A rework of Spring Flowers

To everyone that saw my previous posts, these new pieces could feel pretty similar to the series "Spring Flowers" since I reused the tree and flower structure and expanded that concept into a more complete tribute to the Ukiyo-E style Japanese wood prints.

The previous series was pretty minimalist and plain, but this new rework aimed to give the right mood to that concept by giving more context of the surrounding of that tree.

Giving some space

The first thing to do was adding a Bi-Linear gradient on top of everything that shades darker on the top and the bottom of the artwork, this gives a sense of space by giving a subtle hint of where the sky, ground, and horizon line is in the canvas.

This small detail alone already gave the artwork a totally different mood and feel.

Lighten up the image

The images still felt a bit empty and lacking of details, so I took inspiration from some prints and I tried to see what all them had in common. One element that was almost always present is a big saturated circle representing the Sun (or the Moon, depending on the colors and interpretations).

After some experiments I found that drawing it pretty flat with only a small darker border around it was the more pleasing way to render it on the canvas, keeping in mind that the sky/ground gradient was still on top of it.

The color for the Sun/Moon is derived from the opposite of the sky/ground gradient hue to give the image a nice contrast and balance.

Creating some stability

Mountains are another key protagonists in many Japanese artworks and panoramas. A big centered mountain also gave a lot of balance to the artworks by filling the space evenly.

So, to create the mountain shape I took advantage of my toolbelt functions for paths like the "dispose" function and Chaikin smoothing ones. Then the shape was filled by a gradient to blend it to the background.

Signing the series

Since I'm slowly studying Japanese in my free time, I wanted to keep following these Japanese vibes and sign it using the Katakana alphabet (one of the three Japanese alphabet and the one used mainly for foreign words).

I'm really happy with these results and I think that this is a good milestone for me and the style I'll use in my next works.