Keiko Tanabe - Blog: My Favorite Subjects

Repetitio Est Mater Studiorum

8/19/2018 4:50:18 PM

Repetitio est mater studiorum" (Repetition is the mother of learning). I work hard when I'm serious about learning something new but I don't know if learning by repetition is the best way for me. I'm a kind of person who doesn't like reading manuals so I just start playing with a newly purchased product and figure out how to make it work (well, sometimes, never). I like to just dive in and learn by doing instead of reading or taking notes or even seeing how things are done beforehand. It may be natural for a person like me to get bored with the [...]

Venice Twilight I, Italian Landscape Painting

8/18/2009 1:12:24 AM

What attracts many landscape artists must be, first and foremost, the light in a scenery. Dealing with all kinds of light conditions to paint requires a certain level of skill to make it work in a painting. But that is something we all have to do and also greatly benefit from for our artistic growth. Brief moments before and after sunset are really magical. I think we are all moved to see last rays of direct sunlight or those reflected by the upper atmosphere onto the land's surface. But it is interesting that our emotional reaction to it really varies, depending on our state [...]

Market Day, Basel, Switzerland, Swiss Landscape Painting

8/14/2009 12:41:39 AM

Rain or shine, people come to a weekly market on a town square. Not just in Basel but almost anywhere in Europe and many parts of the world, people know when their local market day is and they shop there for whatever they need for the next few days. I was lucky to be in Basel on their market day. It was drizzling at times. But the cloudy sky didn't put a damper on me at all. To me, an outdoor market like this is a fascinating place to learn about local people and their culture. It is one of my [...]

Milano, Italy II, Italian Landscape Painting

6/4/2009 12:49:48 AM

Milano, Italy II This is a small sketch of one of the streets not far from Duomo. The scene was nothing special, really. An ordinary-looking alley with a car, a man and a scooter. But I was walking past it at the right time. When the last rays of sunlight hit buildings at the end of the alley, soft colors of pink and yellow glowed.... all of a sudden I saw a painting. Many landscape artists will tell you to go out either early in the morning or at dusk to catch a more dramatic light condition to paint. As a painter [...]

Painting Interiors

2/26/2009 10:31:44 PM

Julian Diner I In a small town of Julian, there is an old-fashioned diner on the corner of a busy intersection. If you go there, order a milk shake on the counter and relish all kinds of Americana decorating the walls, and you'll feel like you've gone back in time. This painting shows a girl and her little brother, sitting inside the diner, before a lunch crowd arrives - he's with a stuffed puppy by his side and is having fun on a swivel bar stool. Even though I mainly paint landscapes, I love painting interiors and enjoy the different kind of learning experience or challenge I get from the process. In painting [...]

Road to Eiheiji Temple III, Japanese Landscape Painting

1/22/2009 12:44:00 PM

This is one from my Eiheiji Temple series (read related post). Streetscapes like this are surely my favorite genre. In my paintings I like telling stories of ordinary people. It is ever so intriguing for me to depict their lives in the context of a streetscape. Is it merely recording a tiny piece of history of our time in a particular place? I'd like to think there's more than that when I see beauty, or rather the integrity of the humanity, in something banal or even vulnerable. Road to Eiheiji Temple, Japan III A larger image of this painting is [...]

My Favorite Subjects (6) - Rural Japan

12/8/2008 12:11:44 PM

Waiting for Spring, Shiga, Japan Like anywhere else, urbanization is rapidly changing landscapes of rural Japan. Every time I go back to Japan, my native country, I try to travel in the countryside to look for the scenes that evoke a sense of nostalgia, something to remind me of my childhood -- before it's all gone. A long winter with thick snow is common in regions close to the Sea of Japan. My family and I were driving home from the seaside by way of the Road of Mackerel or "Saba Kaido" when we made a brief stop in Kutsuki, a tiny [...]

My Favorite Subjects (5) - Trains

11/4/2008 9:26:05 AM

"… and I come ten thousand miles away / … and I'm out here on my own / well it was a train that took me away from here …" (lyrics from Tom Waits’ Train Song) Trains are more than just a means of transportation. In the southern Kyoto (Japan) where my family lives, short-distance trains are essential in many people’s lives. They use them to go to work, to school, to a hospital, a library, a bank, grocery shopping or for whatever is on their to-do list. On the platform or inside the train, ladies shoot the breeze and students [...]

My Favorite Subjects (4) - Little Italy, San Diego

10/15/2008 10:53:34 AM

"Barber's Friends, Little Italy, San Diego II" (14"x21") There I see the same old men sit and talk with an Italian accent on a sidewalk. Inside a deli, I pick up some imported pasta, a can of San Marzano tomatoes and olives, feeling suddenly transported to a corner alimentari in a small town in Italy. If you say “Grazie,” the cashier would respond with “Prego” with a smile. The Old World pride immigrants brought here all the way from Italy still lives inside some of the Italian-American residents here in Little Italy in San Diego, California. Not far from San Diego [...]

My Favorite Subjects (3) - Venice Magic

10/6/2008 3:43:25 AM

"Market Day, Venice, Italy III" (2008) Beyond the movie-like setting, you will find the ordinary Venetians living an ordinary life if you allow yourself to get lost in tiny alleys. Kids there love playing soccer; Women are serious shoppers at a morning outdoor market; Businessmen patronize their favorite neighborhood cafe/bar that is the size of a living room. In the backstreets, there's the smell of Mamma's pasta, hanging laundry, lonely fountains... A gondolier singing 'O Sole Mio is out of earshot. It's hard to describe the feeling when you get close and personal with a place like this. It must be Venice magic. [...]

My Favorite Subjects (2) - Cars & Scooters

9/19/2008 11:16:40 AM

Amalfi, Italy II I just love painting cars and scooters. To me, they are beautiful supporting actors in many of my street scene paintings such as this one, Amore. When I walk or drive, I cannot help noticing a shiny roof of a car or a perfect streamlined body of a motorcycle. Show me a silhouette of a car at sunset or a Vespa zipping by, and I almost immediately get the urge to paint the street where I see them. I have never been a car aficionado or anything remotely close. Growing up in Japan where you can go almost anywhere [...]

My Favorite Subjects (1) - Paris Café

9/13/2008 6:25:57 PM

Paris Café X (La Rotonde) I rarely paint portraits or still lifes or animals. As you see, my large body of work consists of streetscapes and that’s undeniably my favorite subject. My creativity gets inspired when I am in a place where I feel the energy of its city life, the weight of its rich history or a sense of belonging. I especially find beauty in what would be very ordinary in people’s daily lives. In Paris, cafés are practically everywhere and have been an important part of people's lives for decades. Shown here in "Paris Café X" is La Rotonde, [...]