Category Archives: travel

Gion Night

Electric lights, illuminated signage and red Japanese lanterns glowing from a Gion Higashi side-street, together create a nocturnal abstract.

“Gion Night” (above) is my third consecutive drawing of soft-focus Kyoto. “Gion Night” is the most abstract of the three, but if you know the idea began with a side-street or alley-way, you can kind of see it.

The previous two drawings are “Alone in Kyoto” and “Downtown“.

“Alone in Kyoto” Neocolor II and coloured pencils. 23.5 x 28.5 cm. April 2024.

“Alone in Kyoto” (above) was drawn after “Downtown” (below). Each drawing is more pared back than the previous one, with incrementally decreasing detail.

“Downtown” Neocolor II and coloured pencils. 30 x 21 cm, drawn in March 2024.

These three drawings have been questioning, challenging, frustrating and fulfilling in turn for me as I have sought out an impressionistic essence of evening Kyoto.

Alone in Kyoto

Last time I traveled to Kyoto I was not in a good mood during my first evening there. No doubt I was worn out from lack of sleep and two long-haul flights. I felt that I had made a mistake in coming back. I trudged around for a while in a black mood then gave up on finding inspiration and returned to my hotel room.

Looking back at my (very few) photo images from that first evening, I wondered if I could communicate my sense of doubt in a drawing. In my journal I had written “worst first night ever“, and that I was fluctuating between despair and resignation.

Well, there can be a kind of dark beauty in introspection – perhaps.

Kyoto Twilight

It was November 2005. Having used a film camera for decades, this was my first trip to Japan with a digital camera…a Nikon D70 if I remember correctly.

I wandered around Pontocho in Kyoto just as the light was morphing from daylight into evening – which is my favourite time. Lanterns and neon lights were popping on as the sky, not to be outdone, radiated its own quiet glow. I captured the moment with my new camera.

Back in 2006 I used the same source photo for another drawing which I called “Illuminating Dusk”. Because I have always loved this composition, I wanted to have another go at it in 2024.

The main lantern, incidentally, has been gone for years so if you go to Kyoto you will never see this scene. I suppose that makes this drawing a little bit of history.

“Illuminating Dusk”, coloured pencils, 36 x 55.5 cm. Drawn in 2006.

My friend, Hiroo Inoue, explained about the lantern in a letter in 2006 after I showed him the drawing I’d made. He wrote, “The kanji letters say DAI TOMI RYO, literal meaning is Great Wealth Ryo Ryo. This has various meanings like monetary unit in olden times and it also means “both”. Probably Dai Tomi Ryo is the name of a Japanese restaurant. During summer time those Japanese restaurants along side of Kamogawa river, they stretch verandahs over the river. They place mats on the extended verandahs where you enjoy the sound of river flow, also enjoy Japanese dishes. Dai Tomi Ryo can offer such services during summer season”.

Rest in Peace, Hiroo-san.

Afterword: A friend commented that she thought I was brave to work twice from the same photo. I explained it this way; I saw Kyoto with fresh wide-open eyes in my early trips so I photographed things I wouldn’t even “see” when I became more familiar with the place. Now I see these early images as treasure. I bring an evolved pencil technique to the old compositions which make the finished new drawings completely different to the original drawings.

Glowing in Kyoto

Time stands still – are we in the twenty-first century? Katsutomo-san approaches her okiya, key-in-hand, on a Gion street, while the always-present lanterns bob and glow.

As I continue to have an emotional pull toward lanterns, wooden tea-houses and geisha, I am unearthing my twenty year cache of Kyoto photos in order to mine them for possible new drawings. “Glowing in Kyoto”, just completed, is drawn from a photo I took on a summer afternoon in 2014.

I made a drawing from this same image back in 2014. I called it “The Art of Elegance”. You can play “spot the difference” between the two drawings.

“The Art of Elegance”, coloured pencils, 39.5 x 48 cm. Drawn in August 2014.

I find solace in subject matter such as this. The calm demeanor of elegant Katsutomo-san, the repetitive slats of wood and reassuring red lanterns are a meditation; a nostalgic world I can disappear into.

Gion Kouta

“Gion kouta” is the name of a hauntingly beautiful dance performed by maiko and geiko. The kouta (song) lyrics wistfully describe timeless Kyoto; its romantic changing seasons, fleeting beauty and ephemeral geisha.

I give this drawing the title “Gion Kouta” as, to me, it has all the romance of the song. Maiko (with accompanying shikomi) hurry through drizzle under their paper wagasa (umbrellas). Ichiriki-tei (the most famous tea-house in all of Japan) is on the left; lanterns and street lamps glow and reflect, and in the distance loom the eastern hills – Higashiyama.

Even the hotel where I stay is in this drawing. APA Gion Hotel is the pinkish multi-level building behind on the left. I’ll be there again in a couple of weeks’ time.

I took the source photo for this drawing in June 2016. It took me seven years to figure out how to bring about the drawing I had in mind! Once I began, the drawing drew itself quite effortlessly – and came to a resolution ‘just like that’ without angst.

Click on the link below to hear the beautiful and somewhat melancholy tune of “Gion Kouta”.

A Walk in Miyagawa

With the latest art exhibition “Home & Heart – local love stories” behind me, I decide to indulge myself with a Kyoto drawing – just for the sheer love of it.

Miyagawa is one of Kyoto’s five geisha districts. I was last there in November 2019 and this drawing is from a photo I took during that trip.

