Japan Sketchbook Tour!

Join me as I flip through my sketchbook from my trip to Japan including Tokyo, Osaka, Gifu and Niigata. Multimedia art including gouache, colored pencils and crayons.
I share my artistic adventures, capturing the essence of Japan while sketching on location. From quirky streets to delicate cherry blossoms, my drawings are a window into the soul of this captivating country.
So, grab a cup of green tea, settle into a cozy spot, and let me take you on a visual journey through Japan like you’ve never seen before. Whether you’re an art lover, a travel enthusiast, or simply curious about the Land of the Rising Sun, there’s something for everyone in my Japan sketchbook flip-through.

✼ DERWENT DRAWING PENCILS (12 pack) https://amzn.to/3NV20bC
✼ Moleskine square sketchbook https://amzn.to/3HXeBY7
✼ Faber Castell Pitt Pens 8 pack https://amzn.to/48Ng1AZ
✼ Caran D’ache: Studio Gouache : Set Of 8x10ml Tubes https://www.jacksonsart.com/en-au/caran-d-ache-studio-gouache-set-of-8x10ml-tubes?utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate_code=aVrk6mjn1Ivu5va15nlmuanTxrXSw6h&referring_service=link
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⭐About me:
I’m Kat (aka Kathryn), a part time artist living in Melbourne, Australia but my dream is to sketch the world. I work mainly in multimedia using materials like acrylic gouache, Caran d’ache luminance pencils, Ecoline markers, Caran d’ache neocolors and so much more.

⭐LINKS
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#sketchbooktour #sketchbookflipthrough #japan #tokyo #artchannel #solotravel #urbansketch #enpleinair

hi and welcome to sketching the world I’m Kat and Aras from Australia but my dream is to sketch the world most recently Japan 2024 yeah I’ve just got back from a month in Japan I’ve got quite a few videos about that trip on my channel if you haven’t watched them already but none of those videos show my completed Sketchbook so I’m back with the Sketchbook tour I didn’t actually planned it it wasn’t like o I’ll be so Myster and not show my finished sketches until I do the Sketchbook tour it’s just more laziness than design so yeah Japan 2024 let’s get started first page is blank I was going to do some fancy cover page I never did I probably never will but this I did on my first morning I arrived late at night stayed at a hotel and then yeah stumbl down to get my coffee at this Celia which is big coffee chain in Japan and did this this is was a nice exelia it had a little Terrace outside Terrace where I could sit and sketch outside Terraces aren’t that common in Japan like I’m from Melbourne we have so much al fresco dining but yeah in Japan it’s just starting to become a thing so it’s good to sit out and yeah just draw the street the McDonald’s Royal host pronto mizuo that’s the one of the banks and that was all in the D drawing pencils in the reduced of all the muted colors so then yeah next I must have it must be my first day I went to my apartment got all settled in and yeah but did a still life of the stuff on my desk Oram Mon it’s a little like vitamin C drink pouring love Japanese pouring and poery sweat and that was in the markers I took with me I wasn’t really happy I took these if you seen my packing video I took these markers they were all a bit dry and I wasn’t getting the kind of nice juiciness that I wanted from them so I ended up here doing a couple sketches and then just putting them to one side I should go through them actually and do a really good test and see what’s worth keeping in but not today so this I showed sketching this on my Vlog my Japan Vlog I went to the park cherry trees were still in Blossom and again I was using like fine liner pen and the markers the markers were great for doing the blossoms in the tree it was so easy doing that with them and I’ve been tossing up I don’t like the angle of this road needs to be a but anyway yeah so nice to actually see the cherry blossoms I thought I was going to miss them I thought I was getting there too late but they waited for me so then the there was this woman trimming the H so I thought I’d do some quick sketches of her I really have her looking like eiss hand right she looks like this crazy scientist that’s doing Mad experiments which I kind of like these were very quick sketches because yes is moving around a lot then I went to gfu I’ve also got a Blog up about gifu where I show sketching this and so this is Naga very famous samurai from gfu and there’s a statue of him at the station and yeah this was all done in pencil combination of the um do and drawing pencils and the next this is gfu Castle I kind of feel like I got a bit like started it and oh yeah it’s unfinished there’s a reason for that I remember now it started raining so I had to pack up all my gear and run for shelter and then I went and sheltered in the museum so this was some Samurai armor I really like this I did a really dark shadow in um graphite pencil while I was there and then I didn’t like it so I rubbed it out but yeah this is the Samurai armor and then on my way home I called into a little cafe really nice little cafe and giu I have no idea what it was called but yeah just sitting there sketching at the counter they had these sort of pipes that they had flowers in and it was fun I really wor in black and white but it was fun doing this sketch just in the fine liner pens some of the brush pens and everything something a bit different for me and yeah I kind of like how that’s turned out then