Kids at play

Just finished my sixth painting from my Japan series! This particular image is very meaningful to me because of the events that surrounded its discovery. Another hot and dreadfully muggy day in Kyoto, Japan. We visited Japan in the month of July.... probably the hottest and stickiest I have ever been in my life.It was Adam's (my husband) 34th birthday and we had adventured out to the neighboring district of Arashiyama, an area on the outskirts of Kyoto where more shrines, temples, and a well known bamboo grove were to be explored. Adam and I had just gotten off the train, orienting ourselves with our surrounding when we realized we needed to navigate our way through narrow ally streets to get to the bamboo grove. This was one of the first scenes that we saw down the street from the train station....In the foreground a extremely silly cartoon like "kids at play" sign glowed before us! I really was drawn to its bright, saturated colors in juxtaposition to the overcast, heavy grey atmosphere. It stood out like a beacon of light in the darkness! In Japan there seems to be a desire to make all signs and advertisements into a cartoon world, and this was a perfect example of this phenomenon and I had to document its existence.

Here are some more pictures from that day......