Iron Digital Art · 2024
New Year Illustration
by Jui-Ping Lee
- A' Design Award 2024 in Digital Art
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 52,069
- Verification code 0866C03F49 · Verify this award
Colors
About New Year Illustration
In a tranquil courtyard, amidst the gentle flurry of winter's snow and the vibrant hues of autumn leaves, sits a graceful figure adorned in an exquisite Kimono. The scene evokes the essence of Wabisabi, embodying the beauty of solitude and serenity. Delicate patterns adorn the fabric, mostly Pines, symbolizing solemnity; and the rhythmic Seigaiha representing the tranquility of the sea. Zooming in reveals more intricate details, a stone plate bearing the artist's pen-name rests to the left; and upon the Kimono, patterns of mice representing the new year 2020, the year of mice.
About the A' Design Award
New Year Illustration is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. New Year Illustration is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. New Year Illustration is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- An elegant figure with splendid Kimono, serenely sitting in a yard on a cold winter's day at new year, with colourful leaves and slowly showering snow around her that represents the traditional artistic term, Wabisabi (beauty of solitude and tranquility).
If we zoom in, it can be seen that the Patterns are mainly Pines, which is used in the most formal kimono, to be worn only on ceremonious occasions; and also "Seigaiha (sea waves)", which represents tranquility.
Aside from that, the stone plate on the left reads the pen-name of the artist; and on the kimono, there are patterns depicting mice, to celebrate 2020, the year of mouse. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Original dimensions at 5600*3150 px, with 935 canvas layers
- Tags
- Illustration, Kimono, Furisode, Kouyou, Karesansui
- Production Technology
- Drawn using a Wacom Cintiq Pro 32, with software Easy Paint Tool SAI 2.0
- Design Challenge
- The key challenge is to make a painting while keep the authenticity of the elements - the kimono, the karesansui ("dry yard") and the red leaves. While many other illustrators prefer drawing kimono-like outfits, this work must be authentic on the kimono design so it can fit the theme properly; under such condition, the creating process became much more difficult due to the fact that it can not be a free-form creation, but a restricted one that the combination of all the elements in the painting must be meticulously designed and crafted.
- Research
- Research especially on the meaning of the kimono patterns was conducted, to better represent kimono while avoid improper designs. Books and documents are examined, and different combinations of patterns are tried in the painting, and the one with best both cultural and visual effect was determined, resulting in a design which is both having superb color representation and cultural meaning that befit the theme of the work (new year).
- Inspiration
- When I was sitting alone in my home watching a video about how Kimono's (traditional Japanese dress) are made, I suddenly imagined a figure in Karesansui (Japanese stone yards), surrounded by maples and wearing the most fine, magnificent Kimono; and I, a "photographer", would quietly approach, crouching on the ground and capture the evanescent moment with a single-lens-reflex camera (which is my canvas and pen)
- Project Duration
- The vague inspiration of it formed since 2017-2018, and the actual drawing started in December 2019, finished & published in January 2020.
- Operation Flow
- At first sight, you will immediately focus on the figure in the middle, in spite of the fact that the saturation level of the background is much higher. This is called the "blurring perspectives" technic that by burring out items whilst no obvious perspective cues, it creates a huge sense of space, and can lead the beholder to focus their sight at once at the non-blurred items, namely the figure in this painting, sitting in the middle, creating a "photo-like" effect.
