A Japanese version of ‘Chinese Girl’ and a pink version of ‘The Green Lady’

So, firstly, new favourite name is Banana……..

An artist I adored as a teenager is painter Vladimir Tretchikoff. My grandad had an A0 book of his paintings which, aside from sheer size, were absolutely stunning to flick through. The metallic blue greens of the skin tones and the vivid floral fabrics draping across these stunning forms-exotic jewellery-clad women of wonder…… conjure a fantastical element to the work, the sitters are exalted to supernatural status. Hauntingly beautiful expressions captured in this semi-surreal aesthetic had my imagination dangling down from a cherry blossom tree, deep in a forest somewhere exuberantly east….. The colour play approach to his portraits is so divine, and yet heralded with the nickname ‘King of Kitsch’, if this is kitsch, so be it, I love it. I wanted to replicate this style to illustrate some Japanese folk stories. I looked to his pieces, ‘Chinese Girl’, ‘Lady from Orient and `lotus Flowers’, ‘Balinese Girl’ and ‘Miss Wong’ for inspiration.

Time lapse of painting drawn in Procreate, animated in Motionleap and edited with InShot

‘The Beautiful Dancer Of Yedo’ and a ton of other Japanese folktales are on my current reading list because I’m a massive geek. This particular story is melancholic, a skilful geisha called Sakura-ki (Flower Of The Cherry), performing for the gentlemen of Yedo......happy on the outside as she dances in bright silks and pours their sake, but her demise is internal as she forever hides her true heart behind the mask. Sad, riveting stuff.

“But Sakura-ko looked down and mused and said, “Little narrow street of the geisha, paved with bitterness and broken hearts, your houses are full of vain hopes and vain regrets; youth and love and grief dwell here. The flowers in your gardens are watered with tears.”

I'll get my butt back over to Japan one of these days, oh the colours, the stories…..

Music is a mishmash of a Japanese lullaby Lullaby of Takeda [Takeda No Komoriuta], Japanese Folk Song - The Red Birds [Akai Tori] which I added an almost dissonant lower harmony to and then mushed with some darkwave beats and klangs for adequate interjections of ‘wtf is going on’…….