Steal composition from picture

I am attracted by Japanese aesthetics, particularly traditional houses and Japanese garden. There's a sense of balance coming from well constructed and visible wooden structure of the houses. Inside and outside spaces are interleaved closely. Garden view from inside the house is often fascinating, with carefully framed points of views. A simple tree or branch viewed through an opening attracts the view and can suggest a whole garden.

I wanted to try to incorporate some of this in my compositions and used the old method of copying a picture that I like and stealing only some elements to make it my own.

In this case I used a picture found in a book (Living in Japan by Alex Kerr) and made a quick collage using some Air France magazines that I has around.

Original picture is rectangular, my sketchbook is square so I had to distort things slightly

I like the horizontal division of inside and outside spaces and the 2 yellow lamps

I started by creating 2 blocks of similar color for the inside and the outside. Some patterns evoque the stone and wooden textures of the inside, which has to remain quite monotone in color

I used color pencils to complete the garden greens and add some shades and light and black markers to mark the structure with straight lines.

Side by side, both pictures are quite different. Some of the composition remained.