Saturday, January 3, from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at Yume Japanese Gardens, 2130 N. Alvernon Way, Tucson.
“Pick up your brush and greet 2015 — the Year of the Ram — with a Japanese ink brush painting (sumi-e) and New Year’s card that you create yourself. Zen Tribe wellness instructor and calligraphy artist Yoshi Nakano will show you how to write your name and New Year’s greetings in Japanese and how to create an image of a ram with deft brush strokes that you can mail to friends or frame for your wall.
Carolyn Classen will teach you games played with traditional flower-decorated hanafuda cards as you eat Japanese sweets and sip green tea. Then, take in a gallery of Yoshi’s inspirational abstract calligraphy that he calls “brush art meditation.” All activities are free with regular admission to the Gardens”,www.tucsonjapanesegardens.org.
Sansei Carolyn Sugiyama Classen learned to play hanafuda as a small child in Hawaii, has taught it at the Tucson Origami Club and to the APASA (Asian Pacific American Student Assn.) at the University of Arizona.