mumbreeze blog

What do you want to put on them?

2010-11-16T10:17:00.003-05:00

cosmos

2010-11-15T09:55:00.001-05:00

HINAMATSURI

2010-03-03T01:30:00.005-05:00

On March 3rd, Hinamatsuri is celebrated in Japan.
It is believed hina dolls protect girls from bad luck.

Yoroshiku 2010!

2010-01-28T17:11:00.008-05:00

Maybe it's too late to say Happy New Year, but I realize this is the first entry since the year has changed. It's been over 2 months since the last update as well. Sorry to have neglected it for so long. We've had a few more entries at our other blog Cycle Mumbreeze. We would like to try and update here more often, but you can also check there although that's a more bicycle oriented blog.

I am back in Portland once again. Our Etsy shop lineup during my trip to Japan was greatly reduced as I couldn't take all the work with me. It was unfortunate as that was the best selling time of the year. Too bad we missed out on the sales, but we're also sorry that we couldn't offer all the variety of work we had. So, the gift giving season passed while most of the work just sat in my Portland quarters.

That situation is now remedied. Now that I am back in Portland, I have all the work with me again, so our Etsy shop is once again filled with all our finished work. I have taken photos of some of them.

Many bikes are once again available including also the tricycle and cargo bike.

I have been making figures of actual animals as well.

I first made this tiger as 2010 is the year of the Tiger.

and then a pink tiger just for fun.
(both of these have been sold)

Then I made 2 weasels and a raccoon dog. The big white figure is work in progress and it's not an existing animal. The weasels and the raccoon dog are available still on Etsy.

I have many more figures which will be finished soon as well.

Although the gift giving season is over, personally I like giving gifts to people whatever the time of year it maybe. When I see something that I think might be perfect for someone, that I think is the right time to give it rather than following convention.

In Japan we say "yoroshiku" which is sort of the default greeting on many occasions like the first meeting of the year. I'm not sure if there is an exact translation for it, but it means something like "let us have good relations". So, we say to you "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" (onegaishimasu is like "please") for this year of the Tiger. We hope that we will finally settle down (and live in one place together!) and be very active with artwork this year.

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/21/09

2009-11-20T20:21:00.003-05:00

We've been a bit busy this week, so we haven't been able to do these everyday. We have another busy week coming up, so we may not be able to update daily, but we'll do them when we have the time.

The last collage by Kao had six collaged faces, so I made 6 characters with them. (You can click on the picture to see it bigger) The picture above has all six of them, but I thought some of them could be a piece by itself. Here they are below.

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/20/09

2009-11-20T02:59:00.001-05:00

Heroes again...

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/14/09

2009-11-14T03:28:00.001-05:00

cut+paste over+over

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/12/09

2009-11-12T08:54:00.001-05:00

smile?

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/10/09

2009-11-09T21:22:00.003-05:00

transformation!

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/09/09

2009-11-08T21:48:00.002-05:00

scan across wide field of view...

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/08/09

2009-11-08T04:26:00.002-05:00

Many are gathering.

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/07/09

2009-11-06T22:51:00.004-05:00

It found it with the bicycle.

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/06/09

2009-11-06T02:41:00.003-05:00

From Coney Island to a grass field in Portland!

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/05/09

2009-11-05T00:45:00.002-05:00

Let's go, Coney Island!

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/04/09

2009-11-04T05:03:00.003-05:00

Today's version brought to you by Mumbleboy, featuring dolls Kao made.

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/03/09

2009-11-03T10:26:00.005-05:00

Happy birthday Kinya!

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/02/09

2009-11-02T04:19:00.004-05:00

we started a "collage tag" with one of us making a collage and then the other takes it and collage it further the next day. Kao started it yesterday with this one. We will keep doing this daily and see what happens. You can follow the progress daily by checking the blog here.

Mumbreeze Collage Tag 11/01/09

2009-11-01T02:33:00.008-05:00

the "restructuring" of Mumbreeze shop

2009-10-29T02:52:00.005-04:00

If you've checked out our Etsy shop recently (since an hour before this writing), you might have noticed the number of items there have drastically been reduced. Down to just three in fact.

Well, we're not closing shop or down-scaling our efforts or anything. I, Kinya aka Mumbleboy will be flying over the Pacific Ocean once again to Japan and as much as I would have liked to take all the items with me, I have too much stuff already (including many bars of chocolate requested by Kao) to take with me and will not be able to take them with me. Sorry to give no notice of it if you happened to have been eye-ing some pieces there. I will be making new work as soon as I'm over there and also reviving some old pieces as well, so little by little the number of items should increase just in time for the holidays. We can definitely make custom work if you so wish, so please don't hesitate to contact us, if you have an idea for something we might be able to make.

