It’s been a while since I posted but I have a good excuse – I’m currently in Japan!
My daughter and I are enjoying a spring break vacation in Japan and in the run up to getting ready for the trip I’ve had little time to post or even to draw. I also suffer from anxiety and so was obsessively reconfirming flight tickets, reservations, cat sitter and a host of other things to stave off any disasters.
I write this the morning after I lost my Welcome Suica transit card at Teamlab Planet Tokyo with roughly 3000 yen left on the card!! It’s a disaster I’m still processing emotionally but I’m grateful it was something small compared to losing something major like my wallet, phone, or passport!
But anyway, back to the point of the post. As stated in the title, I purchased some new art supplies from a popular art store in Shinjuku called Sekaido. As social media algorithms go, before my trip I was shown a few videos on YouTube and TikTok from artists who had visited various art stores in Japan. Two things that immediately caught my eye from some of these videos were their purchases of art books, specifically ones on poses and color palettes.
I desperately wanted one of each as googling for poses gets tiring and I struggle with color picking. Well, in a random twist of fate Temu came through for me with an incredible pose book. The book delivered a few days before we left for Japan and I didn’t have time to write about it but will upon my return.
So that left only the color picking book to find and I was eager to get it. Often times when I’m drawing I can visualize one or two colors but the rest of the piece remains blank in my mind. A handy guide for helping with ideas is far preferable then guessing or using google for inspiration.
Once we got to Sekaido I went straight to the book section. After several minutes of browsing I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for and was about to give up when I suddenly saw the spine of a book that caught my eye. It wasn’t the one I was looking for, but it was about color picking. I knew then I was in the right section! A few pulls later and I had found my new love!
The title translates to: Perfect Color Coordination and Combination Reference Book. It has over 3400 color combinations of 2, 3, and 4 colors! Some pages even have 8 color combinations!
I can’t stop flipping through this book! Seriously, it’s amazing! I also picked up a few other art supplies while I was there but this book is my favorite souvenir to myself. It only cost 2000 yen, or roughly $13. Money well spent!
As our trip to Japan winds down, I am still forever grateful that art found its way back into my life and can’t wait to reference the book with my next painting!
Arigatoo Gozaimasu!
