Value sketches and Miyako Odori

The beautiful garden at Gion Kobu

Today was mostly a stay-in-and-paint day.  Keiko did two demos and we then worked off of pics from yesterday (Ine/Miyama scenes).  We started with making basic value sketches (noting dark and light values throughout the scene), and then onto making a color-version of the same.  I didn't get to that point, though, because we had to leave a bit early to attend a show (!)

Here's my value sketch, though...(don't mind the hotel carpet borders)

We had tickets to the seasonal performance of the Geisha of Miyako Odori, which celebrates the beginning of spring.  The whole thing started with a brief "tea ceremony", but it was more of a "get rushed through drinking a cup of tea in 2 minutes in a giant room with about 100 other people while you can sorta see a geisha doing something if you get a good angle in between other peoples' heads".  The tea was tasty, though!  And I got a ceramic plate to take home :)

Kim, my mom, and Kari in front of Gion Kobu (where the show is performed)

At the ticket office

My tea and rice-cake thing (maybe daifuku?)

The show was really awesome in a lot of ways -- bright colors and very pretty costumes/kimonos, crazy but kind of amazing music (instruments and vocals), and beautiful dancing and performing by maiko and geisha.  If you want a taste of the intense visual and auditory experience, click here.  If you are more interested in the details and history of this performance (which started in 1872), then click here.  Sadly, no pics allowed during the performance, but if you just want to see some pretty pics taken by someone else, click here and here.

I did take a pic of the pretty stage curtain before the show started.

Nice, right?

 Anyway, the show was cool.  We had tempura for dinner at the top of a huge eleven-story mall,  Our meal came with sakura ice cream (tasted a bit like Cherries Garcia).