I Painted 1000 Pictures from the Scratch. （ゼロから、1000枚の絵を描いた。）

（This text was released on June 5, 2017. It is a sentence that clearly understands what kind of person PLAYTHEHOPE is. Please read it.）

March 31, 2017. 
After achieving painting 1000 pictures, 
I determined to become a painter. 

And soon after, I quit my job, as a music teacher at a junior high school, which I had been taking a leave of absence for a year at the time. 

One year before,  
I was in the worst physical condition. 
Vertigo, dizziness, and nausea. 
Soon after waking up in the morning, I suffered from the symptoms. 
I crawled to the bathroom, and kept vomiting gastric juices and things. 
In light-headedness, I managed myself to call the school and tell them I would be late. 
20 day period of paid LOA was used up immediately. 

All those symptoms originated from my mental conditions. I could not successfully build a good relationship with students, and that brought about a lot of troubles both at classes and club activities. I had nobody to talk about the worries from deep inside of myself. 

When I was hired as a new graduate, I was already 30 years old. I could find no-one else as old as me. I was pressuring myself to keep up with the circumstance. 

Under the pressure, all my efforts had gone fruitless. Now I know I was interacting with the students only according to the knowledge I acquired from books. I was never trying to understand them in any depth. 
After all, I was just pretending big to be a teacher. 

Now I learned and understood about those days. Almost everything. 
However, in what way can the “understanding” support myself? 
When I think of returning and doing over again, I just end up in vain.
In vain…, because I just always come to a conlusion that only “future” is prepared for all of us. 
All I can do is just step forward according to what I learned. 

I was diagnosed with depression. Submitting a medical certificate, I took LOA. But then, what should I do?

I chose to draw pictures.

With a ballpoint pen and water colors, I drew and painted a lot of human faces.
During LOA, I kept drawing without going outside except for buying groceries. 

Why I draw “human faces”…
Even I never had any clues. 

“Urge” 
Maybe that’s the only word I can come up with to express why. 

It was not the first time for me to draw pictures. 

When I first became a teacher 3 years ago, in my small room, I would lie down and keep doodling on a torn piece of pages from my notepad. 

I didn’t know why, but it calmed myself better than playing the piano. 

I kept drawing…

I kept drawing…

I forgot everything and kept drawing…

Everyday, I breathed, 
I survived, and… 

January 2017, I finally achieved painting 1000 pictures. 
This is the moment where this article starts. 

March 31, 2017. 
After achieving painting 1000 pictures, 
I determined to become a painter. 

This is quite sudden, 
but please allow me to greet. 

Nice to meet you. 

I am a painter and artist from Osaka,

PLAYTHEHOPE.

Forgive me for  telling such an extremely depressive story above, despite that this is my first blog article, 

However, it was integral to start from here when I think of gratitude towards “drawing activity,” that saved me during my one year LOA, and my future as a painter. 

In this blog, I will reveal my activities and thoughts little by little. 

I hope you enjoy it. 

Lastly, I would like to announce that…

Even for just a bit, if you are interested in my works, 
you can check them out at this Instagram. 

All the 1000 works are listed, 
(February, 2020, the number reached 6106 works.)
https://www.instagram.com/playthehope/

Some of my works are available at BASE for purchase. 

PLAYTHEHOPE BASE Web Shop (Japan)
https://playthehope.thebase.in/
PLAYTHEHOPE BASE Web Shop (Overseas)
https://playthehope.theshop.jp/

Also, patronage for my activity is cordially appreciated. 
I can be reached at
playthehopekanaki@gmail.com .

See you at my next article.