A good thing about virtual paintouts is that you can go “exploring” other countries without having to do it physically. However, sometimes I want to sketch interesting places or buildings and not necessarily streets, which is, well… Google’s Street View forte. But I remembered seeing the Colosseum in Rome as the opening screen, so maybe “Street View” is not limited to streets.
So I searched online for traditional Japanese architecture. I remember when in architecture school we were introduced to Japanese gardens and villas. I stand behind the word “introduce”, because that is exactly what they taught us, a very brief lecture on Japanese gardens. Oh, and it was as part of a design studio, not in History of Architecture. That is a flaw the curriculum I studied in had; we barely touched oriental, middle-eastern or even latin-american architecture.
But whatever… I found about Himeji Castle, regarded as the finest surviving example of 17th century Japanese architecture, and it happens that Google Street View works in it! So I explored around the place and found a couple of interesting views. It is a beautiful place. I sketched it directly with Sennelier watercolors on a 9″x 6″ heavyweight paper sketchbook. It’s not watercolor paper, but it behaves better than I expected. I used a water brush for this, very convenient when painting watercolors in front of the computer (no water spill accidents).
I hope I keep finding interesting “street views” in the virtual paintouts from now on.