It’s been a while since I’ve taken a vacation. In fact, today was the first time I’ve escaped from Tokyo in months (to Kamakura, for a bit of temple hopping and mountain climbing and local beer and sausages. ‘Twas awesome).

They say that “getting there is half the fun”, and generally I agree. It was certainly the case today, with the train ride jammed full of good conversation and weird observations. Not to mention the long, satisfying nap which was the return trip. Sometimes though, all I want to do is find a way to distract myself until I reach my destination. Wrapped securely in a cocoon of books, movies, music and sleep. All the while doggedly ignoring everything springing up all around.

I’ve been trying to work on a slightly larger scale recently. It gives me a chance to tell more complicated stories with more subtle emotions and concepts. Not to mention that some of the papers I’ve picked up recently are just too beautiful to slice apart. Take, for example, the background paper in this piece. The deep blend of colors mixed with the gold ink is just stunning in person. It’s really a piece of art unto itself.

Or the subtle variations in color in the beastly blue.

Finally, here’s the scribble I worked off of. The concept popped into my head more or less fully formed, but with an entirely different cast of inappropriate characters. By this time, I had revised them to their near-finished state. The big hands on the mount’s front limbs were a late addition. It’s surprising how much intelligence those opposable thumbs add to a creature; they make all the difference between a beast of burden and a sentient creature.

I plan and scheme and schedule for a couple of months before each Tokyo exhibition, working out the time needed for every piece of art and pre-show preparation, making sure to give myself plenty of time for accidents both happy and grumpy. Then, somehow I’m pulling an all-nighter right before the show, putting the finishing touches on one more piece I Just Had To Do. The morning of the show, basking in the victory of completion, I pack up every item and head out. Every item but one.

That item is inevitably a camera. Hasami No Oto (The Sound of Scissors) at Niji Gallery last month followed this pattern pretty closely. However, in days past, I would somehow manage to forget the camera (or to charge the battery) each and every time I dropped by the gallery. This time I remembered it on the last day. Probably because my vigilant wife accompanied me.

Sadly, that didn’t mean that I was conscientious enough to actually use it. The poor little thing sat in my bag all day, mewing like a forgotten kitten, waiting to achieve it’s snapshot-snapping purpose. And I ignored it. Luckily, my friend Mayuko Fujino, another artist at the show, had just accidentally bought a humongous digital SLR and was experimenting with it all day. You can see the fruits of her labors right here.

So, a big thank you goes out to Mayuko for sharing the photos with me and letting me share them with all of you. I hope those of you who couldn’t make it to the show feel as inspired by the wide variety of cut paper artwork as I was. Enjoy!

Given “Travel” (the theme of the recently wrapped-up Sound of Scissors), most folks would picture the glittering lights of Paris, the sun-baked desert pyramids of Giza, or the stone noggin chorus line of Easter Island. Then they would draw that picture. I, however, am not most people. By which I mean that I never get to go to any of those cool places. Instead, my mind wandered to the kind of travel that I do get to enjoy.

Evidently, the kind of travel that I enjoy begins with me dipping my head into any convenient hole or hollow whereupon it is rent from my body molecule-by-molecule, cast through time and space, and finally bonded to the underside of a nebulous, floaty, precipitation-prone bundle of gasses.

On the other hand, I coulda been thinking along more metaphorical lines when I was sketching out this moody forest scene. Something about how different experiences force us to re-evaluate the things we’ve always taken to be universal. Perhaps travel inside ourselves. Maybe even a short trip through the metaphysical astral plains. Y’know, that sorta high-minded nonsense.

As for technique, I’ve been playing around a little bit more with combining built up layers with “traditional” Japanese kirie (dark linework as the top layer with any color added underneath) best seen in these funky foreground grasses. Basically, starting in the middle and adding out the color layers in two directions. It’s fun, and allows for some great texturing. It also adds a little to the amount of time it takes to finish, especially when it comes to gluing down that dark layer.

I’m continuing to experiment with mixing these two techniques in some of my other work as well. It’s a nice way to distract my mind from not having any time to fly to Paris or Egypt or…hey…is that a hole?

Raijin and Fūjin have always struck me as the odd couple of the Japanese Shinto pantheon. Two ex-demons pressed into service by the powers-that-be, they are forced to work together despite their opposing personalities. If they are The Odd Couple, then Raijin is a moodier version of Felix. Focused, determined, ominous. He doesn’t have time for Fūjin’s playful, needy antics. Or does he? Is that the slightest sliver grin at the corner of his mouth as he dutifully ignores the looping breeze?

click here or the image to see Titans Clash

Raijin and Fūjin are fascinating and awesome (in the traditional sense of the word) as typically depicted raging through a storm. When I sat down to sketch this piece, that was my first approach as well. After a while, I started wondering how they spent the quiet hours between typhoons. What kind of relationship evolves between the people who spend all of their time together; coworkers, best friends, husbands and wives, Gods of thunder and wind.click here or the image for the big frame-up

For centuries, cut paper has had a place in storytelling and folk art traditions throughout the world. From intricate Chinese cutouts to Mexico’s Papel Picado to European silhouettes, papercutting has been a vibrant part of the craft life of many cultures. Cut paper became a popular technique with childrens’ book illustrators, valued for lively colors and versatility. Recently cut paper has received renewed attention from artists, merging modern creativity and thought with traditional techniques.


