On Friday, March 30, the Society held a joint workshop, The Art of Japanese Painting: An Evening of Style & Technique, with the Japan Information & Culture Center, Embassy of Japan, artist Yuki Ideguchi, and PIGMENT color lab director Dr. Kei Iwaizumi. This workshop was held as part of the JICC’s exhibit, Evolving Traditions: Paintings of Wonder from Japan, which focused on the unique evolution of traditional Japanese paintings and the beautiful pigments and materials instrumental to their creation.

The sold-out program included a tour of the exhibit, which displayed a unique collection of rarely seen paintings from the Embassy collection housed in the Ambassador’s Residence, a vitrine dedicated to Japanese painting materials and brushes, Ideguchi’s paintings and samples of colors and pigments. After the exhibit, the attendees were able to experience a hands-on and rare opportunity to paint with these same pigments in a style called tarashikomi, where paint is applied to a wet canvas to create an otherworldly, surreal look. It was truly an experience that one could only get through attending the workshop, and the cherry blossom paintings all came out wonderfully, with each individual artists’ personalities evident in the work.