Japan in tiny sketches (part 1)
Sketching people and small scenes in Japan
Japan is one of those places I always dreamed of visiting. I grew up watching anime shows on the national open TV, like any other Mexican kid with no access to cable TV. That’s how my love for Japanese animation, art and culture started. I remember my first sketchbook was filled with drawings of my favourite anime characters and every other natural landscape. Visiting Japan felt like a far away dream, and this year I had the huge privilege of visiting with my friends and partner.
I wanted to travel light and I brought my most essential art supplies without too much complication: a couple of pens and pencils and a pocket notebook. We were travelling as a group, I knew I wouldn’t have much time to just sit and spend time as I pleased for drawing. I decided to do very quick sketches here and there where I believed there was enough time. I am a perfectionist and I tend to not draw unless the environment and circumstances are aligned, so this was an excellent exercise to just loosen up and have fun without having high expectations. For my good surprise, I loved the practice and the fact that I have small memories of this trip in the form of cute drawings that just fill my heart.
The sun glasses guy with the man bun
We were riding a train with destination to Shimamoto, Osaka having intentions of visiting the Yamazaki Whisky Museum. We were very lucky we got to take this train with beautiful interiors and decorations of Tom & Jerry. Wine red color on the outside with elegant dark green seats and sparkly clean (like most trains in Japan!) interiors. It was very quiet and somewhat empty and I went for my first live sketch for warming up. I drew my partner who was seating in front of me wearing his sunglasses and a slightly messy man-bun. One stroke here, one stroke there and the sketch was completed in almost no time.
I know, my first sketch is not the best and I can sense how I was a little bit stiff but I still like it. When drawing a small scene, one of my challenges is where to set the framing boundary. When we look at something we always have the blurry edges of the peripheral vision and I find it a bit odd when drawing. It was a not a big problem for this tiny sketch given I was just trying to draw one person.
Yamazaki distillery
We arrived to the Yamazaki distillery the same day. We went there because one of my friends is passionate about whisky, beers and liquors. To be honest, I don’t know much about this things, so I didn’t know what to expect, but as a curious person of all-the-things it was very fun and insightful about a world that was very unknown to me.
The museum was lovely and surrounded of hills dressed in a green attire of trees and grass. The fist part of the museum was a timeline of the history of the distillery and how whisky became popular in Japan, followed by a display of whisky bottles from different years. What caught my eyes the most was a massive display with small whiskey bottles samples labelled with dates and years, hundreds and hundreds of them. My friends was very excited to find a whisky bottle that was produced on her birth date. In the middle of the display there was a small bar with the shape of a still where they served different types of whiskey samples to the visitors. While my friends were tasting the whiskey I put hands-on to my second quick sketch, alongside a tiny whiskey sip.
Sleepy train rides
We took another train to our way back to Osaka city centre. It was a bit late and everyone was looking a bit tired. I may have fallen asleep at some point during the ride, when I woke-up I noticed a man in front me sleeping too. He seemed very comfy and at some extend cartoonish that I couldn’t stop myself from drawing this stranger man. I had to be very quick because I did not want my model to go while I was halfway through the sketch. This may be one of my most accurate drawings of somebody, the similarity was uncanny.
I was having the impulse of poking him and giving the drawing to him, but I restrain myself from doing it. If I was sleeping that peacefully I wouldn’t like to be disturbed. This left me thinking if I have ever been drawn by somebody without even knowing it.
Matcha house
During our stay in Osaka we visited beautiful Kyoto. What a wonderful place! I completely fell in love with all the views, shrines and how traditional-looking this place is. One of my favourites little moments of this visit was stopping at a small ice cream shop where they sold Houjicha ice cream! It seemed to be a family-owned local shop. The lady at the counter was a sweet old grandma who kindly asked me “Where are you from? you are a beautiful girl!“ I was a bit blushed with the unexpected compliment. We had a small chat with her and it turned out she was a widow of an American man, and they had one of the few first international weddings in Kyoto. I felt sad her husband was not with her anymore, but she seemed happy working at the family business with their grandchildren. I wish I had more time to draw her.
It was in Kyoto where I tried matcha in Japan for the first time. We went to this place called Matcha House, which I believe is a chain. The place had a nice garden entrance and the interiors where lovely with nicely decorated tables. This was one of the meeting points to gather with the rest of my friends, meaning I waited a couple of minutes there and decided to draw a quick sketch of the matcha bar and its staff. I was halfway the sketch when we had to leave, so I just took a picture and finished it later on the day. Matcha was delicious by the way!
This is the end of part 1 out of 2 (or maybe 3) entries about Japan in tiny sketches. I hope you enjoyed this read and I will see you in the next one :)
From one heart to another,
- Astromeria
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Man sleeping on the train is my favorite!
I love the concept😍