Summer in Japan is full of lovely symbols and images. When Japanese think of summer, they usually think of images like sunflowers, morning glory, goldfish in the pond, shaved ice with colorful syrups, fireworks and the various summer festivals which make the summer heat even hotter! Today I went to another eraser stamp carving class held by Matsubara-san in Higashi-kurume, where I received sunflower greetings before the class began.

Matsubara-san was a very friendly person. She showed me some of her illustrations on summer stamps, and asked me to choose 2-3 of them to carve. I chose to carve morning glory first, which I thought was not very difficult to begin with. Matsubara-san corrected me with some of my carving techniques, which was very helpful. It was amazing how much she observed in one class.

After carving 3 stamps, we began to design our own Japanese summer postcards using them. Matsubara-san also taught me some stamping techniques which made me more fun than before! I could tell she also loved stamp art a lot too!

Matsubara-san will be holding another eraser stamp carving classes in future. For more information, please visit her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mimihanco