[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]Copied and pasted an email of this amazing artwork by Japanese farmers....[/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan . [/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted.[/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. [/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]Instead, [/SPAN][/FONT][FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]different colours of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the [SPAN style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #0066cc 1px dashed; CURSOR: hand" id=lw_1250714891_4 class=yshortcuts]paddy fields[/SPAN].
As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.[/SPAN][/FONT]
(http://i30.tinypic.com/30c1s1i.jpg)
A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants,
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]the colours created by using different varieties, in Inakadate in Japan
The largest and finest work is grown in the [SPAN style="BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; CURSOR: hand" id=lw_1250714891_5 class=yshortcuts]Aomori[/SPAN] village of Inakadate , 600 miles north of Toyko, [/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]where the tradition began in 1993.
The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year [/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, [/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall.
More than 150,000 vistors come to Inakadate, [/SPAN][/FONT][FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals.
Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers [/SPAN][/FONT][FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields.[/SPAN][/FONT][/DIV][FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT][/DIV][FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
(http://i26.tinypic.com/iv9wqp.jpg)
Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies, [FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate[/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
(http://i30.tinypic.com/2yklzf9.jpg)
Fictional warrior [SPAN id=lw_1250714891_6 class=yshortcuts]Naoe Kanetsugu[/SPAN] and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of [SPAN id=lw_1250714891_7 class=yshortcuts]Yonezawa , Japan[/SPAN]
And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs.
Another famous rice paddy art venue is in the town of [SPAN id=lw_1250714891_8 class=yshortcuts]Yonezawa[/SPAN] in the [SPAN style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #0066cc 1px dashed; CURSOR: hand" id=lw_1250714891_9 class=yshortcuts]Yamagata prefecture[/SPAN].
This year's design shows the fictional 16th-century [SPAN style="BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; CURSOR: hand" id=lw_1250714891_10 class=yshortcuts]samurai warrior[/SPAN] Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, [FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]Osen, whose [/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]lives feature in television series Tenchijin.
Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year, [/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]including designs of deer dancers.
[/SPAN][/FONT][/DIV]
(http://i29.tinypic.com/2e181gy.jpg)
Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of [SPAN id=lw_1250714891_11 class=yshortcuts]Doraemon[/SPAN] and deer dancers
The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September.
The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. [/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the [SPAN id=lw_1250714891_12 class=yshortcuts]mock castle tower[/SPAN] of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.
Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.[/SPAN][/FONT]
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"][/SPAN][/FONT]
(http://i28.tinypic.com/211v0k0.jpg)
Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen
(http://i29.tinypic.com/1wxe9.jpg)
The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces
In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of [SPAN id=lw_1250714891_13 class=yshortcuts]Mount Iwaki[/SPAN] every year.
But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.
[FONT size=2 face="Times New Roman"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt"]In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art.
A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.[/SPAN][/FONT]
[/DIV][/DIV][/DIV]
Thats really neat! Thanks for sharing 49er.
The time and thought that went into that.. although the use of computers now is cheating.
That's impressive !!!
Thanks 49er