Ukiyo-e, Pictures of a Floating World

Usually the word ukiyo is literally translated as "floating world" in English, referring to a concept of an evanescent world, and impermanent, fleeting beauty. "Pictures of the floating world", or ukiyo-e, are considered a genre all their own. This is the art style I knew I wanted to do the minute Nancy assigned this project. The details of the project were that we were to choose an art master and one of their pieces. We were told that we were going to create a poster for a museum that would show our master.

Here we have my piece in it's final state and the original Sparrow, Moon, and Peach Blossoms by Ando Hiroshige is above. I wanted to use a museum located in Japan for my poster, so I chose the Ukiyo-e Ota Memorial Museum of Art. I even translated it into Japanese and recreated the white flower seal that they use for their logo. I chose the brown background color and the white because those are the colors that the museum uses on their website. I mostly used the pen tool and the eyedropper to get the colors just right. I tried to apply almost a canvas texture to it. The texture is a little hard to see, but it's there.  I think my favorite part of this design are the birds. They are just so freakin adorable.