do what you love Page 59 of 81

Eye candy

Posted on 2012-05-04 at 9:00 am.

The Japan Hobby Show was crazy. Literally thousands of craft lovers in one place, oohing and ahhing over buttons and ribbons, fawning over fabric, patiently queueing up for workshops.

And I was one of them!

I went to get some inspiration for The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design, and snapped some gorgeous eye candy – the images above and below are from my favourite stand from Scandinavian design company Tilda.

Now if this doesn’t make you want to stitch up an apron or cushion I don’t know what will!

I took a little workshop from Japanese collage artist and illustrator Yoko Inoue. Her work is really beautiful – she uses photos she takes herself, shrinks them down on a colour photocopier, then works them into gorgeous collages in muted colours.

In less than an hour there wasn’t much time to get into it, but it was fun to have a play around with all the free supplies! I used a couple of postcards of Lily Greenwood’s art in mine.

For the latest information about the Japan Hobby Show click HERE.

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I’m on a big adventure in Japan right now. If you fancy an adventure of your own why not join me for the Do What You Love e-course? Shake things up, expand your comfort zone, nurture your playful spirit and feed your creative soul. Identify your passion and make it a greater part of your every day life! Find out more and register here. But hurry, class starts soon!

Night traveller

Posted on 2012-05-03 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

Have you ever taken a night bus? It’s not the most comfortable way to travel – you have to sit in a chair for many hours (obviously) and even if you manage to sleep, you get woken every couple of hours at service stations when the driver stops for a rest. But even so, I kind of like the night bus.

Everyone is on a journey somewhere, heading to the big smoke for different reasons – perhaps for a job interview, to visit friends, to start a new life.

I love pressing my face against the steamed up window, watching the other night traffic whizzing past.

I love sitting in the dark with my iPod on, listening to Adele and thinking of random things.

And I love coming into the city at dawn, riding past the majestic Imperial Palace, seeing the capital wake up.

If you haven’t taken a night bus lately, why not try it? It really feels like an adventure.

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Our new neighbourhood

Posted on 2012-04-30 at 1:00 pm.

Written by Beth Kempton

So here we are in Kyoto. Week 3 in our new home. I like to say it is ‘bijou’. I tend not to add that our entire apartment is about the same size as our kitchen at home… So it is small but we are loving it. We have a bakery next door, a tatami mat weaver down the road, a sweet pottery shop a couple of streets away and the famous Nishijin textile district just a stone’s throw away. I have so much to share from our first weeks here but I thought I would begin with a little tour of our new neighbourhood…

Won’t you pop round for some green tea?

Now that’s what I call a football stadium

Posted on 2012-04-28 at 3:00 pm.

Written by Beth Kempton

Home of Yamagata Montedio J2 team

I have been in a lot of football (soccer) stadiums in my time – from Argentina to England, Germany to Japan, including one for the FIFA World Cup Final. But I think thisis my favourite one – for the incredible mountain view, for the draft beer and fried noodles and for the Japanese fans who politely cheer the opposition team’s fans for honourably bothering to make the trip to see their team play away.

To round off our trip to Yamagata we went to watch my old team Montedio play (although I must admit I spent much of the match staring at the mountains in the distance…)

Gotenzeki

Posted on 2012-04-26 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

It is really hard to put your finger on just what it is that Japanese people do that makes everything so beautiful, but there is definitely something. They have this aesthetic sense which I have never seen anywhere else in the world – simple, perfectly imperfect (see ‘wabi sabi’), treating space and shadows with as much respect as objects and light. Look at the photo above, taken in this lovely shop at Gotenzeki – a cluster of beautiful shops and cafes just of the main street in Yamagata City.. Someone has just put some berries on a stick next to a teapot, but somehow it is a work of art!

And the buildings at Gotenzeki below – so serene yet cool at the same time. I know I will come back to this time and again while here, but this gorgeous little arcade of shops and cafes (designed by Yamagata-born sports car designer Ken Okuyama) really got me thinking…

The coolest drainpipe I have ever seen

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I am currently on a big adventure in Japan. If you fancy an adventure of your own, why not join me for the Do What You Love e-course (Japan edition!). Find out more and register here.

Learning to cook

Posted on 2012-04-25 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

One of the best things to do on a cold day in the countryside is to cook up a feast with deliciously fresh mountain vegetables.

Kyoko gave me a couple of quick cooking lessons on making tempura and shabu shabu – yum…

Looking forward to learning how to cook lots of new things while here in Japan!

What is your favourite Japanese food?

Old friends

Posted on 2012-04-24 at 4:55 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

Kyoko and Adachi in the jazz studio in their home – happy times!

When travelling in rural northern Japan we stayed a few days with some very old friends of mine. I still can’t quite believe how I met them. Let me explain…

Some 15 years ago, when I arrived in this remote snowy place, I had temporary accommodation for a couple of weeks but no place to stay after that. I had a job working as an interpreter for the local government, and the colleague who sat next to me turned out to be something of a fascinating enigma. Staid government worker by day, semi-pro jazz drummer by night (and racing driver in his early years!), he had invited me to one of his live gigs after work one day, but I declined, having already made plans to meet the person whose floor I was temporarily sleeping on.

