My own Limited Edition Hanami Dango Watercolor Palette
Celebrating 10 years of my art and stationery journey
It was approximately 10 years ago that I started venturing into stationery and the intersection of urban sketching. I’ve always enjoyed making art growing up, taking lessons as a kid, and even went as far as taking AP Art in high school. My project for that course was creating 24 pieces of artwork on the theme of food, using a wide variety of art mediums. That artistic aspiration didn’t go anywhere, as I continue a more traditional trajectory of business and management science in college. Nevertheless, I rekindled my habit of doodling and drawing the closer I got to graduating, as a final grasp onto the childlike wonder that comes with creating art. Watercolor became my favorite art medium, and the one that I enjoy creating with the most.
10 years of urban sketching
In 2015, I first wrote a blog post about creating a portable palette for painting watercolor in my journals on the go. My friend Esther taught me how to DIY a tin with buttons from DAISO to create a lightweight watercolor palette. We walked all over Tokyo, capturing different scenes in our TRAVELER’S notebooks, using our portable watercolor palettes to paint wherever our feet rested. This foray into the watercolor and urban sketching rabbit hole resulted in me acquiring more than twenty plus watercolor palettes and tools throughout these years.
My urban sketching journey also began in 2015, when I first moved from Taipei to Boston, Massachusetts. In an attempt to make new friends and explore the city from a new perspective, I started looking for meetups that also align with my interests. My first meetup with the Urban Sketchers Boston group was love a first sight.
This small group meets super frequently, sketching around town almost every Sunday. During my two years of school in Boston, I’ve developed great friendships and sharpened my practice of the urban sketching hobby.
While I was in school, I also took advantage of vacations and holidays to travel around the country, making marks with painting in different cities.
Finally, in 2017, I attended my first Urban Sketchers Symposium in Chicago, then moved to Seattle a month later spontaneously, which happened to be the founding city of Urban Sketchers, and the rest is history.
In 2019, I even had a short stint helping out with social media with the global Urban Sketchers Organization. I helped promoted the Hong Kong urban sketchers symposium, but 2020 had other ideas.
10 years later, serendipitously, I have the opportunity to work with Art Toolkit to create a rendition of THE perfect watercolor palette, just for me. Not only can I leverage the lightweight form of Art Toolkit’s tested watercolor palette tools, but I can also customize them with my personality and my design. This special project is what I call a “Penguins Creative full circle”, now exclusively available in my friend’s online stationery store - A Blank Note!
Hanami Dango Art Toolkit Palette
I have been enamored with Art Toolkit’s watercolor palette in the early 2020s, during the journey of perfecting my urban sketching setup. I had the opportunity to work with Maria and her team several times since then — we created special collaborations for TRAVELER’S COMPANY USA and attended Sketcher Fest Edmonds together in the last two years. I’ve always thought, what if I could create my own custom palette with my signature painting design? Also, who would want something with a penguin on it? As a chronic procrastinator, the idea was put off year after year.
Finally, this year I decided to put myself out there and just give it a try. Since this is a watercolor palette, I knew I had to honor my favorite urban sketching season in Seattle, cherry blossom-filled Spring. I chose the Pocket Palette size because it fits easily into my TRAVELER’S notebook pockets and other urban sketching setup. It can easily be clipped to an open sketchbook as well.
The motif of a penguin is a no-brainer, and I decided I want to draw the penguin resting under the sakura trees, hugging a hanami dango (a Japanese snack made of rice dumplings on a skewer, typically consumed during sakura season). This pink theme was a homage to my favorite flowering season in Seattle, my favorite snack, and my favorite ritual each year.
At the end of the day, the ulterior motive of this project is simply to own my personal customized palette, but I have to find a way to crowdsource the MOQ to make these palettes happen. Thankfully, my friend who operates A Blank Note, an online stationery store that sources cute Asian stationery, was more than happy to help me out with the extra stock. Nita, the owner, was one of my first friends when I visited Seattle for the first time in 2016.
As a result, the collaboration brings together myself, A Blank Note (Seattle-based online stationery store), and Art Toolkit (Port Townsend-based Art Supply brand) in a fun tribute to the Pacific Northwest’ delightful cherry blossom season each year. Launching it close to the annual Sketcher Fest in Edmonds, and close to my 10-year anniversary of enjoying urban sketching, is just the cherry on top of my art and stationery journey.
I’m not selling these palettes myself, but if you would like to purchase one, you can buy it on the A Blank Note online store! Nita is running a great promotion this week too: free shipping on all US orders through July 20th. Each palette will come with a set of illustrated stickers of Cookie (my golden doodle), and a random promo code for your next purchase with A Blank Note!
I’m excited to bring this to Sketcher Fest this weekend and next year’s cherry blossom season!
April this is incredible!! Congratulations! You’ve always inspired me!
Congrats on your art anniversary. - Kat