Japan 365

A Drawing-A-Day Project

Non-Fiction - Cultural
432 Pages
Reviewed on 06/06/2013
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

J Muzacz has been a cook, dishwasher, valet parking attendant, street artist, vegetarian, dumpster diver, sculptor, muralist, activist, gardener, English teacher, Art teacher and author.

For the last 10 years he has been pursuing various creative arts on 3 continents, but mostly the continents of Austin Texas and East Asia. His specialty is painting big walls whenever asked (sometimes not) and instructing “at-risk” teens or whomever in classes like Urban Art and Mural Painting.

Having biked the length of Japan with BEE – Bicycle for Everyone’s Earth, he believes to have found a calling. Namely that of continuing to travel long distances by bicycle, encouraging everyone along the way to use clean, alternative transportation. About bicycle touring he says, “It really is the best way to experience a place.” Look out for BEE – coming soon to a country near you.

J is also a Couch Surfing Ambassador, hosting traveling strangers via email through the CS website. He hopes to reciprocate his own travel soon, surfing and continuing to Bike & Art his way around the world.

A trained sociologist (University of Texas), learning new cultures through experience and then turning around to educate others about all the beautiful people and places comes natural. Using simple hand-drawn images that have the power to bridge language barriers and cultivate a universal oneness between us all, J has a dream: “Pedal our precious planet Earth and draw pictures about it.”

    Book Review

Reviewed by Samantha Rivera for Readers' Favorite

Beautiful, hand-drawn images of Japan, of both the nature and the people thereof, are shown throughout the pages of this book. These images depict the giant tsunami which occurred in 2011 as well as people going through their daily lives in the different prefectures of Japan. These images vary in style as well as execution but all of them are able to capture the true nature of Japan and show the true feelings and lives of the people and animals that live there.

With all the beautiful images this book would be great just to flip through at leisure. It is amazing what this artist was able to capture with just a pen and paper and his imagination. Not only is there great artwork, but there is also a lot of great historical information included with each picture and each section. This allows anyone, even those not familiar with Japan’s history and culture, to learn about it and understand the importance and significance of each of these pictures. My favorite drawing in the entire book was probably the depiction of the Sadou which showed a woman preparing tea in the traditional way though I also really like animals and as a result I really liked the depictions of turtles, foxes, rabbits and other animals that are scattered throughout the book. It was also very interesting that these images depicted not only real events but also images from stories as well as poetry. These were great for learning even more about the people from the area.