Takayama

I saw Suhita and Paul doing sketches in the Playlab Clinic based on a photo Paul Wang took in Takayama. So it prompted me to go back to my photos from our visit there a few years ago. I'm not good at taking pictures, let's face it, and I certainly wasn't thinking of photos as a foundation for painting at that point in my life. Now that's the only reason I take photos, I have to admit, unless it's a video of our cat! But looking through these photos brought back lots of happy memories of our time there with Shinobu, including my first ever visit to an onsen, for which of course I have no photos!!

I'm getting near the end of the 30x30 direct watercolor month, and if I look back, I feel that how I painted at the start was better. I certainly don't have the same stamina I had a few years ago. But at the same time, I am tackling subjects I wouldn't have approached then, so that's my positive. My negative is that I still haven't got it ingrained in my brain to reserve whites when I'm painting. I need to find a way to just think about that for the next month or year, every day, until it becomes instinctive. I must I must!

One feature of Takayama is the dark wood of the buildings. I don't know if that's specific to the region or not. But it makes it extra hard to paint them, as they absorb a lot of light. But it's so beautiful to look down a street and see the light coming out of all these dark shops. The last image reminded me of all the flowers and hanging plants in front of the houses everywhere in Japan. If you remember my virtual sketches from Kachigawa, you might recall that I commented on the fact that every house, no matter how humble, has plants in front.

Since I had lost most of my whites, I had to resort to gouache to create highlights on 3 of the 4 pieces!