Oriental Portrait IV

The fourth of the Oriental Portrait series

Oriental Portrait I
Oriental Portrait II
Oriental Portrait III
Oriental Portrait V

This has taken me ages.

Absolutely ages.

Since, maybe August/September?
Not because I've been perfecting it over that time, just because after finishing the face, scene and flag, I didn't know what else to do and sort of lost inspiration.

But the last few days I've worked hard on it and finished it off, adding the flowers, leaves, patterns and street-scene that I'm quite pleased with (although this photo does it no justice... damn my scanner).

So, this is a portrait of Yuuki, a Japanese girl featured in many of 's pieces.

The original photograph can be found here: [link]

Basically I wanted to encompass as many different parts of Japanese culture as I could, and so I used Yuuki to represent the youth of today, the 'Great Wave' as a representation of Japans history, the flag as a symbol of unity (uniting the historic with the present), the flowers as part of the delicacy of tradition rituals, and the street scene as a way of showing what Japan has become - modern and hectic.

I'm not too sure whether I like this 100% or not... part of me feels I rushed it to finish it, but I hope that doesn't come across in it...

Media: Watercolour, oil paint, acrylic, Indian ink, marker pen, coloured pencil, fine liner, glitter.

Yuuki reference (c) hakanphotography
Artwork (c) myself