I haven’t been sketching in quite a while, so I went out today to practice and look what I found! People of all cultures are getting interested in Halloween big time.

These are some sketches I did from Chihiro Iwasaki’s book, “Box”. She is a famous Japanese artist of mine. You can see her works at http://www.chihiro.jp/english/chihiro/works.htm

A totally imagined scene in watercolor and ink in my Moleskine.

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This is a sort of collage of the little details that caught my eye in Chinatown. I tried very hard to not add too much color to the page this time!
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This was a really nice find for me. A beautiful old set of Chinese doors with hand-carved designs at the top is hiding an unusable back entrance to a popular Asian restaurant in Chinatown, Honolulu.
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Today I participated in Sketchcrawl #23. My first sketch was done at my own beach. The police arrived to warn people about dogs causing problems on the beach. Water was calm and clear and gorgeous!
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Sketched this from a photo I took of these two loving cats when I visited a Cat Cafe in Kyoto. They had this position down very well and it only took them a matter of seconds to get the paws meshed and the heads just right. I was so impressed with their wonderful bond.

A page of some of my favorite memories from Japan. Fine whiskys, sumo on television in the afternoon, walking along canals and jotting down names of cafes that are amusing for us English-speakers.
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Watercolors and ink pen. This was sketched at the Mt. Hiei Garden Museum, 848 meters above sea level in Kyoto. 1500 different types of flowers are planted here each season. It’s a French Impressionist garden with huge replicas of famous works by many of those painters. Monet’s garden in Giverney is the most popular replica here. A train, cable car, and a ropeway will get you to this garden.
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“Baby the Stars Shine Bright” is the name of a popular store in Harajuku selling clothes for young Lolitas. We visited Harajuku again for the first time in many years and got a real eye-full of these charmingly dressed kids. Much too crowded a place to draw any one person, so I just did a few details. “Kamazake Girls” is the name of a rentable movie about this subculture.
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