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Artists Help Japan 1 Year anniversary Auction is at its final stage.  We have already made over $14,000 and I am so impressed how many artists who offered their contributions without being asked.  I am encouraged that people still care about Japan.

Here is the page and it will end next thursday 4/5.  Please help me spread the word!

http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=artists_help_japan

I redid this piece 4 times to get it right.  Watercolor is sooo hard.. It is true that less is more.  This piece was done specifically for Artists Help Japan 1 Year Anniversary.  I believe we need to support children because our future lies on their shoulders.  After I became a father, this belief was solidified more than ever.

It’s no longer about what we want.  It is more of what can we do to the next generation. Can we responsibly hand off this world to our children as the beautiful world we inherited from our parents?

It’s a real simple piece but I poured my heart into this.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=160774634413

この作品は何度も描きなおした作品です。本当に水彩画は難しい、、、まるで詩のように余計なものがなければないほどいい。
この作品は明日の子供への希望として作りました。

今私たちがやりたい事よりも、私たちの次の世代の為に何ができるか。私たちが親から受け継いだこの世界を、同じように子供達に受け渡す事ができるのか。それが全てだと思います。

こんなシンプルな作品ですが、それだけ心をこめて描きました。今までの自分の中でも大事な作品の一つです。

余談ですが、キューピーちゃんの髪型って本当に赤ちゃんはしてるんだなぁと自分の息子を見て思ったのでした。

日本の方でビッドしたい人はこちらからーーーー＞http://www.sekaimon.com/i160774634413

March 11th 2012

My sincere prayer to those who lost their lives, who lost their families and loved ones, and who are forced to live away from home.

My admiration and respect for those who sacrificed their time for the recovery efforts, especially who are in the affected areas helping to this day.

My strong desire for Japanese lawmakers as well as corporations to find the most efficient ways for the country to rise again, and ESPECIALLY to find the way to live without nuclear power(or even without high energy consumption based economy all itself). I believe in Japan that can lead the world by examples to the life with less/without non-renewable energy.

Once again, my sincere prayer to my country

Dice Tsutsumi

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While there is so little I can do my part, we launched Artists Help Japan 1 year anniversary auction using eBay.  100% of its proceeds will go to Mercy Corps Japan Recovery Fund.

We will be selling 60 or so items in 4 separate groups and the first group went live this weekend.  So check it out and help me spread the word!

Here is the link to the auction!

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Last year, when I traveled to France and Belgium for the Sketchtravel auction, I hardly had time to do anything but getting ready for the grand finale of the 5 year project.

So all I could manage was a few little watercolor studies in Paris and Bruges, Belgium.

I’ll be auctioning one of these off for the upcoming Artists Help Japan online auction to benefit Tsunami victims after a year since the disaster.

Since last summer, Robert Kondo(another Pixar art director) and I have had a still life workshop working with our Pixar colleagues.  Every friday, we paint for a few hours of still lives before work started.   It started off as a “sharing” workshop where we shared our knowledge of painting with technical directors at Pixar.  Even after the recent production schedule made it difficult for me and Robert to continue, people still gathered every Friday morning studying still lives which is totally inspiring.
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As you can see in my paintings, mine is all work in progress since I never have quite enough time to go farther as I walk around the room to help other artists.   But it is still a lot of fun to study simple set ups like these.   And ultimately, donuts we eat in these Friday sessions always taste amazing!

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My first son, Senju Tsutsumi(堤　仙樹） was born at 5:48 am on the 22nd of December 2011.

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Sketching him has been absolutely fascinating. Everyday, he shows whole new faces to us.First oil painting session was not an easy one… My model pooped half hour into the pose and got too hungry after that.
After an hour break, he made me swing him for good half hour… Must be the most demanding model ever!