I like spending time in Miyagawa as it is quiet. Just ten minutes’ walk north, the better-known geisha district of Gion is heaving with tourists eagerly (and sometimes brutally) trying to intercept maiko and geiko (geisha) for photos.

Below are three older drawings from Miyagawa; each portrays a rear view. I love drawing the kimono ensemble from behind, while pictorially, a retreating figure guides the viewer into the scene.

“Last Night I Dreamed of Kyoto” is the same street on the same night but treated differently. Drawn in 2021.

“Surprise!” – two maiko were ambushed by a group of cameramen as they turned a corner. Drawn in 2011.

“Step by Step” – a young maiko and an old lady represent the passage of time. Drawn in 2014.

Timeless Miyagawa – as I draw the scene, so I am also drawn in.

Southerly Change

I have just been reunited with one of my old paintings. I painted it so long ago that I couldn’t remember quite the year or time or place. I had to do some memory-and-photo-album searching for clues. My sister, Jeannie, returned this painting to me on a recent trip to New Zealand. It is now the oldest art work in my possession; between 39 and 40 years old!

The photo I painted this from was taken in 1983 on my first trip back to New Zealand after moving to Sydney the previous year. I remember I was walking down Colombo Street in Christchurch and it was a most perfect winter’s day. As I walked, dramatic clouds began forming over the Port Hills. They heralded a southerly change after which there was no more blue sky but mist, rain and bleak mid-winter cold.

Here I am during that trip (in Stokes Valley, Wellington) with Jonathan and Marie; my nephew and niece. (Remember those 1980’s pullovers? Princess Diana wore one.)

A visit to the Clements family in Beckenham. I wasn’t married back then but now these are some of my brothers- and sisters-in-law, and nephew, Joseph. And Friend, Sarah.

At Christchurch Airport – my brother, Max, my sister-in-law, Clare, and friend, Sarah. I was returning to Sydney, Australia.

I was able to date “Southerly Change” to before I had my first baby who was born in October 1984. Here I am pregnant and waiting for the event – with the painting as part of the bedroom scenery.

Once the baby (Emily) arrived it was difficult to paint but I kept going and here is a photo (and painting) from early 1985.

What fun it is to have “Southerly Change” back and to reconnect with memories of that era. I am grateful to Jeannie for keeping things.

To see more oil paintings from the 1980s and 1990s of New Zealand click here

Verandah Resident

I recently returned from a trip to Donnelly River; a 1950s heritage-listed timber mill town 300 km south of Perth. The mill closed in 1978 and today the village is a peaceful holiday haven – a place where this world still feels good. I was invited to be one of six artists to stay there and then take part in an art exhibition – The 2022 Donnelly Verandah Residencies. I took Matthew along and for several days we soaked up the wintry atmosphere, walked, observed and photographed.

My drawing “Verandah Resident” is of a Red-Winged Fairy Wren who we met on the verandah of the general store.

I will be doing more Donnelly-inspired drawings for the exhibition which will be held at Earlywork in South Fremantle from 19-28 August. Website: https://www.thedonnellyverandahresidencies.com/

Donnelly is HEAVEN. Here are some of the photographs I took…

The road in showing the general store (and kangaroo)

Derelict cottage, winter trees and spring flowers

Female Western Rosella (front) with Twenty Eight Parrot (rear)

Male Western Rosella in the rosemary bush

Matthew and I were so enthralled by Donnelly River that we will return in spring. If you love birds, animals, trees and peace, this is UTOPIA. Here is the accommodation website – so you can book your own trip https://donnellyriver.com.au/

A Late Night Conversation

For several days I have been “in training”. “Each night I stayed up as late as I could and each morning attempted to sleep in. My goal was to adjust my body-clock so that I wouldn’t only be awake until midnight on Wednesday 6th April but also lucid, lively and with a reasonable vocabulary at my disposal.

I had been invited by Ann Kullberg to be her guest on a webcast LIVE from America. West Australian time is 15 hours ahead of U.S. Pacific time. Ouch – hence my “in training” sessions!

Everything worked out perfectly. I had a great time in conversation with Ann and midnight came around as rapidly as it surely had for Cinderalla on another night long ago.

While people tuned in from various parts of America to see the webcast live, in my region you were all in bed fast asleep. Now that you are up and about – here it is.

While some of my artworks are seen on the webcast you can see hundreds of them on my website – from the 1970s to now. https://juliepodstolski.com

Last Night I Dreamed of Kyoto

I have been self-disciplined in sticking to local subject matter in 2021. I tell myself “YOU ARE HERE”. I am at my drawing easel in North Coogee, Western Australia. But at night when I sleep there are neither domestic nor international borders. In my dream state I am a free agent. Quite regularly my dreams return me to Japan and if they are of the anxious variety, more often than not, my camera is lost!

In this drawing the maiko is not the bright centre of attention. She is fast disappearing as she smoothly moves away through lanterns, neon and darkness. Beyond reach and dream-like, perhaps a dim figment of nocturnal imagination.

———————————————————————————————————————————-

Below is the drawing at various stages. I experimented by blending the undercoat of Neocolor II pastel with a blender pencil BEFORE putting on coloured pencil. Doing this altered the paper – making it a smoother surface to work on. (I often use blender over the top of coloured pencils but this was the first time I put it underneath.) I liked the feel of working pencils over the blended Neocolors but I’m not sure the end result is different from what it might have been had I done things in their usual order.

Julie Podstolski – Abstract Realism

A site to share my drawings, paintings, photographs and thoughts.

Category Archives: travel