In an earlier column, I shared a circular image of the Tokyo skyline, taken from the top of the Tokyo Skytree in 2016. Several weeks later I was experimenting with an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, and seeing how I could integrate them into my workflow. I grabbed the circular Tokyo image as it was near the top of the Recent Images folder: I simply needed an image to practise painting on with the brush tools. Using the Color Blending Mode, I started coloring in Tokyo as if it was tinted like an old photograph.
Being able to zoom in and out with simple finger gestures was an effortlessly joyful creative process. It soon became meditative, and I can understand why the coloring-in books for mindfulness that were the craze a few years ago were so popular. It was therapeutic. Zooming out to see the enormity of the Tokyo skyline revealed just how much there was to color in, but it was an enjoyable process, so I decided to continue and commit to coloring in the whole city.