Thanks for reading and as Mumbreeze are once again united, hopefully we'll have lots more to share with you soon.

P.I.Y by Emi Kazama

2009-09-11T02:54:00.004-04:00

This P.I.Y. is by Emi Kazama.
Emi does illustration and graphi design and is one half of Ameiko with Kao.
Emi's P.I.Y. figure has a very different approach with colorful dots and a golden glitter, but if you look closely, it has a mischievous looking face on one side.

Emi also did the graphic design of the goods at the Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale.

emi kazama
http://nhi-web.com/menu.html

ameiko blog
http://ameikoblog.blogspot.com/

P.I.Y. by mejunje

2009-09-02T01:14:00.002-04:00

Here are pictures of P.I.Y. paper mache animals painted by Mejunje.
Mejunje are our friends from Buenos Aires, Julian and Mercedes.
They painted these this past Spring during their stay in Tokyo.
They have a wild style that's quite a contrast to ours and that is exactly why we like having them painted by other artists.

F.I.Y., the yellowish one is by Julian and the pink head is by Mercedes.

mejunje blog
http://mejunjeando.blogspot.com/

P.I.Y. by Sammy

2009-07-15T23:23:00.005-04:00

photo by Sammy

As you saw in the last post, we have this thing called the P.I.Y.(Paint It Yourself), where a blank paper mache figure made by us is painted or drawn on by another artist. This one done by our friend Sammy (her nickname) in Tokyo is done on one of our earlier figures. Our first paper mache figures were much more abstract as you can see.

photo by Sammy

Sammy has drawn on the figure very meticulously. Pretty amazing and definitely different from our work.

photo by Sammy

It's nice to have them worked on by other artists as you get a totally different end result than your own. Thanks Sammy!

Sammy is one half of Sorairo and they specialize in CG video production. They have worked on numerous TV commercials and music videos among other things. You can check out their blog here. (It's all Japanese though)

Thanks Brandi!

2009-07-14T17:36:00.003-04:00

mumbreeze!, originally uploaded by paper whistle.

Just noticed this on Brandi Strickland's blog. We had sent her a P.I.Y. (Pint It Yourself) figure as we are a big fan of her work, but this is really amazing! I'm glad I asked her to do it.

In the current issue of Momentum

2009-07-11T03:13:00.005-04:00

Just to clarify in case you didn't know what the last post was about.

Momentum magazine's new issue features a section of DIY bicycle related projects and we got a little mention in it. The photo above is pretty much all of it and there is no tutorial of how to make a paper mache bicycle or anything, but still it was nice to have a picture of our little bike figure in the public domain.

Momentum (The magazine for self-propelled people) is a magazine mostly about bicycling. Not so much about the Tour de France, but more about everyday bicycling. It may not be your cup of tea if you have no interest in bicycling, but I imagine bicycle as a means of transportation will be a lot more relevant to more people in the future, so maybe it would be good to take a look in this magazine and see what is going on in the world of everyday bicycling. You can pick up the magazine in bike shops throughout the US and Canada or you can download a PDF copy from their site.

We, Mumbreeze are of course very fond of the bicycle so much so that now we have a blog dedicated to the subject called Cycle Mumbreeze. That is definitely more focused on cycling, but come take a look if you're interested.

NO.40

2009-07-04T22:36:00.005-04:00

Get your own - Open publication

Bike figures at the fair

2009-06-26T17:42:00.004-04:00

I don't know if I've mentioned here or not, but I have began a new Cycling specific blog called Cycle Mumbreeze. I already it wrote about this there, but I will be taking part in the Multnomah County Bike Fair's Bike Craft event this Saturday. I have been in mass production mode of the paper mache bike figures the last few days.

So, these in the above picture, along with others will be there on sale.

During the day of the sale, I will be taking the bike figures off from our Etsy shop temporarily. I haven't sold these figures in public before and I don't know how well they will sell, but if you've been eyeing any particular figure, I can't guarantee they will still be available after the sale. Even if they all sell out, I will be making more but no figure are exactly the same as they are all individually hand made.

If you are in Portland, come check out the Multnomah County Bike Fair!

