Caroline Hadilaksono

Hey, sorry for the late response, I’ve been away. But thanks for the kind words. 

Hmm… tips on watercolor. Not knowing the exact problems you’re having, here are some generic tips on watercolor:

• Work fast and fluidly. This is one of the reasons I switched to watercolor. The medium forces me to work fast and accept whatever I put down on paper. I can’t really mess with it too much. 
• Work from light to dark. That’s the one advice I remember my teacher always told me, you can always go darker, but you can’t go lighter. So keep that in mind. If you want something to be white, you’d need to paint around it (or mask it out with frisket if you’re that diligent). I usually do all the light washes when starting a painting to block out the general shapes. And I gradually get darker and carve out more details. The darker I go, the more detailed I get.
• This isn’t related to just watercolor, but it’s my favorite trick in painting: shadows are not black, it’s a mixture of the color of light and it’s complementary color (its opposite on the color wheel). So sunset scenes have more purplish shadows, day time scenes have blue, night time scenes have greenish/dark brown shadows. And sometimes it’s fun to exaggerate this, see all the blue/purple shadows? 
• Study how other people do their paintings. I haven’t seen a lot of painting demos since I left school. And it’s not often people share their process, but when they do, it’s really helpful. James Gurney has a great blog, he posts a lot of technical stuff about painting/drawing techniques.

I’s got a welcome home present. So sweet! (Taken with instagram)

Fushimi Inari Shrine. My favorite temple in Kyoto. Each of those red torii gates is a donation by people to the temple. There are thousands of them, they lead to a network of trails up Mount Inari. (Taken with Instagram at Kyoto)

Rokuou-in Temple. Our stay for the night. (Taken with Instagram at Kyoto)

On the train to Kyoto. (Taken with Instagram at Nagoya)

Woke up at 4:30 this morning so I can sneak one more sketch in. Like most of my other sketches so far, I’ll be finishing this at home. (Taken with Instagram at Shirakawa-go)

Taken with Instagram at Shirakawa-go

Two trains and a bus ride later, we made it! (Taken with Instagram at Shirakawa-go)

A lot of train-riding today. On our way to Shirakawa-go. (Taken with Instagram at Takayama)

Mount Obasute, apparently it means throw away old women. That’s where they used to throw away women after they have children. The son would take the mother in the middle of the night and leave her in the mountains. And that tunnel in front of us is haunted, apparently. (Taken with Instagram at Nagano)

With An & her family. (Taken with Instagram at Mount Fuji)

So I finally did finished my Sketchbook Project… just in the nick of time. I pretty much finished half of the book in one weekend. I had to pull an all-nighter, but I made it.

I scanned in all the pages, but I haven’t got time to post them all up yet, since I have to start packing. I’m leaving for a trip to Japan on Saturday!!! I have an ass-kicking cold, and on Saturday I have a 3-hour gap to switch airports from Washington National (DCA) to Washington International (IAD) to get to my flight for Japan. The two airports are 30 miles apart and has no direct public transportation connecting them. All I want right now is to make it to Japan in one piece.

I’ll see y’all when I get back!

“The Punch Brothers finished out their Town Hall show with a cover of “The Weight” in honor of the late Levon Helm.”

It was my favorite part of the night.

Every time I go see them, it’s like I get to make a happy memory for myself. I think that’s why I love watching them so much.

I’m going to see them tonightttt!

All the way up from 9th row balcony. I hope they sing real loud. I’m so giddy!

(Source: Spotify)

The barn at Micah’s backyard, Camillus

This was the first and only sunny day I got while I was up there. It was actually hot when I walked outside. Micah was convinced that none of those leaves and dandelion blooms were there the day before.