illustrated recipe contest

They Draw and Cook has announced a new illustrated recipe contest that is actually open to worldwide submissions, and not just the US (believe me, this is rare). Who wants to take up the challenge? http://www.theydrawandcook.com/glad-party

illustrated recipes for kids

Here is my latest illustrated recipe. I painted it for TDAC's Cooking 4 Kids contest. It's a simplified version of the Sushi Jewels on my cooking blog Itadakimasu!

tea field art contest results

Remember the tea field photo and art contest I urged you to submit to a couple months back? Well, the results came out today. The winning entry was one of mine. Yup. Now don't you wish you had submitted something? It was fun.

one more for the tea field art contest

Remember the Fantasies in the Tea Field Photo & Art Contest that I blogged about last week? I ended up doing just one more piece before sending them off yesterday. This one shows two large baskets such as the tea-pickers traditionally carry on their backs when they go out to the fields to pick tea leaves. The baskets are woven from strips of bamboo. And the shoulder straps are woven from leftover strips of often colorful fabric.

tea field photo & art contest

Haiku poet Aki Gibbons brought this photo & art contest to my attention a couple days ago, and though my time and attention have been tied up with house-guests, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So today I stole away to draw for a few hours, just to get the etegami part of my mind limber again. The deadline is coming up quickly, but submissions are to be made electronically, so if you're interested in participating, you have till August 31.

I kind of like the teapot etegami myself, but it seems that the contest sponsor is hoping for submissions that have more to do with the planting and picking of tea, rather than the drinking of tea. As I don't feel that landscapes or detailed scenes are well-suited to etegami, I tried focusing on tea flowers.

The one with the green background is an etegami/collage hybrid, and the words are from the Chatsumi-uta (tea-picking song), a well-known tune that I learned as a child: "Pick, pick, pick. The leaves must be picked." The one with the white background is a traditional etegami and I borrowed the words from a pop song: "It's that time of year when the tea flowers are the best for viewing."