Kendama

For my almost-weekly art classes, I just completed another painting. It’s watercolour again but this time painting still-life as the last time it was flowers. I thought it would be a challenge for me to learn how to paint wooden and glass objects for a change. We chose a jar with a cork on top, along with some marbles. For fun, we added a kendama, a traditional Japanese skill toy with three cups and a spike which fits into the hole in the ball joined by a string. The aim of this toy is to catch the ball into the cup or the spike. It’s not easy. Just as challenging, in fact, as drawing the this on paper!

Pencil Sketch

We start with sketching the objects with a 2B pencil, the most challenging bit. Composition, proportion and perspectives proved a frustrating experience at times but I eventually made it through. The kendama, of course, was most difficult of all because of its shape. You’d think it would be a simple one, but the base is not straight but triangular, and one cup is larger than the other. The ball and marbles were drawn using a compass and stencil.

Painting Time!

For this piece, I used Sakura Koi watercolour pans and Japanese paint brushes. The best part of painting involves mixing colours and being able to perceive “hidden colours” of the objects and their shades and shadows. Only a few times did Sugawara-sensei, our instructor, interfere which is a good sign since it shows how far I’ve improved the past year. Of course he did give a few useful suggestions such as making the colours stronger.

Great Practice

Whilst I do quite a bit of watercolour painting at home, colour mixing or focusing on shades and shadows are not my forte. I thus thought this session helped me work on them to pave way for future development. It would certainly be of some use in my future work even for the kawaii stuff, and why not? Looking forward to creating more with watercolours!