Old Notes

"Art History Notes" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO2000
“College Notes” Cedar Park, 2017″Art History Notes” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going?

So I was going through some old sketchbooks and found a couple that I used during college. Some pages have notes from lectures, others have sketches for painting ideas, and there are a few that combine sketches with notes. I did this a lot in my art history classes, where it made complete sense to do so. Plus it was fun, good practice, and kept me awake! 😆 Speaking of school, I’ve always said that I never want to go back to school, but you know, it might be fun to take some classes again. I really hate doing homework and studying, but the lectures were for the most part interesting.

Also, going through my old notes, I came across some words that were written in the color ink that I really like. It’s a bit of a mystery why I wrote only a couple words using it, but just seeing these was enough to get me to order a few ink samples, including a similar color.

"College Notes" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO1600
“College Notes” Cedar Park, 2017

These days I write every night in a notebook about what happened during the day (just short lists) and I think I might change the ink color every month or so. Gotta keep things fun, right?

I hope you had a nice Monday (as nice as a Monday could be, at least)!

またね~

JFC Nite and a Watercolor Sketch

"JFC" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO1250
“JFC” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Tonight we enjoyed one of our favorite meals: karaage. Koa loves it and requested this dinner since he hasn’t had a chance to get in his JFC (Japanese Fried Chicken) fix while Mariko was away in Japan. Needless to say, it was delicious!

Today I applied some color to a sketch that I did a couple weeks ago. It’s an alleyway at the Kasbah of the Udayas in Rabat, Morocco. I used a reference photo that I took when we were there last month. It’s a simple scene, and the blue is pretty intense, but if you’ve ever seen it in person, you will agree that the color is amazing. The more I look at this painting, the more the blue wall looks like the sea.

"Kasbah Watercolor" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO1600
“Kasbah Watercolor” Cedar Park, 2017

I’m enjoying sketching and watercolors a lot. Plus my fountain pen interest has settled into a nice groove. Meaning, I am enjoying using my LAMY Safari to write in a daily journal every night, and my Pilot Kakuno is used for general purpose writing, and captioning my watercolors too!

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice Sunday!

またね~

Practicing Faces

"Face" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/70 sec, ISO3200
“Face” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。

Today I drew a couple faces, based off of some artwork from one of my favorite digital artists, Ilya Kuvshinov. I love the style of his faces, so I used one of his drawings as a reference and tried to draw the eyes, then the rest of the face and hair. It took a lot of drawing and erasing, but I finally drew something that I thought wasn’t too bad.

From the pencil sketch, I traced a couple copies, then inked the top one using a Micron pen and applied watercolor. The other one I just used my Uni-Ball AIR pen. There are a few things I am not happy with, but overall, it’s not a bad first effort.

I am going to try to draw on my own, using some of the techniques I learned from this drawing. We’ll see how it goes! The more I draw, the more I realize I have a long way to go.

"Practice" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/50 sec, ISO3200
“Practice” Cedar Park, 2017

I hope you had a nice day!

またね~

Reunited

"Fuchico Omiyage" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/55 sec, ISO3200
“Fuchico Omiyage” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。Today Mariko and Bay returned from their three-week+ long trip to Japan with suitcases full of omiyage (gifts) and food in tow. One of the things I received was a new Fuchico “Japan” series figure. It’s pretty fun, silly, and cool! ❤️

While I was waiting at the airport for them to arrive, I made a small sketch in my Traveler’s Notebook. As I was sketching the Jeep, it started to drive away, so I had to hurry and then try to remember what it looked like as I hadn’t quite finished. But I think it turned out ok. I just wish the ink were waterproof so I could watercolor over it. Oh well. Maybe I need to get some waterproof ink for my Kakuno fountain pen in the future.

"Small Sketch" Austin, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, ISO3200
“Small Sketch” Austin, 2017

I hope you had a nice Thursday!

おやすみ