Over September and October 2023 I travelled through Japan and a little bit of South Korea. I’m surprised how full my sketch book ended up being, every day was so dense and overflowing and I’m not sure where I fitted it in. Even on the occasions I planned to get some rest, Japan managed to trick me into long days of exploring and eating. A terrible dilemma!
Japan is not the easiest part of the world to find a quiet spot to sit and draw people. Everything is a blur, the restaurants are small and bustling, and the bars are intimate and made for privacy. Everything is either too close up or moving too quickly. Train rides were one of the best times to capture people being still, finally everyone was moving at the same speed and in the same direction.
I gifted a few of my unsuspecting sitters with their portraits. Next trip I’m going to do a lot more of that, it was a lovely way to meet people and a nice hack to bridge large language barriers.
Japan was really surprising, it’s a whole universe unto itself. As a creative you can’t help but be humbled by the overwhelming, almost excessive, attention to detail poured into everything made or touched by people. Being able to travel from the most overstimulating city scape you’ve ever seen to a quiet temple filled forest, all in the same day, makes it all feel not quite like reality. It’s weird and confusing and it’s not always clear what’s going on.
Japan was a whirlwind of visual stimulation. There’s a lot of things I saw that I’m sure will sneak into my visual library going forward – acorn bells, lotus mandalas, forest mushrooms, camp looking trains, ropes tied around everything, golden flower rivets and paper wishes tied to trees.
When you visit any of the temples in japan , in exchange for a small donation you can receive a hand written buddhist blessing. The back end of my sketch book is now filled with beautiful calligraphy and stamps. You can also find free stamps to collect all over Japan in train stations and near important sites.
You Shinkansen see another of my travel sketchbooks here!
