Mainichi Hanafuda: plum "junk"

A standard Japanese hanafuda deck contains 12 suits of 4 cards each. Most of the suits contain 2 valuable cards that can be used to make high-point combinations, and 2 "junk" cards. Yesterday's red-banner card was special, and today's is one of the two junk cards in the plum suit. I enjoyed illustrating these plum trees, because it was one of the subjects I learned to paint during my Sumi-e class at Kansai Gaidai. Of course, it's a different technique and a much smaller scale, but I think they turned out very attractive all the same.

Speaking of Kansai, you can get to a beautiful plum orchard if you go to the Hirakata-shi Mr. Donut and keep walking away from the city until you find a wide wooden stairway that goes up the side of a hill and into the forest. I would go there to sit and think sometimes before my first class of the morning.