In this 90-minute workshop, cut paper artist/illustrator Patrick Gannon will conduct a brief tour of the history of Cut Paper art traditions throughout the world. Modern papercutting art from various artists and illustrators will be introduced. He’ll demonstrate some of his techniques for creating this fascinating and fun art form and lead participants in the creation of their own cut paper illustrations. Participants are encouraged to bring sketches, characters, or story ideas that can be used as a creative starting point for their illustrations.

And the details:

Time:  Friday, January 29, 2010, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Place:  Tokyo Women’s Plaza, Conference Room 2
           5-53-67 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
           (by the Children’s Castle and United Nations University)
For a map see www.scbwi.jp/map.htm
Fee:  SCBWI members 1,000 yen
         Non-members 1,500 yen
Reservations:  Contact info@scbwi.jp by January 28
Materials to Bring:  

• sketch pad or paper
• colored paper (optional)
• pencil or mechanical pencil
• eraser
• scissors
• glue or glue stick (optional)
• cutting mat (if you have one) or A4 to A3 size sheet(s) of thick cardboard
• NT design cutter / X-acto knife and blade (if you have one)

This event will be in English;
Japanese interpretation available on request.

Also of note, this is the first time I’ve ever posted a photo of myself on this blog. Try not to let it scare you off from the event.

Confined in a leathery sack, the wind swirls and gusts, waiting to be loosed as a gentle zephyr or a raging hurricane. The keeper of the wind is Fūjin 風神, one of the oldest of the Japanese Shinto gods. All along, I thought it was an amazing coincidence that Fūjin, along with Greek gods of the wind Boreas and Aeolus, carried the wind in a sack over his shoulder. If Wikipedia is to be believed, it is because the Japanese deity evolved from the Greek. Go figure.

Fūjin here is part of a diptych. You can probably guess who is featured on the left half. There’s a whole story to be revealed, both thematically and artistically, when the halves are placed side by side. For the moment though, I think I’ll keep things simple and let the old windbag speak for himself.

Each new year is a time of renewal, a clean slate where the previous year’s missteps have been scratched out to make way for hopes, plans, schemes and triumphs. Who better to lead us out of the dark than the fearsome tiger.

Of course, the trick with a beastie as temperamental and finicky as the tiger is to know whether it’s leading you into the light or pouncing on you from the inky shadows.

One year ago, I waxed and whined about how weird it was to use cut paper to mimic another medium (in direct opposition to my cardinal rule of paper cuttery). Well, I still feel a little awkward faking sumi-e, but I really liked the result so I decided to try it again. This time, I tried to take it even further, playing around with different shades of grey (and some truly cool new papers) for the bamboo. The tiger’s outside line also got nixed, playing up the natural camouflage /positive/negative aspect that makes this cat so cool.

Fun Fact: If I start making a piece before coming up with a title, I often nickname the art something I can remember. Usually something that makes me giggle. This one was called “TiggerTwo”, as in “Winnie the Pooh and…”.

Here’s the original, full-color From the Bamboo Forests of the Night. Let me know which one you like better!

(Oh, and here’re last year’s moo-cows: On the Mountain’s Top, A Forest of Green and The Simplicity of the Path, The Fortitude to Keep to It for comparison’s sake).

Blinded by cleverness into seeing only cleverness, undone by our own cunning.

The fox makes a great symbol, from Aesop on up ’til now. No other two-legger or four-legger embodies that same complicated and conflicted mix of clever, cunning, hunger, pride, independence and nobility. They serve beautifully as both hero and villain, sage and fool, in just about every culture. Look at Inari, Japanese god…or goddess of…well, just about everything. Plus, they just look awesome.

Like Words of Carrion Comfort, Vixen is a little bit of an experiment with shape and texture. Where I used mostly color combinations to try to bring out a softness in Carrion, here I combined that with a little bit of torn paper and some translucency.

Vixen (Inari) is also part of The Way of Flow running from December 4, 2009 – January 2, 2010 at C.A.V.E. Gallery, Venice, CA.

If there ever was an argument for spontaneous generation, it is the carrion-craving crow. The park near my home is infested with the big-beaked birds and they are eternally carrying out raids on the neighborhood garbage bags. But for all their ever-present…um, presence, I have yet to see a baby crow. As a boy I collected discarded robin’s eggs, without ever finding the slightest evidence that crows hatch. Instead, they seem to come into the world fully formed and filthy.

My theory is that dark and ominous thoughts float out of our heads and congeal in the upper atmosphere. There they take on feathery form before plummeting back down to earth to caw annoyingly and take part time jobs as evil omens.

I’ve been combining cut paper and wood for awhile now, and I really dig the way the natural textures and colors work together. Lately I’ve been thinking about using different shapes and kinds of wood. This is one of the first experiments in that vein. Something about the rounded shape of the wood felt feminine to me so I’ve been exploring ways to get a softer effect from the hard-edged paper, mostly by way of color combinations.

Carrion Comfort is part of The Way of Flow running from December 4, 2009 – January 2, 2010 at C.A.V.E. Gallery, Venice, CA.

The 2010 Cut Paper Art Calendar, featuring 12 of my favorite (and seasonally appropriate) works is now available. Made entirely of cut and torn paper (and often wood) in his studio in Tokyo, Patrick’s artwork is a collision of American and Japanese pop-culture, mythology and wonderous creatures amid a landscape of jagged edges and amazing textures.

And look, Lulu has this nifty new preview thingy! It might take a minute to load, but you can flip through all the art, including the brand new From the Bamboo Forests of the Night, just for 2010’s Year of the Tigger!