On previous travels in Japan, I had noticed that local travellers love to collect ink stamps from all interesting sites and collect them in a little paper book. These are usually quite large rubber stamps in bright colours mainly red but also in other colours including blue, purple, green and black.
On our journey to Japan last year I decided to collect some of these myself and combine them with my other images in my travel diary. We found the stamps everywhere, they even have a special stamp for every JR station somewhere hiding on the platform. As the trains are so frequent , we didn't always have time to find them but at the larger stations they are quite prominent.
This first stamp was a target for one of the beautifully fine pens I picked up. The Japanese write so finely. As I get older my writing and drawing seems to be getting smaller.
It took a little while and some experimentation to work out how to include these strong designs into my diary pages alongside my tickets and other travel ephemera. They are quite different to some of my previous travel diaries from Japan and elsewhere. I am getting quite a collection of them but they don't take up much room in my drawers. I did show quite a few of them in the "Mind Mapping" exhibition several years ago. Who knows, the new ones might also get an airing sometime in the future.
As I used the same diary for our travels in Tasmania earlier this year, some of the unfinished drawings from Japan were finished in Tassie and the journey continues.
