Just back after spending 10 days in Japan over Easter. Cherry blossom time and also some wonderful exhibitions of scroll paintings (combining both beauty and some wonderfully comic scenes). We also met and had dinner with a Meiko (training to be a Geisha, a five year process) and two Deiko (or Geisha). Their dances where all of the emotion and story is through the hand and body movements (their feet always remain on the ground).

While in Japan we visited one of the main shibori dyeing towns where I found some wonderful fabric and I also bought some pieces of vintage kimonos from a shop in Tokyo which I can never resist visiting.

As I always do, I took both my paints and scissors and glue and made a series of collages as inspiration for future projects. Our daughter came with us and her stylish hats and dramatic art student black and white clothes may also inspire a quilt!