After work I headed to the station to catch my train ‘home’ but missed it by a couple of minutes, and there was not another one for an hour. Hearing smooth jazz wafting over from a nearby café like steam off coffee on a cold day, I wandered over to wait it out in 1920s America. It was the cafe where my colleague was playing.

I was stood at the bar soaking up the atmosphere when the lead singer of the jazz band took a break and came over to get a drink. Her name was Kyoko, and she was a tiny ball of energy, with crazy curly hair like no Japanese woman I had ever seen, with kind eyes and an infectious smile. We got talking and within ten minutes she said “why don’t you come and live with me and my husband (Adachi, the bass player)?” Well, I thought, why not?

And so began an incredible adventure, living rent-free with this wonderful couple, in their house with a jazz studio and cocktail bar where we would host parties for all the foreigners within 50 miles, entertain jamming sessions twice a week and I would wake up on a Sunday to the sound of the grand piano. Some fifteen years later Kyoko and Adachi are still like family to me, they still play jazz, pass beers round and open their sliding doors to new friends with an openness which is quite astounding.

Two of the most generous souls I know. I wish you could meet them.

Pattern course contributor spotlight: Helen Stevens

Posted on 2012-04-22 at 3:00 pm.

Written by Beth Kempton

Just look at this work – isn’t it beautiful? British designer Helen Stevens is the talented surface pattern designer and illustrator behind the Surfacephilia brand.

Helen works through layering of illustration, collage and paintings with a unusual combination of geometrics and natural forms. We are thrilled that Surfacephilia is one of our fantastic contributors for the Surface Pattern Design E-course.

Surfacephilia has recently launched a new wallpaper collection and will be selling in Liberty’s of London. Helen’s designs have an uber cool edge with a level of beautiful detailed sophistication.

You can visit the Surfacephilia website HERE and connect on Facebook and follow on Twitter@surfacephilia.

FREE access to leading trend forecasting tools and insight from Stylesight with Module 3!

Posted on 2012-04-19 at 8:18 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

We are jumping up and down with excitement over here – Rachael Taylor and I have decided to take the plunge and invest a significant amount (many thousands of dollars) in providing our pattern students with free access to industry leading trend forecasting website Stylesight! As the industry leader, Stylesight offers “visionary content and compelling technology for style, fashion and design professionals”. We met the team at the Indigo trade show in Paris back in February, and were blown away by what the site offers.

All students on Module 3 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design will be offered free access to the site for a limited period of time.

This means that if you join us you will have full access to ALL the site’s incredible resources including:

The industry’s largest image library where you can search more than 8 million zoom-able, hi-res images to find exactly what you need. Access the fastest runway images, comprehensive coverage of global retail, streets and events and more than 400 tradeshows.
Forecasting and trend analysis from their 200+ person team bringing real time trend insight from across the world
Workflow tools to make the creative journey not only more inspirational but also more efficient and cost-effective
Pattern design tutorials (in addition to those provided in the course itself)
Amazing tools like ‘My Storyboard’…

Drag and drop images directly from your Stylesight Workspace, the image library or your own desktop to create shareable presentations and trend boards.

… the ‘Clip’ tool…

Click on any image, anywhere on the web, and it instantly uploads to your Stylesight Workspace. Combine Stylesight’s content, your content and web content to suit your creative needs.

And ‘Color play’…

Choose from the full Pantone, CSI, NCS and CNCS color libraries to build color palettes. Use Stylesight’s expertly edited seasonal palettes – organized by trend and color family – as a starting point.

You can watch a video overview of Stylesight’s offerings here.

This was a significant investment for us, but we truly believe in the possibilities this course offers our students, and know that this is going to give them a huge boost as they travel the path to becoming professional surface pattern designers.

There is no other online course in the world offering this alongside the in depth industry insight and design guidance and inspiration offered in The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design. This access alone is worth many times the course price. Join us!

Module 3 has just begun but we have extended M3 registration until midnight GMT on Saturday (April 21) for any latecomers to make sure as many of you as possible can take advantage of this amazing opportunity. You can squeeze in if you hurry and register here – take the leap and make this investment in your own design career!

[All images in this post courtesy of Stylesight]

Quiet in the mountains

Posted on 2012-04-18 at 7:08 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

There was nothing but the sound of a waterfall, the wind in the trees, and our steps on the the rock as we climbed up the forested mountainside to Yamadera, a temple built close to the sky.

The last of the winter snow hugged the temple buildings, and the sun peeped through the clouds.

Up and up and up we climbed, hundreds of steps, thousands of breaths, drinking in fresh air and carrying big smiles.

We passed ornamental stone creations adorned with paper fortunes.

We met this little fella, and stopped for a chat.

On this weekday afternoon the place was deserted, and we were left free to climb and roam, and claim this wooden platform as our own. From high up on the rocks we stared out over the valley and soaked up the silence.

I love this place.

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If you fancy an adventure of your own, why not join me for the Do What You Love e-course? Find out more and register here!