A quick note on new supplies that I ended up buying in Beijing - couple of Chinese traditional brushes and Japanese watercolor tubes from Kissho, that are made in Japan. Their stand inside the shop:

These are the watercolor tubes I ended up getting for myself, all of them are opaque:

• no.41 Hatoba - light pink lilac, I’ve been definitely missing this one to paint blooming lilacs

• no.39 Kin Cha - quite similar to the spinel brown from schmincke

• no.20 Hada Iro - a variation of napels yellow

• no.6 Uguisu charoku - this color is called green tea, it is also muted

• no.54 Gin nezumi - light grey

Brushes: I bought 3 simple traditional Chinese brushes, you might know them as calligraphy brushes, they are made with natural hair (goat hair) and bamboo handles - they are very lightweight.

To try these amazing new art supplies out I decided to paint ginkgo biloba branch in my sketchbook. The leaf I picked up from the ground under an old tree in Beijing zoo, and it came home with me.

Watercolor sketch: I mixed in some additional colors, like darker green and sepia to add shadows to the branch. I absolutely love how the texture on the leaves turned out.

Hope you enjoyed!

-Anna