MULTNOMAH COUNTY BIKE FAIR
Col. Summers Park, SE 20th Ave and Belmont St.
2:00pm - 7:00pm

MCBF is the catastrophic culmination of 2+ weeks of Pedalpalooza bike fun.
Local bikey artisan craft bazaar care of bikeportland.org
"Biking around large vehicles" clinic by TriMet's Dan Christensen.
Affordable lights and helmets from Protect Your World.
Local food carts including bike-based Soupcycle!
Root beer garden for the kiddos.
As always, live music and crazy competitions.
Bring your friend. Bring your bike. Bring your sunscreen. Bring your camera. Bring your best game. Bring your bandages. Bring your bike fun.

The real collaboration begins

2009-06-17T22:47:00.002-04:00

Thanks to everyone who participated in the paper mache Giveaway last week. We have a happy winner and the figure has been sent to her which she should receive within a few days.

While Kao was here in Portland, we begun doing these collaborative pencil drawings. The way we did it was we would each start a drawing on a piece of paper, then whenever one of us felt like it, we switched these 2 pieces of paper and then continued drawing with what was already there. We repeated this process until we felt like the drawings were finished.

We've never really collaborated on same pieces of art before as we have very different styles to our work. We've done a bunch of shows where we both contributed pieces, but I don't think either of us really had any vision of how we might work together on same pieces of art. We've done some casual doodling, kind of like these drawings, but nothing we took seriously. I think the idea to do these drawings came to me after we visited the APAK guys for a barbecue. We had a great time hanging out and we ended up doing some drawings together. The APAK guys do some pretty amazing collaborative artwork and I think we were a bit envious that they are able to work together like that. I didn't think that we could just instantly start making seamless work like they did, so I thought we should begin with something very basic like paper and pencil.

We did 12 drawings (2 per day) altogether while she was here and I'm quite surprised how well they seemed to turn out. The way I draw is bold and perhaps lacking in depth, but Kao is much more skilled and detailed in her drawing, so put together it seems to produce work that neither of us can make alone.

We don't really have any immediate plans for these drawings yet, but we might do some coloring by Photoshop and make prints or something. I think we will go further and experiment with different methods as soon as we get a chance.

You can see all the 12 drawings in this slide show below.

Giveaway on YellowGoat!

2009-06-09T23:00:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone. It has been like 3 weeks since the last update, but it has been a very productive time for Mumbreeze. Kao who mostly lives in Japan was here in Portland, so we had a very good month together. It's kind of a long story to explain why we don't live together all the time as most married couples do and I'm not gonna go into that today, but that's a situation we hope to remedy soon. I hope we will find us a new home to live together before the year is over.

Today I am writing about this giveaway which is happening now at the YellowGoat blog. Petula aka YellowGoat who has a wonderful shop on Etsy has a great blog where she regularly has giveaways of work by artists. She was kind to offer us the opportunity do a giveaway of one of our artworks. It has been great starting an Etsy shop and be welcomed by other artists who have shops there, but this is the first time we are doing a giveaway. How it works is, if you want a chance to win the paper mache piece there, all you need to do is to have a look at our Etsy shop and make a comment stating which piece you like there the most. If you are on Twitter, you can tweet about the Giveaway for extra entries as well.

We are nowhere as organized as Petula is in promoting our work, but I think this Giveaway thing is really ingenious. It is easy to write about an artist and have some links foe the readers to check out, but I think it's rare that people will go to your store and have a good look at everything there. It is definitely worth giving away a piece of artwork for. It's great to read the comments and see what people are saying about our work. I can't help, but to check it out every few hours to see if there's more comments. I don't know how many comments her giveaways get normally, but it seems like it's lagging behind a bit compared to some other ones she's done. Maybe our work just isn't as attractive as the others, but if you read this and have a minute or two of free time, please go check out our shop and comment on the giveaway blog entry. You might just win the paper mache figure!

Well, this blog is just getting re-started, so I don't know how much if any effect this will have, but we are trying to get better about promoting our shop, so here it is. I hope we will be able to return the favor to YellowGoat in the future. Thanks Petula!

The Giveawy will end Sat June 13th, 12PM Hong Kong time.

blog re-start

2009-05-19T15:35:00.008-04:00

This blog has been inactive for like two and a half years. During that time, we have been concentrating our efforts mostly towards Japan as we are both Japanese and that seemed like the thing to do at the time. However, it has become clear that our work is better received more outside Japan, so it seems only natural that we should have a blog that can be read by people outside Japan. The previous posts of this blog were more like us just playing around. I made the image and Kao who was learning English at the time wrote some text in English to go along with the image.

