Tokyo Watercolour- Parks

One disappointing day turned into a memorable day, was when Ota memorial museum was closed due to preparation for the next exhibition. Somehow ended up at a quiet park in Shinjuku where there were many locals sitting on blankets as they picnic on the grass, children running around, people just sitting near the Japanese garden.

Watercolour and ink

The first time I saw this pond in Ueno park, I was surprised and thought it was a bit surreal. Have not seen so many lotuses gathered so densely in a pond. It was in the afternoon and the sun was about to set slowly as its rays of sunshine blind the eyes and blur the view. The moment I realized how odd this view was; the old pond from years ago against the tall buildings with a temple in the midsts of it all, I wanted to capture the moment.

Watercolour with colored pencils and Ink

Rendering- Matching Marble with markers and watercolor

Our next project in class was to match marble with markers and watercolors. The technique and trick to it is, all the elements I lack in my personality, patience, spontaneity, letting go and minimal control.

The reason for this is when you do the lines for the marbles, you hold the high point or tip of your pencil to let it spontaneously trail off the paper. As for the watercolor portion, you use a ton of water, let it dry and flow.

My teacher is great with it, she does it so naturally with seemingly no effort and as it dries, it looks like it has depth and full of bright color. I am still an amateur who’s reluctant to give up. 🙂

Frick Gallery Drawings

Sorry for being MIA, but classes have been overwhelming lately. Drawing is actually very time consuming, you look at the clock and realize a few hours have passed by. Or you can procrastinate and think you can finish in an hour then realize, setting up the paper takes half an hour.

We went to the Frick gallery for our final project.

Freehand sketch at Frick Gallery- 2 point perspective- Boucher Room

Completed- Perspective Drawing with rulers and t-square

Freehand Sketch at Frick Gallery- 1 point perspective- Garden Court

Completed- Perspective Drawing with rulers and t-squares

It’s not really a matter of how well you draw; it’s really about how much time you’re willing to spend and how much practice you get! Still need a lot of practice. There are things I avoid because I am not good at; such as opened doors and window scenes.

Perspective drawings

I spent most of my weekend trying to figure out how to do this.

One point perspective of an interior- Vanishing point in the center, station point is wherever you want to put it, it will be the scope of what you see within an interior.

Two point perspective- two vanishing points- left vanishing point and right. Everything has to be parallel and the lines will converge to create the shapes and forms.

Looks simple but took me forever!!

Two point perspective of a chair and etc

For a two point perspective to work and to make it as painless as possible, you position the paper horizontally so your 2 vanishing points can be as far apart as possible. All the lines are parallel as you converge the lines from left to right.

Here is an example of a chair I had to draw for class:

There are times when my free flow drawings are better than measured one because there is less restrictions. But the perspective is totally off in some angles; noticeably.

From observation only

Using perspective and rulers

Perspective is really fun when you get it, when you dont, it’s a nightmare and you want to pull out your hair! Most of the time, it’s the latter for me.