this is when I went to Mino I also showed myself sketching this Mino is this town near gfu very famous for their Washi paper and this was one there’s a whole street few streets in area that have the traditional Japanese houses so I sat down and sketch one of them I’m quite happy with how I did this Japanese tree I think I really catch that Japanese tree style quite well then I got back to my hotel I ordered U because I was yeah couldn’t be bother going out I needed some rest and while I was waiting for the Uber driver to turn up I just sat in the lobby and did the sketch of the street and quite happy with how the cars turned out in it this is old D drawing pencil quick sketch I actually did about half of it in the lobby and then my food turned up so I took a photo and finished it later then these are the stamps you get I got these when I was in SE Gara I was going to draw a self-portrait of me in my Samurai armor I might still go back and do that I look at this one it look really familiar why is that Samurai Crest so familiar and then I realized it’s the Japan Airlines logo well it might not be exactly the logo it’s very similar though so yeah H aaka and this was the view from the window of my hotel room I’ve got some of the process of this in that video so yeah this one I used pencil and Nar colors getting Nar colors to sort of do those big blocks of color and adding a bit of water sometimes I don’t like using na colors with water but for this yeah I want to get some of the reflections on the buildings and everything so they were a good choice for that then this is is oaka Castle I’ve got also this in my video I was intending to go back and add the SC sky so that the whiteness of the castle really showed out I might do that I might do that today maybe and come back and show you how it looks after I’ve added the sky in you can say oh no you shouldn’t added the sky in it’s ruined it then yeah this was around the city oaka it’s such a bright in your face City and all the shops have all these like big octopuses and dragons and everything octopus the they love octopus Taco Yaki Taco Yaki in Osaka round bows of dough with octopus in it it’s the Osaka specialty food but I don’t really like it that much to be honest yeah so I did I was UN happy with how this dra not the dragon the octopus turned out I like the octopus but I felt like it had no context and I’ve got this paper because the ne colors do smudge so much um so yeah I did this just to have a bit of context for that that it’s this octopus on the roof of this little kiosk selling takoyaki balls then I caught the cruise not the cruise it wasn’t a cruise no luxury Cruise that’s for sure the fairy from oaka and I didn’t do any sketching the first night on the fairy boat I mean it was dark when I got on and it was really hard like draw out on the deck just about blew away but the next day I went to the there’s a room where you can sit and look at the Pooles and yeah lots of BS going past it’s quite nice I sketch this with my do pencils and this one I think I at this stage had put all my dant pencils into this little box because it was easy to carry around and just added a few of the luminance colors so added in like that orange because there’s no bright orange in the do drawing pencils and I think maybe that green so that I had a green hey that’s my pencil case with my pencils that I’ve been looking for it’s right there oh I’m getting blind in my old age so yeah I got off the fairy and there was a bus shuttle bus that took you to this town called Cura kokura and oh I was just so exhausted that morning I was like I hadn’t slept on the fairy the beds were so hard and I had to go to fuka to catch the plane back to Tokyo and I was just like I don’t want to do anything so I went and sat in Starbucks and did this sketch and meanwhile oh it was really weird all these people there were these steps here and people were standing on the top of the steps taking photos of something so I thought I’ll go out and have a look and I’ll pop my head up and one of the buildings in the town was on fire there was all this SM coming out of it I didn’t take photos but yeah it was quite odd and a little bit disturbing but it was far enough away that there wasn’t any danger in my Tokyo Vlog I showed this I went to a coffee called oi bath and sat at the window and you could see the train station and you rose bushes and everything really lovely little cafe and yeah again this is mainly urant drawing pencils I added the roses in later because the do drawing pencils don’t have that really bright red there’s only sort of a Terra Cotta so I really want to get the Roses popping there and yeah added it later then yeah headed to nikata I feel like I was just editing the video of when I was in nikata and this pict looked a lot better when I first started it like early on in the early on stage it looked a lot better and now I’m not that happy with the finished one but yeah it was nice sitting in the sun sketching anyway then I went further along the beach and there was this like little house boat thing weird little house boat on a boat so I couldn’t resist it add the sky in later this is neocolor too then for some reason I skipped a page oh I like this one that I did I like how I’ve got this sort of Mark making going on here in the background the boat add a bit of Nar color there it’s kind of hard sketching this I couldn’t actually see like I was sitting and the Wall came to about here when I was sitting down so I had to keep