I'm not sure what to write to re-start this blog, so I'll just write the most recent thing that comes to mind.

We have been doing the Mumbreeze shop at Etsy for almost half a year now. It's coming along slowly but surely. People seem very receptive to our paper mache figures. We are now trying a different coat of finish with these. Until now, we've been spraying them with a finish coat. Usually, this is enough to protect a painted surface on flat artwork, but because the figures are 3 dimensional and are handled right on the surface, just spraying a coat of finish didn't seem quite enough. With these new ones, we are painting them with acrylic varnish. It does give it a more shinier appearance, but they feel much less delicate than before, so a little rough handling or dust won't damage the painted surface.

This is one of the bicycle figures we've been making. This is also coated with acrylic varnish though it's less obvious in this picture.

It makes me feel good that these figures are now more "archival". I've been thinking of making more variety of different figures which could be put together to make a sort of a diorama. We will be offering them at our Etsy shop as we make them, so you can collect and make your own diorama as well. If you have any suggestions for a new kind of figure, please let us know. We will do our best to try and make them.

OK so far?

2006-10-14T21:46:00.001-04:00

So for so good.
Mayby.

Imagination is created

2006-08-22T03:33:00.002-04:00

"Imagination" and "creation" are the same intonation in Japan.
We say "SOUZOU".

My husband imagines an interesting thing from daily life. I think imagination to be creation. The creativity is very splendid! I love it!

With this blog, I am words charge. However, it is difficult.
It is very difficult to change a feeling into words. Besides, it is English.

I decided to create words.
I enjoy it seriously.
I am excited.
You please enjoy it with us, too.
If there is a question, give me comment.

Thank you!

In reality

2006-08-07T01:02:00.001-04:00

The schedule was not carried out

However, a true wish becomes reality!

Confession

2006-07-27T09:00:00.001-04:00

I like a dog than a cat!

My husband seems to like a cat than a dog!

My husband seems to be sometimes a cat!

I like a husband such as a cat than a dog!

I like a husband whatever it takes!

As for me, my husband is dear!

Tokyo is still the rainy season

2006-07-20T23:25:00.001-04:00

I do not like excessive drying

Then

I do not like excessive moisture

Moderate moisture is an ideal

It wants to be always moistened calmly

The world that I see

2006-07-17T19:01:00.001-04:00

The world where I lived knows that there was small belief by having come to a foreign country. I see the thing which I did not see. Without being kept to anyone. If I label nothing, I can choose the thing which I want to watch. I think that I can create it more freely. Very Freely.

Get too cold

2006-07-12T00:39:00.002-04:00

It is overdoing of air conditioner in the summer in the world yet. I get too cold in a subway and appear to do it. When a body gets cold, a stomach does "gorogoro" and is troubled. I can run into a restroom everywhere of a town in Tokyo. NY is difficult. A certain cafe is convenient in NY. That shop had it of the number of stars in Upper East Side. There is too much it. Then I want to go to a restroom when I go to bookstore. Will a mystery of a restroom be the same as a bookstore in NY?

tori

2006-07-11T12:45:00.001-04:00

DVD of the habits of a bird is very interesting. However, I become sleepy and cannot watch it till the last by all means when I watch it. Probably I think it to be because a song voice of a bird is comfortable. There is a bird floating using wind elegantly. There is a bird flapping the wings noisily. Though there were various methods, I thought so that it was all, and there was not waste. The DVD of the habits of a bird was very splendid. But I become sleepy.

A husband and a wheel-related

2006-07-10T23:09:00.001-04:00

My husband yearns for the world where there is not a car. It was a few idea to me at first. I did cycling of big under a tree with two people today. It was the time when it was very comfortable. By the way, TOUR DE FRANCE of this year seems to be unexpected development.

A recent feeling

2006-07-08T02:30:00.002-04:00

As for our being always shocked, eyes are always nailed to an animal, a plant, a nephew child (2 years old), rain, chocolate, a glitter and a shining thing.

Way of life that I do not think about is comfortable in nature.

At first

2006-07-08T01:31:00.001-04:00

It began at last. mumbreeze blog is a dreamlike pleasant image and the story that I call NY Japan, and come. I am dreamy, but this is true. It was good! mumbleboy of a husband and kao of a wife may be sometimes connected to you from now on. I am a pleasure very.