wHAT ARE YOU WRITING IN THERE ALL DAY?

says Mom.

In today’s post, I’m continuing with my Hobonichi Filp Through of January! This month I had the opportunity of visiting many exhibitions and art shows, so there are a lot of colourful things to draw. It’s also when I started exploring and experimenting different uses of washi tape and stickers in my diary as well.

I’m contradictory in that I wanted to use up all the cute stickers that I own, but at the same time I wanted to keep my diary in a minimalist style, keeping everything in black and white. Apparently with my latest addiction with watercolour, that’s not going to happen anytime soon (the black and white thing).

A dear friend sent me a happy mail of Sai Watercolour brushes! I immediately wanted to try it out in my journal. Unfortunately my first grasp of this pen is not very well, and I ended up with super saturated strokes. However, I love how many colors this set of pen has! Too lovely for words.

I love to use washi tape to save all the tickets of the exhibitions or shows that I’ve been to. Usually the tickets are beautifully designed, and can be a colourful reminder to your adventures.

Of course, art journaling won’t be complete without painting my favourite food and eats!

On January 20, it is Penguin Awareness Day! I immediately dug out all of my penguin stamps from Kodomonokao for this purpose.

One of the best thing about owning a Hobonichi is that by the end of the year, you can admire the bulk of its contents and have fun playing Hobonichi Stack! I read an especially inspiring article on the Hobonichi Website by a grad student who uses the Hobonichi Cousin for her studies. Her effective system of using the hobonichi for storing research data and referring to important notes is very motivational. I can’t help but want to order one Cousin for myself as well!

Painting scenery is becoming a recent favourite as well!

Around this time, I’ve also started a personal project of filming my painting process and putting it into my Youtube Channel! I find this to be a very fun way of presenting my art, and preserving this part of my life when I’m socially active in showing my work 😀
(Inspired by Austin Kleon in Show Your Work)

I love putting down inspirational quotes in the Hobonichi. The Hobonichi will be a journal where I’ll be flipping through frequently, and I really enjoying looking back and see what kind of emotions I was feeling at the moment, and the quotes that I think inspires me.

This is the quote that I’m keeping on my wall to remind myself to follow through on my priorities.

“I’m keenly aware of the Principle of Priority, which states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.”