Another Painting on Imperial Palace, Tokyo

This is a long overdue post. I wasn't very satisfied with the first Imperial Palace painting so I actually painted another one about three weeks ago, a different building opposite the one below. This one showed the surrounding lake and a beautiful stonewall bridge, so I thought a portrait format would be better.



Based on a few photos I took last year while visiting Japan, I added the swans which were hiding behind the bridge while I took the photos.Here are 2 of my reference pics.






I spent quite a bit of time trying get the water reflections right, but I think I might have overworked it. Although satisfied with it, I felt that there are still much room for improvement. Anyway, I completed it just in time to be displayed in the Singapore Watercolour Society 39th Annual Exhibition, which I'll blog about after this entry.


Here's the finished painting. Painted on full sheet of Fabriano Artistico stapled onto a 20" x 29" stretching frame, using Artist grade watercolour paints which include W&N, Rembrandt, Schmincke, Holbein, and M.Graham.




Thanks for looking. Critiques and comments are most welcome.

Demo - Imperial Palace, Tokyo

Here's a demo I did recently.

This is the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan (aka Kokyo), the residence of the Emperor of Japan, based on a photo I took while I was in Tokyo for a work-related business trip a year ago.

Full sheet of Fabriano Artistico Rough 300gsm stapled on stretching frame.

Let's start with the drawing...

First, a glaze of wash is done wet-on-wet on the background foliage with mixture of yellow ochre, sap green and turquoise blue. Next, the first wash of the rocks is painted ,also wet-on-wet with mixture of yellow ochre, burnt sienna, permanent rose, cerulean blue and turquoise blue. I also painted the gate with turquoise blue, prussian blue and yellow ochre. These will serve as the colour foundation of the overall painting.


Next, I moved on to the main building. The Imperial Palace is majestically built on top of a hill supported by the rocks and heavily guarded. The curved roof is especially fun to paint with minimal brush strokes to suggest the details. Then I painted the windows, roof tiles, beams, etc.

I also painted the shaded areas of the building and started to define the rocks with shades and cracks (this will be very tedious later on but fun to do nonetheless!) . I guess you can tell now that Yellow ochre and Turquoise blue are the colour theme of this painting.

Also, notice that I didn't use masking fluid to cover the lamp post and the guard houses. Instead, I chose to paint around these structures as I hate the very hard edges created by masking fluid. I only use it when really necessary.



I painted the rocks slowly and merticulously, very tedious task but someone still has to do it ... I didn't follow the forms and shapes of the rock exactly as in my ref photo (that would be insane), but a close interpretation would do, as long as they look like rocks.Also added more texture and layers to the background foliage but I kept it very light as I want to keep that area of the painting bright to contrast it with the rest of the painting.


Finally, I added more details and shades on the rock wall, painted the guard and lastly added more detailed branches and leaves on the background foliage.... happy that I've painted something for almost 2 months, but not really excited about it... may be because painting all those rocks in detail turned this into a tiring labour rather than a work of art? I don't know...

Anyway, here's the finished painting.


Here are some close-up shots:

Hope you like it... comments and critiques are welcome as usual.

I'm Back... with pictures of Tokyo, Japan

Well, I'm back! it's been one hell of a long time since I last updated this blog. As I've mentioned earlier, I was attending a work related evening course and I'm glad to announce that I've finished the course and barely passed it... but a pass is still a pass... so I'm done with all the reading and revising... haha

I've also picked up photography during this absence although I have been toying with the idea for sometime. Photography has always been a secondary hobby which supplements my watercolour art, but I decided to own a digital slr so that I can shoot better quality photos. So, I bought myself a brand new Pentax K10D, after much research and found that it is exactly what I wanted at a reasonable price.

I went to Tokyo, Japan for a week in August for work and I took the opportunity to go there 3 days earlier to tour around the city, and took lots of photos. Here are some of my favourites.

The Imperial Palace and residence of the Emperor of Japan, aka Kōkyo

Colourful fans and souvenirs at Asakusa

Beautiful Sunset at Sensoji Temple, Asakusa

Night scene at Ginza - I just love the contrast between the trailing
lights from the moving cars and the idling traditional bicycles

Have bikes will travel - more and more tokyo residents are
going green by riding bikes around the city centre

Traditional Japanese parade at Harajuku

KAWAII!! This little guy is so full of energy!

Hope you like my photos, comments are welcome.
Of course, this doesn't mean I'll stop painting and become a photographer instead.
Watercolour is still my first love, but obviously with this new toy, you'll see more photography stuff from now on too... :-)

More pictures of my trip to Tokyo in my Facebook: Album 1 and Album 2