retro (showa series)

ramen vendor's cart

tofu vendor's cart

roasted sweet potato vendor's cart

These images are works-in-progress from my Showa Era series. They depict just a few of the many mobile vendors that used to be around when I was a child during Japan's Showa period: 1926~1989, the time of history corresponding to the reign of the Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito. Though they aren't quite extinct, these mobile vendors are much less common than they used to be, and running across one these days is a nostalgic experience.

Over the next few months, I plan to add the goldfish vendor, the wind chime vendor, the bamboo laundry pole vendor, the soba noodle delivery man, and others. Each type of vendor has its own unique sing-song call or musical notes played on a tin horn by which it announces itself, and which draws eager customers into the street to make their purchases.

playing with food

I confess. I've been playing with my food. It occurred to me that I could do more than draw food for my food-themed mail art series. I could use the food itself for drawing. So instead of sumi, I experimented using coffee for ink. Ordinary-strength coffee wasn't dark enough, so I dissolved some long-expired coffee granules with a bit of water to get the desired density. After using this "ink" to make the outlines of various images, I watered it down to use as I would gansai paint, for coloring inside the lines. What resulted were etegami with the feel of sepia photographs. Kind of retro. I drew the coffee bean etegami with a bamboo quill-pen on a brown-tinged card (hence the blotches). The character in the upper right corner is the character for bean. I drew the old-fashioned coffee grinder with an ink brush on a white card and used the diluted coffee to color within the lines. I obviously need more practice, but I feel like I'm on to something. And the room sure smells good. ;D