Extension of the exchange

As most of you may already have heard, I'll be extending my exchange to two semesters. In other words, I'll be staying in Japan until the end of august/beginning of september. The most important reason is to have the time to build for a future to make a living in Japan.

Which also means I've been spending quite a bit of time on studying Japanese and making and sharing a lot of artworks, while being careful on how quickly to spend money on sightseeing, saving it for times when I go with friends from my class. Next week I'm going to visit some temples and various other places in Kyoto, which is also when the the leaves of autumn turn red, attracting a lot of tourists because the beautiful sight.

Yesterday was quite a lot of fun, as former students/badminton club members came to badminton at the gymnasium from 10.00 to 17.00. Afterwards, everyone went to a nearby Chinese restaurant, which was particularly nice because I found a chance to talk for quite a while to the Japanese former students.

Since it's been a while posting a message on my blog, I'm trying to remember the last few weeks. Tuesday I presented my first large project for a more experimental class. For a change, I went all out on a three dimensional piece, using only leaves, bamboo, branches and other things pickes up in nature and shampoo plus toothpaste for color highlights and a more interesting smell. Since it is quite large and detailed, it took about nine/ten days, working each day from morning until about 2.00 at night.
Other than that, there was a workshop a few days back in the classroom where a few people from a shop in Kyoto came to the campus to learn us to create a small box - made by a special technique - which we will use later in a assignment. Earlier I went with a few classmates to the mentioned shop to take a look around, as the teacher adviced us to do so as well. Inside the shop where a lot of different types of boxes, designs from all around the world and also paper from all around the world, containing very intersting designs.

It was one of those times again seeing a technique for the first time, absolutely loving it and recording it in my mind straight away. It happens a lot. For example, only in etching class already we get around five/six different techniques taught in one semester, which is not nearly everything. No idea how all of this information is going to be used, but I'm picking so many things up here and really get challenged by this environment to try out weird/interesting techniques and ideas out myself, making it more fun then ever before. Plus, people seem to like what I'm making here, which is such a satisfying feeling and gives a lot of confidence. My website and business card are already in English and Japanese ( www.sjoerdgroneschild.com ) and I'm making sure to post some sort of artwork on social media each day.
Next week I'm going to have a conversation with the head of Illustration of Kyoto Seika University about building a future in Japan, while trying to find a chance getting a bit of advice on getting a part time job here. Also, I'll be having lunch with two former Dutch HKU students who work in Osaka now, to get information about the same topic.

That's pretty much everything for now. At the moment, I'm in the campus again on sunday, because my colored pencils were still in the classroom and I wanted to draw on my wallet. (yeah, that's probably not one of the most common reasons to go to school on a sunday...).
Later, I'm going to study again, as the official Japanese test I'll (level 3 out of 5) be taking is in the beginning of december and it would be nice to add on my curriculum.

Good luck to everyone back in Holland (or wherever you are) and check out the pictures I added if you're interested! :)