Tulips in Ink and Pencil

Back in high school, I had a Japanese pen pal--a girl my age named Chikako.  I remember she wanted me to write out the four verses to The Star Spangled Banner and send them to her.  She, in turn, sent me a Japanese ink stick and ink stone which I still have and still use some sixty years later.

The ink stone

The ink stick, made of compressed wood soot and glue

You put water in the ink stone.  (You can see a depression where the water pools in the photo.)  And then you take the ink stick and make circular motions on the stone to produce a liquid black ink.  Using a plain rice paper (my roll is labeled "Kozo"), I've produced some quick sketches including these two of tulips.

And here are two tulip sketches done in colored pencils.

As my note here says, I drew this "During another nor'easter ... snow, snow, snow"

As a p.s., I wish I now had Chikako's address, though, of course, too many years have gone by.  We corresponded for maybe five years exchanging photos and gifts.  She was a splendid correspondent with beautiful penmanship and good English.  I also wrote to a young French sailor in the South Pacific and a German lad in Munich who liked to play soccer.  Claude and Alfred.  Social media has now taken the place of writing letters to pen pals and with it the excitement of finding a letter in the mail box, written in a familiar hand, with foreign stamps and the dream that one day I might go to those places.  As a high school student, I loved being connected to The World which I dearly wanted to see one day.  Lucky me:  I got to!