standing up looking sitting back down sketching but yeah this is mainly in p and Neo color this is Neo color I kind of feel the Neo color might have been added in later and yeah all this done in pencil bits and pieces and yeah the trees then I did this from a photo I taken a photo I don’t even know where the photo was taken but yeah I did this took the photo and I think at this stage I was starting to get sick I was starting to get the flu wasn’t getting out of my room much so yeah drawing for a photo was at least hitting like sort of you know when you I want to get out and sketch but I can’t cuz I’m too sick so soort of scratch that it then this one this was sitting in a cafe there was a yeah just a girl and someone walking past not a very exciting scene but I like these lights and yeah that’s mainly pencil I’m just wondering what this blue is that could be one of these pens no it’s not it’s the ink pen I bought if you watch my whole video I bought an ink pen when I was in um Theo and yeah I want to test it out so I was playing around with the ink pen so that’s a pen ink pen and H not sure about this picture then when I was in Shinjuku I sat down on the street and did this sketch I’m pretty happy with this yeah I really like this it’s such a strong strong piece that ping sign 2,000 Yen for 12 hours yeah that tree I was having trouble with this tree because I only had light greens with me at the time nothing really dark I might go back in and add some darker green to it it kind of yeah doesn’t have that fullness doesn’t have the solidness that I would have liked so this one is a quick sketch I was sitting eating I’ve done the background earlier and you went to this shopping strip and sitting eating and just yeah quickly sketch while I was eating that’s all in pencil over the the GH background then this one i’ taken a photo I was walking past this station I driving in a car past the station and I really like this scene with all the cranes and everything I drew it I feel like I haven’t captured what I wanted to capture about the scene that kind of I’ve missed the main point there I don’t hate the sketch in itself but yeah I feel like I’ve missed the main point of what I wanted to show I do like this one’s best it’s my bit this is in the went drawing pencils car dash pencils little bit of that could be My Magic Pencil also I’ve got the China graph yellow that I use so I can get the brightness and yeah High I always call them highlight fine liner pen fine liner pen and then I use that in pen to do the background I think I’ll revisit this at another stage and try it again then this was when I was getting so frustrated being stuck in my hotel not my hotel in my apartment it’s like I’m never going to get out of this apartment my whole trip to Tokyo is just me being sick in bad there is it’s so frustrating being sick when you’re traveling when you’re on holidays and it’s like oh I could be sick at home for free instead of paying money to be sick at this apartment so anyway I did a still alive sickness still alive and this is done in pencil the chin graph yellow chinagraph pencil I was talking about and a bit of Neo color I kind of not that happy with this this area the desk area I do like how I’ve got I had panned tissues they were so soft on my nose like they were the best tissues I’ve ever used when I have a c had a cold ever it was like an Embrace for my nose so yeah even when you’re sick and you’re getting frustrated there’s something you can sketch then this I was heading over to tenu Island aisle and had to wait for ages for the bus so this is yeah little shopping strip near our staying with there’s a station there but also lot of bus stops and yeah just waiting and I actually got like really immersed in the sketch and looked up and the my bus was there so I had to grab everything and Chuck it into my bag and then I got on the bus and then my sew car like my C the public transport didn’t have enough money on it like one of those you know where you just look like you’re very disorganized well I was that’s why I disorganized because I was but yeah so this was the shopping strip I wish I hadn’t done this lamp post the same color as the background behind it that kind of bugs me but yeah a lot of things I like about it the stairs mainly the stairs are what I like most then this was yeah Inno Zoo aisle I sitting there I wanted to do some gach painting because I hadn’t used my gach Paints the whole time I’d been in Tokyo so this is a combination of gouache and pencil I really like yeah how this color’s gone on these buildings it really gives that feeling of the lighting the building and everything things I don’t like a this whole area here I like this chick I I’ve got a sort of hunched over she looks a bit like the girl from The Ring walking her dog and oh I forgot to say did I say yeah it’s squash and color pencil anyway so that’s the thing there then I walked along a bit and I did this I think this was when I was having my dinner I went to this restaurant they came me this really weird it sort of said that it was a pee and cauliflower soup on the menu but when I got it it had all these weird things in it like these little fishy jelly things and it was weird but I knew the sketch while I was there having dinner again I think this could benefit from having the sky done in it then just another quick sketch it’s actually enjoying with these just turning the buildings into a pattern obviously more detailed at the front but yeah sort of playing around