Short trip to Odawara and Hakone

[By Kumi Matsukawa in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan]

  Some of my watercolor class members and I had one night and two days sketch trip to Odawara and Hakone in Kanagawa prefecture. Both places are quite popular destination among foreign visitors as well as locals.

Day 1: we visited Odawara Castle.

this is what I drew in the morning. The weather was great, a bit too hot but better than cold.

The structure is seemingly simple yet actually difficult to capture since I don’t know ( the name nor the meaning of ) each and every part that consists and forms the beauty. First, I drew base structural mass with watercolor, then added shade, and drew lines on top of it with fountain pen, plus a bit shading with colored pencil. I was not so happy about resulting image, so after having lunch, I again drew the same structure from almost same station point.

This time I tried almost same procedure without line drawing, and was able to capture proportion a bit bette.

At that night we stayed in Kanponoyado ryokan ( Japanese inn) in Hakone where you can see well the Mt. Fuji from the window.

This is the view of sunset time Mt. Fuji. It looked pinkish in twilight.

After dinner we got together in a room and had show and tell time. These are our result.

Day 2: This is the view of the mountain in the early morning.

We went to Hakone-en Garden near Lake Ashi. There you can find a Rakuyaki shop ( where you can paint on the ceramic and make your original ceramic ware.) I painted morning Mt. Fuji based on the image that I drew in the morning.

It costs 1300 yen.

Then I drew Lake Ashi view with oil pastel on colored paper. (This was watercolor class sketch trip but we don’t have to limit our sketch tool just watercolor, right?)

This is very familiar scene for me. In my childhood, my parents often brought me there. I rode that swan boat with my father, pedaled to drive, the view reminds me that…

Then I drew Komagatake side ( turned my back on the lake.) Tour buses and ropeway.

Before lunch, we had show and tell time.

And after lunch, we continued sketching elsewhere inside Hakone-en Garden or near.

I went to in front of Ryukyuden Hotel near the site where other members have already sketched in the morning.

I still had time to sketch until meeting time, but I was quite tired staying under the sun, I entered a building and found amusement place for small kids. There were almost no people using this place, so I occupied the place almost by myself.

To sit on the small portable chair for two days while sketching, on top of hours of bus ride and train ride, as well as to get all together with same people day-time and night-time surly is a bit challenge for all of us, but thanks for well planed schedule and cooperation, we had fun and fruitful trip.

As you can see, I again brought many types of sketch gadget and seeking to find my expression. Still don’t know what is the best tool for me. I’m always experimenting with trial and error.