etegami travel diaries

In my Beginner's Guide to Etegami book, I have a section on etegami travel diaries which includes this image of a 700-year old Katsura tree surrounded by Buddhist statues. The tree is encircled by an old rope, which marks it as a sacred place. But it was the glow of the fall leaves, both on the branches and on the ground, that persuaded me to linger until I could burn the scene into my memory.

When I paint a scene like this, which fills so much of the card that there's hardly any room for words, I often type the words onto a sheet of printer paper, cut them out, and glue them to the card. The typed words in their strips of white provide a contrast to the organic quality of the colorful image, making them easier to read. I separate each line from the others by fanning them out like this to avoid blocking too much of the image and to allow better blending (without getting lost) into the background.

These lines come from the poem Envoi, by the British poet Kathleen Raine.