HOME | DD
MelissaFindley — Exquisite
Published: 2008-01-08 03:19:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 20590; Favourites: 50; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
Something a little different from me.Here's the story:
Pixelbrush.net's latest event is "Contrast" with the challenge to do a piece entirely in black and white, with no grayscale or soft gradients except for what you can create with cross hatching or whatever.
Two days ago, I was flipping through some of my husband's old family photos and putting them in photo albums. When his mother was young she traveled a great deal. There are handfuls of photos she took all over the US and some from when she lived in Japan. Sometime during the 1950's she visited Korea, and took this photo: img.photobucket.com/albums/v51…
Sadly, his mother passed away several years before I met John. I'd love to ask her who those two little girls were. It's strange to think that now they'd be in their sixties.
They looked so pretty sitting there in their hanboks (thanks, Meredith for the information!) and the detail was so exquisite that I asked John if he would mind me using the photo for a drawing. Here's the result. It took about two days, working off and on. I used Corel Painter's "Liquid Ink" brushes to draw it.
For in progress and closeups, check out my thread over at Pixelbrush: www.pixelbrush.net/forum/viewt…
Related content
Comments: 29
Lovely girls!
I'm just amazed by the details you put on the picture!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Outstanding, just phenomenal. I would say it's up there in one of your best works ever.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow!! This is very different, but wonderful! I love the detail on their clothes. And you did a good job with their clothes. Great piece!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
That's beautiful. I'm amazed at the amount of detail you were able to put into their patterned clothes. Very pretty.
Working in strictly black and white is always interesting. The end result has such a different feel from color or even grayscale. I think this experiment was a success.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Gorgeous! I'm so impressed. Definitely glad I started watching you.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is lovely. When I saw it I kept thinking of all the photos dad took while he was in Korea and Japan in the 1950's.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Gonna comment further here instead of PB, just because I'm here and not there! 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I thought of that... the problem was, with the black and white, mountains would have either a.) been lost behind them as vague black shapes or b.) If I hadn't done them as solid black sillohetes, might have gotten confused with their dresses. I wanted most of the detail focus in the foreground. The tree, I feel, balances out the lights in the foreground and gives the background a little interest.
But that's me, though.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It's one of the quandaries in working b&w, to be sure. I still think it's a really great piece! And I'd love to see you explore more, in this realm....
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow! You are really good at making the patterns on the girls' kimonos pop. The details' are fantastic. Very well done.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Man.. what an awesome job with the black and white.. the patterns really pop.. and what an intriguing story behind the pic itself...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Gorgeous detail. I was just doing a little kimono research. 
This drawing has so much color to it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Its a type of cloth resist-dyeing technique, see: [link]
I think its looks really cool.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
That's very pretty!
All the details you captured are amazing! They're so intricate
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
what lovely detailing in the outfits and a really good choice for subject matter for the black and white flat concept, since japanese art used to have that flat 2d sorta quality to it with the patterning and stuff.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Very nice, as always, Merc. The left cheek on the farther girl kinda bugs me a bit though.
I think kanoko shibori is a kind of dyeing?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
They're are actually wearing kimono. You captured the kanoko shibori beautifully, such a hard thing to do in this style!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm not very well educated in Japanese or Korean culture... what exactly is the kanoko shibori?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Shibori is a Japanese term for several methods of dyeing cloth with a pattern by binding, stitching, folding, twisting, or compressing it. Some of these methods are known in the West as tie-dye.[wikipedia]
Since Korea was under control of Japan empire from 1910 to 1945,
remains of Japanese culture still can be found in 1950.
The girls in the picture are wearing kimono which is differ from
korean traditional dress, Hanbok.
Click here to see Hanbok(Korea)
Click here to see Kimono(Japan)
As you can see, Hanbok has simple and wider look compare to Kimono.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Sorry, I want to revise my previous comment.
I think the photo is not taken in Korea
because of three factors.
1. The appearance of girls.
2. The Background and environment.
3. The time that was taken
First, the girls do not look like koreans -this is totally based on my own view- and they are wearing Japanese traditional dress, kimono. It can't be acceptable to those Koreans who just got liberated from Japan empire.
Also, the tree in the background looks like a cherry tree, known as Sakura. The flower of Sakura is Japan's national flower.
Last but not least, the time period that photo was taken is 1950's. In 1950, Korea was experiecing Civil War which ended in 1953. Since Korea had to deal with major chaos in policy, economy and society after the war, the picture with full of "happiness" can not be exist.
And this is end of my long blahblahblah.
I shouldn't talk about historical facts in here.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You might be right. The only thing I have to go on is the notes written on the back of the photos, which labeled most of them as being shot in Korea. Most of the other photos are not this "happy"... lots of guys with guns, mostly.
Unfortunatly, my husband's mother passed away several years before I met him, and his father passed away long before that, so there really isn't anyone to help me figure out where she was when she took the photos.
Japan or Korea, though, there's something about those two little girls sitting in that field that just captured my heart. If you look at the background of the original photo, there's some kind of event going on behind them. It looks very formal and official.
Makes me wish I had a time machine so I could have asked her about her travels. I'm sure she would have had amazing stories to tell.. providing she wanted to talk. My husband says that his mother was very much a recluse during her last few years.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0