This page was first published on November 4, 2022
and last updated on April 18, 2024
Page 1
A new beginning
This seems like an good place to start a new section because my life has begun a new chapter. For eighteen years I had taught English at the same junior and senior high school in Tokyo, but my job suddenly came to an end when I turned 65 because the school apparently had an age restriction policy.
But by God's grace I was offered a new job teaching English starting the following month at a kindergarten in Tokyo. This has turned out to be my best job yet, and fits me perfectly. I am in charge of the lessons and am active from beginning to end, using puppets, singing, playing my guitar, and drawing pictures on a white board. So I can no longer sketch students during the lesson, and have abandoned digital sketching on my iPad Mini in the classroom.
But this new job situation offers great subway sketching opportunities. It requires a very long commute through Tokyo and then to the outskirts, which most people would consider a downside, but I am very happy to have more time to sketch the people on the trains. As a matter of fact I sometimes choose local trains rather than the faster express trains so I can have more time to sketch the commuters.
I used my pocket size "mini 6" ring binders which I had written about several times in the past (most recently in this article) and continued my habit of sketching commuters in pencil and watercolor. I then posted the better sketches on my Instagram page. I only teach a few days a week, but the long commute results in around twice as many sketches as before.
If you click on any of the images they will take you to a larger one.
Postcard Sketches
As much as I love the pocket size ring binder system for sketching, one major drawback is the unavailability of ready-made pages for watercolor sketching. I have to trim the pages from larger watercolor paper and punch the holes. I've been doing this for years, but it does get tedious and results in a waste of nice watercolor paper, which always bothers me.
But I have always known that good watercolor paper is widely available in postcard size, especially in Tokyo, so I decided to go back to that format and simply buy the watercolor postcards which I can use right away. Since I am sketching on the train where there is a risk of not being able to finish a sketch, I settled on inexpensive watercolor postcards by a local maker, Maruman. They have a decent line of relatively cheap watercolor paper called vifArt which comes in rough, medium and smooth textures, and is available in many sizes including postcard size. The product line used to be called Cotman, but the name suddenly changed, and a different (but very similar) line of Cotman watercolor paper by Winsor and Newton started appearing on the shelves. I'm sure there is a story behind that.
I have sketched quite a bit on postcards in the past, and had always wished that I could find a nice leather jotter for them, but they apparently did not exist -- until recently when I came across a Japanese leather craftsman who sells exactly what I was looking for on a Japanese website called Creema which specializes in handmade goods, similar to Etsy.
Since postcards are larger, and sketches take more time, I usually only managed to finish the pencil sketch on the train and had to color the sketches at home at my desk. This is probably a good idea since the slightly larger format makes juggling a watercolor palette and water brush a little more awkward on a moving train.
But all the same I did get a nice leather binder that perfectly fits postcards. It's "true A6" size which has closer proportions to postcards than personal size, and the two sets of holes are closer to each other (you could punch a hole between the two sets and have a line of seven evenly spaced holes, for what it's worth).
I even vacuum-formed a postcard-size palette with holes that goes in the binder. I must admit I've only used it a few times on the train because of the size, but it's so cool, I'm looking for an opportunity to use it more.
Artist Trading Card Sketches
I have also been sketching for several years on trading card size watercolor paper because it is such a convenient size, and there is an abundance of storage options available, thanks to the popularity of cards this size which included baseball cards and game cards. The local hundred yen shops (Japan's equivalent of dollar stores) stock lots of cheap storage boxes, plastic sleeves and binders.
I also like the idea of trading cards as a social opportunity where people give and receive cards, since I am in the habit of giving away sketches, especially to the model. However, I must say that this has resulted in some very cold reactions from subway commuters who usually have their defenses up on crowded trains, so I stopped the practice on the train unless the model signals an openness to communicating with me -- and it has happened a few times.
Since trading cards are so small and portable, there are many ways to carry them. I've made a few wooden watercolor kits in the size, and have also used a fancy metal cigarette case as well as my pocket size Filofax which has plastic pages with slots for holding the cards. Both have vacuum-formed plastic palettes.
One thing that irks me about the artist trading card world is the fact that some clueless folks have created -- and try to enforce -- a system of two separate categories for artist trading cards: Artist Trading Cards (ATC) for cards that are swapped for other cards and Art Cards, Editions and Originals (ACEO) for cards that are intended to be sold. That is in contrast to the rest of the trading card world where trading cards are freely sold and don't have to be in a different category. As a matter of fact, trading card sales is a thriving business. It irks me because I like to rubber stamp the backs of cards, and bristle at the idea of having to have two separate rubber stamps, especially when I don't know if the card will be swapped or sold. You can read my criticism of this two-category system in a different article.
Note about Amazon links: If you click on a link and buy something at Amazon, a few pennies per dollar goes into my Amazon account, so instead of letting Amazon keep it all, you can pry a few pennies from their fingers make them share it with me. Any other vendor links I may put on this website are just for your convenience.
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