Counting down

Thank you everybody for visiting my blog and support for this year. Wishing you all a lovely Christmas and a wonderful new year! Here are my ever growing Instagram snaps from our household. m x 

New Year Open Studio & Stock Sale

Here is something you might be interested in after the Christmas rush. 

I will be doing my first open studio & stock sale on Saturday 7th January 2017 from 10:00am to 2:00pm. Many of porcelain lilypads (above image) and “hanetsubo” series will be on sale with a big discount, as well as some old stock of tableware, many prints and one off pieces.

Why not join us celebrating the new year with a mulled wine (can’t get enough surely!?) and Japanese nibbles? A unique opportunity to sneak peek my studio too! 

3% of sales will be donated to Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and Children’s Hospital.

It will be held at our home in North Yorkshire. If you are interested in, please drop me an email to makikohastings@gmail.com I will send you an invite soonish! Hope you can make it! m x

Smile Maker of the Week #14 - illustration by Sanae Sugimoto

A beautifully illustrated postcard by Sanae Sugimoto has arrived from Japan. 

Among many artists with multi disciplines, I truly admire illustrators the most. Their expression and sense of originality cannot be underestimated. Think about it, they use a pen and paper. Ok there are more variety of materials and techniques they must use like any other art of course, but basically they use a pen and paper like we all have since we were kids. Using such basic tools and on 2D, those brilliant illustrators can express precisely their own world, connect us and make us awe. That itself is so powerful skill I think. 

With that in mind, I love following many of illustrators who I admire, and Sanae Sugimoto is one of those wonderful talents. I remember that I was thoroughly excited when I first found her work via Instagram. She uses just black and ‘shu’ red of Japanese calligraphy ink, which creates rather nostalgic images with her distinctive drawing. I fell in love with her work instantly. 

This postcard was from her current solo exhibition in Hiroshima, Japan. I really do wish I could go. You can find out more of her beautiful work in her site. (→here). m x