It’s been a week since returning from Japan, and although my suitcases are all unpacked, I still have quite a lot of “tidying them all away” to do. Nevertheless, I have managed to squeeze in an hour or so for some art journalling! Many of the Tokyo-inspired ideas are still in my mind. This time, rather than on my tiny travelling sketchbook, I gave it a shot on my A4-size Strathmore sketchbook, which took getting used to since I suddenly have all that space to fill up!
Day One I only worked on the left hand side of the sketchbook and firstly cut out some flowers shapes from an old Japanese newspaper. The stalks are actually strips snipped out from a bamboo sheet used to line wooden bento boxes filled with rice and sushi. The more “Japanese” the better! The rest such as the leaves and the blocks of symbols are from old wrapping paper also from Japan.
The next day, I went for watercolor brushpens, different from the ones I had taken with me to Japan. These are Kuretake ZIG Clean Color with which I also spread with a damp brush. Unlike the sketchbook I had taken with me to Japan, this one managed to hold the wet paint well with no bleeding on the reverse side. The dresses were collages of old wrapping paper cut out by hand instead of with scissors.
Once I was done, though, I felt the two seperate pages looked too fragmented on its own and decided to “unify” them together for some continuity. More collages were introduced along with doodles with a gold brush pen I had bought at a 100 shop in Tokyo. And now we’re talking! Art supplies used:
And this concludes my art journalling from my Tokyo trip! Or perhaps I might continue and do another one or two, who knows. The trip gave me quite some inspiration and even got me started with collages even if a bit simple. I do look forward to implementing some of the thoughts and ideas in my future paintings!
My Kawaii Quarter 