with just doing patterns just doing stripes or whatever and giving the impression of buildings rather than trying to get too much detail so all this bit here like want to do more of okay I’ve had to refilm some of this because when I look back through my footage that I got the other day the Shadows across the page were just getting insane like there were these two really dark lines you could sort of see it gradually happening and then it just got to the point where you couldn’t actually you see the picture was very distracting so yeah this one I did while I was eating dinner so I’m was starting set I really want to get that Sunset the sort of you know Sunset sky and it’s really hard it’s one of the hardest things I think because you’re trying to get those yellows and blues and of course if you have them mixing on the page then you just get green but yeah this was just a quick sketch of the buildings as the sun was setting next up this is my favorite sketch in all of my Sketchbook I was at this little cafe and there were these two people at the table next to me and I couldn’t help but sketch them so yeah this is all in colored pencil mainly the do drawing pencil the red is I was going to say poly chromos but no it’s cre of color poy red Prima color so yeah and yeah most of that was done on location I add a little bit of color later next up I went to the there’s a cultural center in a suer it’s a pretty new thing I think and if you go up to the top floor you can sit in the cafe uh there’s a cafe and there’s a like Lookout kind of place from the cafe you’ve got this view all over this is the temples shrines temples or shrines in a suck I would say anyway so um and then in between you’ve got these shops the N Miss shopping area and yeah fantastic view for sketching I’ve got a bit of me sketching there in my Tokyo sketching Vlog and this is the finished picture from this session this is again all in colored pencil mainly the drawing pencil and a VI this green is kashh luminance and the yellow is I’ll get that guy I’ve used that a few times um right on everything water soluble uh mitubishi rainbow and yeah it’s one of those I guess what do you call them like a chinagraph pencil or something and I really like it because you can get those yellows that really Pop I find it really hard to find a bright yellow pencil and that’s why I bought it because I wanted the really intense bright yellow then this one I went out to the observation deck and my favorite building in Tokyo the Tokyo Sky Tree I’ve got a bit wobbly here but yeah it was getting really stormy and my main thing I wanted to get that really stormy sky in the Neo color I actually did some it later because I was just getting really hard like to get this sort of mixture and that it takes a lot of hand strength and I was sitting in this like wasn’t enclosed it was an you observation area so like two sides were open and it was quite stormy and there was rain coming in and everything so I tried to get this done as quickly as possible so that I didn’t get wet and yeah this was done in Neo color all in neoc color crayons I’m pretty happy with that with my wobbly Sky Tree then this was the last sketch I did on my Tokyo Japan well Japan not Tokyo vacation I was at the airport I had to get like wheelchair assistance at the airport and the girl took me down to the gate and left me here to get something to eat and well she just leave me she went off to help other people and said she come back when I had to get on the flight and yeah these were some people in the eating area I didn’t really get a lot of time to finish this she come back faster than I expected and yeah these people kept getting up and down so I didn’t really have time well there was about four of them and I can get them all in I’m and I added in this blue background and this checkerboard which isn’t actually I should have done a bit more but anyway yeah quick little sketch at the end of the trip and then on the plane I just slept and then at the back of my Sketchbook woohoo we’ve got some stuff from the MTI exhibition you couldn’t do a lot of filming at the Martis EX there was one area where you could take photos you couldn’t take video at all so I thought I’ll just do my own sketches of things and so yeah this is one of the ones I really love from my trip too so all the people looking at their big cutout picture on the wall and I thought I had another one there but I don’t so that was my Tokyo Sketchbook thanks for joining me while I chatted about all my sketching I we’ll just go back there was one picture that I changed this was oaka castle and I wanted to put a blue sky in that to make the white of the castle more pop out more and yeah so you put all this blue into the sky and put a bit of color around here really does show sort of the Samurai armor and the castles they look very similar and yeah there was a couple of others where I just added a little bit of color I didn’t this one I tried to put Greens in the mle skin Sketchbook paper can go a bit splotchy if you using what medeor on it like with the big okay GH it’s fine but with watercolor yeah you can sort of see all this texture coming out of the paper I mean it’s H not something I love you could probably do a few Coates and get rid of it but then so anyway thanks for watching and if you like today’s video make sure you give it a thumbs up helps me and it helps you you by telling the algorithm what you like to see on YouTube so yep see you next time on sketching the world