i travel sketch live

I found this beautiful tree and flowers combination after harvesting rice last Saturday.

Work in progress

In-progress Sketch and Finished Sketch

This is the first house I sketched, probably, when I was in elementary school during the late 80s, maybe before I was 12 years old. This house is situated across the the highway from our house, I see this house from our window, estimated to be about 15 to 20 meters away. I could not remember and I do not have the old sketches ( I think I sketched this house more than once) but I think I also sketched the stone wall before the house and the trees that covered most of it, so the house could not have been detailed in my drawings. I want to go back again to this area and sketch the house again at least one more time.

Did this under an hour, if I had more time in the park, say, at least 3 days, I would have more sketches and paintings of flowers and other scenes in the park. There was a museum of illustrations of flowers and it was beautiful. I also saw a girl making a coloured pencil drawing of a purple flower in the park. There were many people taking pictures. I think the park would be more beautiful if people would just be walking and enjoying each other's company, picnicking, kissing and having fun with their kids without a camera on them. But instead, a guy goes there and pulls out two cameras and starts painting.

I started painting this with a brush pen in a boat as we took the Matsushima Bay cruise. We were waiting for the boat to leave and saw this scene and did not think to sketch/paint it until the boat was leaving the port area. The next two sketches were started in our hotel room, the view is really beautiful. On the second day, it rained all morning and I sat infront of the window enjoying this sketch while the others enjoyed their Onsen time. After our bay cruise, we walked across the red bridge to another island and did this sketch below.

This is my first time sketching Mt. Fuji, and it looks like Mt. Mayon.

Today is a cool rainy day here in Japan and as I was looking out the window at the sky and the houses of our neighbours, I found a great view I could draw. You know when you are around a place for quite a while you will eventually see the beauty of the things and nature around you and that place.

We spent the day enjoying the snow around the peak of the mountain at Shinotaka Ropeway. Enjoying a hot bowl of savoury Ramen on top of an alpine mountain is an experience to remember.  I sketched this a few minutes before we went home.

Naka Park is known for its cherry trees which beautifully blossoms in spring. We were there three weeks earlier before the cherry blossoms opened. We instead ended up enjoying our warm afternoon in the sun and I got to sketch Kikit as she laid on the grass and read by a tree.

We went to Osaka for a weekend to watch Diana Krall's Wallflower tour. She was sick with a cold  but still performed. Since she could not sing alot, she let her band play the hell out of the songs, she too also played alot of piano which for me was a really awesome treat!  Our first trip was Minoh Waterfalls

Plum blossoms at Bairin Park A photo posted by Dan (@travelsketchlive) on Mar 13, 2016 at 7:30am PDT Painting the plums was tricky as I had to make the pink flower stand out, the resulting painting was messy but it was fun, it took longer to finish than I anticipated.

Sketching from the peak of Mt. Dodogamine, there were more beautiful scenery than can be seen from the peak aside from Mt. Kinka. And I forgot to draw the old jet-matic waterpump we saw ten minutes before we got to the peak. Maybe next time. More info about our trek at Kikit's Instagram .

Last Sunday, we went to Mishima-Ike Pond to check out Mt. Ibuki, It was a beautiful place, the pond was alive with different ducks. Although in this picture the ducks were on the other side of the foot bridge being fed bread by locals. Earlier I sketched Mt. Ibuki from the opposite side , near our house.

I sketched this morning Mt. Ibuki. This mountain was closed (forever) for winter activities in 2011 because there was not enough snow anymore. Calligraphy by The Travleling Kit .

Today I sketched the hills and mountains that we see north of Mount Kinka located at the heart of Gifu City. It was not easy. The weather was cold and sketching while sitting on the edge of a cliff did not do well for my fear of heights. Whenever I looked down at the little moving cars, I felt like I was going to be sucked down and fall.

Last December we journeyed to Fukushima from Gifu to meet relatives and stayed with the for the New Year. Here are the sketches I made along during that trip. At the Shizuoka City, Okitsu station while waiting for the train at Christmas day, I spotted this sakura tree a few minutes before the train arrived. We were heading for Tokyo and a few stations before this we saw Mt. Fuji as our train passed by and the mountain was beautiful. I wonder what it would feel like if you had that view of the mountain outside your home window.

We stayed for the night at Yume Nomad Hostel in Kobe and we left this drawing in one of their sketchpads in the guest area.