Hello my dearest !

  

I just came back from Japan !

It was a wonderful breath of fresh air!

 I nearly thought I wouldn’t make it to the plane, as I was in a great mess before leaving: I was drowning in problems at the office…. I felt really sick before leaving and exhausted. I remembered then all the good advice Arianna Huffington shares on Thrive, and listened to her sleep meditation to be able to sleep… Here it is, just in case you need it, you can download the guided meditation. It’s delicious to listen to and works well for me : http://ariannahuffington.com/sleep-resources

And then I remembered there’s no shame to ask for help. And my colleagues are helping me well now. The problems are not over yet but I feel less stressed and could leave on holiday with a feeling of relief to charge my batteries.

Two days after my arrival I gave a workshop in Pigment Shop Tokyo: https://pigment.tokyo/

 

It was wonderful ! I didn’t even feel stressed anymore to give the workshop. On my first workshops I felt stressed and so I didn’t enjoy it much, but now it was fun! 😀

After that workshop we left on our trip and I made several videos.

Here’s the first one I want to share with you!

I made it in Tsumago. Tsumago is a wonderful old town on the Nakasendo trail.

I tried to change some habits in my sketching: I draw and paint at the same time and it felt kind of liberating. In this way I felt less obsessed about my drawing being “correct” or not… Whereas usually I “LOOK – DRAW – LOOK – DRAW DRAW -LOOK DRAW – LOOK – DRAW – PAINT PAINT – LOOK- PAINT PAINT” and then I forget to look properly…. Now I did more looking: LOOK – DRAW – LOOK – PAINT – LOOK – DRAW – LOOK – PAINT”….

Hmmm is this clear? I feel the explanation is somehow not very clear? What I want to say is when I first draw, I tend to forget looking properly….

Anyway here’s some explanation about the video

It’s an A4 – sized watercolour sketchbook from “Seawhite of Brighton”. The paper is very white! I still have to get used to it.

I started drawing the house closest to me on the right. (This isn’t so clever because I’m right handed, but welll….). I use Palomino Blackwing pencil hardness B graphite.

I use my pocket palette boxes: one with warm and one with cold colours, filled with Daniel Smith and Winsor & Newton tube paints.

I use a flat brush (sable, Winsor & Newton), a diagonal brush (sable, Rosemary & co) and a rigger (japanese, sable)

I tried to pay attention to make the objects close to me in dark contrasts warm colours, and the houses which are further away in lighter contrasts, less detailed and lighter cooler colours. This creates depth. Also the trees which are closest to me are painted darker and warmer, and drawn with more detail then the vegetation which is further away on the mountains.

 

I hope you enjoy the video!

Don’t hesitate to ask questions! So I have something to write about 😉

 

Kisses

 

Barbara

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