blow my windbell

It sounds like a crude innuendo (or is that just me?) but it's not. Take it literally: because today that's exactly what I did.

The arts class I'm taking takes us on field trips every now and (you may remember the arts exhibition a few weeks back), usually in places far off in the middle of nowhere - today was no exception. We took a train, and then another train and then, 75 minutes later we arrived at Mizue Station from which we walked 25 minutes to get to the place.

 Windbells are apparently a big thing here and they consist of a glass ball thing and a metal 'stick' hanging from a string, which then creates a sound as the wind causes it to hit the glass.

First we made the glass ball by blowing (see photo) - with a little help from the real practitioners. They said it takes about 3 years to learn how to make a perfect one, so we figured we'd save some time this way. Basically all we had to do was blow in a tube, so I'm not going to take too much credit for my performance (even if the guy said my windbell had good size!).

Don't laugh.

 Once it's done you put it to cool on a bed of glass shards for about 10 minutes. Then you paint it on the inside. I made 2 attempts, one worse than the other. Have I mentioned I have zero artistic talent? Well, you're about to find out just how true that statement is. And I'm really honouring the medium of a blog here with my candid exposure of my utter failure so feel special, people. I don't do this every day.

Then I decided it looked as though a 5-year-old (4?) had made it and flushed the whole atrocity away with water (thank frick for water-based paint). Of course the second attempt did not prove to be any larger a success than the first, but I did not feel as ashamed to present it. I took the safe road for that one.

I repeat: don't laugh.

So there you go. My artistic failure of this lovely Saturday revealed to the public eye. Hope you enjoyed. Oh, and I guess some lucky someone can look forward to an authentic, loving, handmade Christmas present this year.

Jo x