

She is so energetic, playful and cheerful and gives me and my family a lot of laughs and smiles.
As I wrote in the last post, she is totally non-barking dog and it is so  stress-less (I do not know if this English word exists)for all of us who are quiet country life lovers.
Sometimes she looks like rather kitty rather than puppy, but she can do sit and wait at her mealtime!


"I am so sleeepy..."

Our Dog

We have been thinking about having our dog for a long time.
 While I was off the blog for quite a long time, we decided to have a puppy, and yes, now we have one!
It is a Japanese Chin, (have you heard about it?)
It's a dog like this photo:

it is kind of a spaniel, but one of Japan-originated dog breed which has a long history.
As we love and enjoy our quiet life in the countryside, we wanted kind a quiet dog; that is one reason for choosing this breed.
Yes, Japanese Chin is a very quiet kind of toy dog which used to be kept inside the house by  Japanese noble people long  long ago.  Japanese Chin are said to be very unique, and seldom bark, and we found it is true.
There are not so many Japanese Chin in Japan now because  the number of them has extremely decreased as the World Wars damaged the country and poverty made it impossible for most of the people after the wars to keep  toy dogs inside the house.  They are unable to live outside without man's protect because they are so sensitive to the summer heat in Japan as well as the cold in the winter.
 We are lucky to have found one.

It is a girl and her name is 'Koma', named after its resemblance of Japanese Koma-inu which is a legendary guardian dog and usually set at the entrance of the shrine.
Actually, some say that Japanese Chin is the model of Koma-inu.

As she is still a puppy, she now has fluffy puppy hair.
Japanese Chin get very long silky gorgeous hair as they grow, and we are looking forward to watch her grow!
here are some of her photos:

She is a very active, playful and clever puppy, we love her very much!
Now she is almost four months old, and she has mastered 'sit' 'lie down' and 'wait', and perfectly toilet trained.
But best of all, she seldom barks even when she gets really excited or scared!

whiteknight wood forest

This is one of the watercolor drawings I did when I was in England.
British woods are full of sunlight and beautiful green colors in all kinds of shades and weather is gorgeous and this is important...no mosquitoes!!
There is a small forest called whiteknight woods( sorry I do not know the difference between a forest and woods;  it would be so helpful if someone give me a little explanation)in the neighbourhood and I really liked visiting the place during our one-year stay in England.
The tree in the center is a horse chestnut in full bloom of which flowers  looked like a lot of candles lighting in the tree. 

blue bell fairy

This is bluebell fairy which I painted in watercolor after I first saw bluebell underneath the trees in spring, in England.
It is magical to see so many small blue flowers in bloom like a beautiful blue carpet underneath the trees in the woods in England.
They were actually bells ringing out for joy of spring!
Thank you for watching my work.

snowdrop fairy

We are heading straight into hot and humid summer now, but as some lovely and gorgeous summer photos of England which I watched in some blogs last night reminded me of the wonderful scenery and the time we had in Reading, I am going to post the snowdrop fairy which I drew in watercolor today.

This is one of my favorite fairies as you see its my profile image.
Snowdrop, I feel, is maybe one of the fastest messengers of telling us  coming of the spring. I tried to express the awakening of its spring messenger from deep in the cold and freezing soil.
hmmm, its so difficult to explain what I want to tell you in English.
Yet I am going to give it a try, so I would be  happy if you read it and watch my works. Thank you.

up

and up

watercolor painting: an old town in England

In fact, I used to live in Reading, Berkshire, England for one year.
It was two years ago, and It was my first visit to England.
I had experience to live in the USA long long time ago when our first daughter was a baby; and as I had such experience to live in the English- spoken foreign country for a while, we were not very worried when we came to the GB very much.
However, in reality, it was kind of a  cultural shock to both of us!
Well, they speak English, but not the kind we knew;  we could not make out what they spoke; it sounded like totally different language. Later on we got to know that many English words itself as well as pronunciation are different.
But anyway, the towns are beautiful and countryside is so attractive with a lot of trees and flowers and small and cozy country houses.
Today's my watercolor picture I am going to show you is a small country town which is somewhere around or in Berkshire.
I drew this looking at a photo I had taken.
I hope you like it :)

I