Artwork Inspiration | Kaori Wakamatsu 香織若松

This is my first art post...which is really weird considering art is kinda the direction I'm wanting to head in life. Pushing aside the recipes, fashion and travel posts, I hope you will look forward to my new segment 'Art Inspiration' or 'Art Spotlight' whatever you want to call it ^^ just know that its basically a nerdy girl sharing her artwork and or art inspiration. 

One of my favourite Japanese artists would definitely have to be Kaori Wakamatsu. I discovered her through one of her postcard illustration books that my dad sent me and I immediately fell in love with her unique and distinctive drawing style. She combines western and traditional designs to create detailed and beautiful characters with minimal pops of colour.

This specific design by Kaori Wakamatsu is a traditional Japanese design of a geisha wearing a crane kimono. Wakamatsu has added hints of red colours to contrast the black and white tones which really makes the intricate details stand out. The most distinctive detail of Kaori's work for me would be the eye shape in her portraits.

This is Kaori Wakamatsu's design that I have copied, so I do not take credit for the original design of the piece. I drew this straight from pen to paper since i find it easier to drawn the details with a thinner nib. I used a Faber-Castell artist pen in small to draw the ouline of the character and then used a thicker pen to colour in the darker areas. For the crane design on the kimono I used grey Faber Castell pens and for the colour I used a red ballpoint MUJI pen. 

Since I'm starting A-level art this year Iv'e been doing some coursework over the holidays, the topic involves elements in drawing so I chose the element 'LINE.' I included Kaori Wakamtsu in my artist research because her manga drawing style is influenced by the extensive use of lines. For my own initial ideas, I decided to create my own design but in the style of Kaori Wakamatsu. This is a fairy girl incorporating a western style design, I added pops of green colour to suit a nature inspired theme. 

This is a commision piece I did for a friend, the card was for a fairy fan so I used the same design as before and personalised it to make it look like the birthday girl. I changed the colours and wrote a personalised message~ 

This concludes Kaori Wakamatsu themed art pot ^0^ I will update more with my art and share what Ive done and  any art inspirations~