Mount Fuji stamp collage - Fujisan - Deliberations and alterations .. finishing a picture

Funny how some pictures come together immediately and very spontaneously and others take an age to complete.  This has been the case with my picture of Mount Fuji, or Fujisan, in Japan.

One View of Mount Fuji - stamp collage by Rachel Markwick

Looking back at a couple of previous mentions of this stamp collage, I  find that I first had the idea in March 2014, when it was suggested to me that it might be a good subject.  I spent a lot of time researching and reading about this beautiful mountain,  which is much venerated in Japan, and admired by tourists from all over the world. It has always been so,  and the Japanese artist Hokusai produced a series of wood block prints called Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji, also completing more than a hundred.  Artists have depicted it in many ways, from simple line drawings to colourful and intricate works of art. It features in paintings and prints, on porcelain, lacquer work, furniture, textiles .. the list is endless.  As for stamp  collages .. well I haven't found any others apart from the one I've just now finally finished, although I thought I had finished it a few months ago.  On re-examining it, I wasn't happy with a few aspects and have altered it accordingly. It's always tempting and often useful to ask opinions  it can also confuse matters. At the end of the day, I have to go with how I feel about it. The majority of the stamps I have used are Japanese but there are a handful from other countries and I've used some of my clippings to make the snow capped peak!
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Artistic license versus accuracy .. and the Mandarin duck stamp of Japan

One of the many problems to be solved when deciding on a subject for a stamp collage picture is how true to the subject I need to be. The current challenge which I have set myself is to make my own version of Japan's Mount Fuji,  one of  the most well known images in the world, and certainly in Japan.   It appears on paintings, stamps, postcards, packaging, advertising materials, clothing,  and is visited and climbed by thousands of visitors every year and photographed by the majority of them too.

I've been doing my research of course. It's a part of the process which I really enjoy , and I spend hours reading, looking at images and searching through the stamp hoard for Japanese stamps which will be incorporated in the picture. (It's not quite that bad - I do have a few pages of stamps ready and waiting now..).  And guess what is on the lid of the Japanese musical box in the picture below ..

When asked the question" How long does it take you to make one of your pictures?" I should probably add many hours into the equation for the research and reading time.
I'm currently enjoying "36 Views of Mount Fjui - On finding myself in Japan", a brilliant book by Cathy N. Davidson, an American teacher who taught at an all women's university there. The title is taken from Katsushika Hokusai's series of 36 woodblock prints of Mount Fuji, and these head each chapter.  It's as if Mount Fuji is visible from almost anywhere you go in Japan and I just wish I could go out there and do my Primary research for this! Some views are from countryside, while others are from the surrounding  lakes.

 Hokusai's "Fuji in Clear Weather" is on the cover of the book, and also features on a stamp issued in 1999 for International Letter writing week.
  I have decided to have a lake in the foreground of my picture - now very much a work in progress - and  have also chosen to use a quantity of iconic stamps to make up a large area of the water.  This is the Japanese 5Y light blue Mandarin duck stamp issued in 1955. Anyone in their 50s who collected stamps as a child, as I did, probably had this little stamp in their own stamp album, and my mother remembers it as one of the first "bundleware" stamps (stamps bought in quantities of 100 or more) purchased when she and my father started to run their stamp approval business before I was born.  She can't remember how many they sold, but there still seem to be a lot of them around .. so I'm making good use of them in another way!

Which brings me to "authenticity".  I  found some information about the Mandarin duck (aix galericulata),  now endangered due to the destruction of its forest habitat.

There are now only about 5000 pairs in Japan.  They prefer densely wooded areas near shallow bodies of water and feed at dawn and dusk. I'm not sure how deep the lake is but  I'm glad I chose to paint a sunset in the background as this is when the ducks would actually be on the water, as opposed to being on the ground or perched in trees during the daytime, so possibly a combination of artistic license and accuracy for at least part of my picture.  Will have to see what will happen with the remainder of the picture.  Watch this space ..