Wishes

These photos were taken in Kyoto gardens. I hope many people got their wishes.

Watery Wednesday – click on the link for more water shots.

Sketching around the neighbourhood

This sketch was completed at a coffee shop. I couldn’t finish it the first time, so I had to return a few days later. Luckily the same table was available. I have to learn to work faster in order to finish my pieces in one sitting.

My part of the world has a mix of old and new buildings. The corner building is an older one, while the  building next door (and further away) is an apartment block, which is relatively new. There are lots of palm trees that line the streets.

It’s currently winter where I am (Spring is just around the corner, yay!). I am looking forward to warmer days when I can sketch outdoors…

Creative Every Day

Playing with my colours

Playing with my pens and watercolour pans this week, and trying to make ordinary objects seem more interesting…

Please visit Macro Monday for more macro and close-up shots.

Have a nice week.

From Kyoto to Fukuoka by bullet train

Beautiful blue sky in Kyoto

The bullet train arrives… or was it departing?  It’s all becoming a bit of a blur now, but I do remember that it was very fast (duh?) and very comfortable.

Taken in Fukuoka. Another rainy day in Japan…

Red boats and their reflections…

Wishing you a happy weekend.

I am going to have a no-computer weekend (except to link in to the memes), so I will visit you after the weekend. Thanks for dropping by.

Skywatch
Weekend Reflections
Sunday Bridges.

Chocolate biscuit

I usually buy desserts to draw, but having some choc biscuits in the pantry saved me a trip to the shop. I love drawing desserts and biscuits, but this means that I am consuming lots of calories (that I don’t need). But I can’t see any other way…

Anyway, hope you enjoy this.

Creative Every Day

Fushimi Inari-taisha, Kyoto

It was raining when we went to Fushimi Inari-taisha, but I enjoyed my visit. It was a memorable walk up a mountain lined by toriis.

The toriis (the orange structures) are donated by Japanese businesses. The above photo shows the side of the walking path.

Here is the walking path. It looks a bit closed-up (even a little claustrophobic) in this photo, but there are gaps in between the toriis, as shown in the above photo.

The surrounding area is very green. We stopped often to enjoy the view.

At one of the shrines.

A lady at a shrine. Notice the fox plates? More in the next photo…

Foxes are considered to be messengers.

I must admit that we didn’t do the entire circuit. We walked up and up for about 1 hour and then headed down.

The road leading to Fushimi Inari-taisha offers lots of interesting goodies and food.

This man is smoking fish.

It was a very nice place to visit. I enjoyed the walk even though it was raining almost the whole time.

Visit My World for interesting places.

A few random macro shots

My sketch book

Colourful hair ties from a discount store

Celebrating Christmas in July

Visit Macro Monday for more macro/close-up shots.

Flowers on display

I was in Tasmania for the weekend. It was an exhausting but lovely weekend. I was playing in a social tennis tournament (an amateur tournament – I am not very good) and there was some time in between matches. I managed to complete a sketch of a lovely bunch of flowers.

Hope you had a lovely weekend, and a lovely week ahead.

Creative Every Day

Irish sunsets

Just taking a break from Japanese photos, to share some sunset photos taken in Clifden, Ireland.

Skywatch

Cupcake heaven…

My husband bought me a delicious cupcake a few days ago. It wasn’t so tall but wouldn’t it be wonderful to have one just like that (or even taller) coated with lovely chocolate sauce?

Life in cupcake heaven would be filled with chocolate sauce and marshmallows daily. On the other hand, it would also be filled with energetic people on sugar overdose (not sure if that’s a good thing)…

Creative Every Day

Join me for lunch in Osaka

As we approached the building, a kimono clad lady was waiting for us. She was expecting us as we had reservations for lunch.

While we were settling in, we took in our surroundings and sipped our refreshing hot tea.

The garden was beautiful in the rain. The main building is facing us in the photo. But we had a little room to ourselves…

Our little room was sparsely decorated with tatami mats on the floor. There was a low table and 2 chairs., and a simple but really lovely floral arrangement in a wall mounted ceramic vase.

 

Yum, a beautiful dish to start with.

Then the rest of the dishes were served, one after another. I have forgotten what some of them were…

  

We enjoyed each and every dish. Although they were small, there were many. We were beginning to feel quite full at this stage. Then our sweet host told us that the next dish was the last. Ok, no problem. We can fit in another small dish.

It was a memorable last dish – rice in a lovely broth topped with bonito flakes. I can’t describe the wonderful taste, but I can remember it.

But wait, there’s more…. finishing with the wonderful sorbet on the right. Really refreshing.

And  more…  Japanese dessert with green tea.

 

More hot tea before the sweet host and her husband (the chef) bowed and waved us goodbye as we left in a taxi.

MyWorld

Clothes Pegs sketch

 

This is my submission for Twenty Minute Challenge.

Ok, it’s a boring subject… I’ve had these pegs for a long time. I use them to make sure pages of my sketch books stay open, so that paint that I dab on doesn’t smudge while it dries. I wanted to paint the pegs before, but I could not find the motivation to finish a piece. So knowing that I only had to spend 20 minutes somehow made it easier.

I only have 4 pegs to play with, so once I got the composition right, I was happy. I finished drawing in 15 minutes, and spent the remaining 5 minutes on the white outline. Against my normal style, I had to work fast. The lines ended up uneven and I made a few mistakes. Overall I am happy with the piece – I think that I am slowly learning to live with imperfections.

Macro shots from a hotel

I attended a few Chinese painting classes when I was in China. Back in the hotel, I was practising holding the brush and making thick and thin strokes… It was fun but the ink smelled a little, especially in an enclosed hotel room.

This was on the shelf of our hotel room in China. I think it is a model of an old fire engine…

Happy Macro Monday. Have a fantastic week.