Still life @ home design for the coming up Year of the Rat 靜物寫生加設計

2020 Day8

What a busy day staying at home! Thought about how to create an auspicious work for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year - the Year of Rat. Actually I had been thinking about it since last Christmas. I used to be very good and fast when I worked as a graphic/web designer a long time ago... I had forgotten how much I had to go through with the design process, it made my head ache.

Focused on the limited items I had, using traditional colors, meaningful symbols, and symmetrical layout. I enlarged an ancient coin, which means prosperity, wrote Fu, Lu, Shou and Xi, those mean Luck, Prosperity, Longevity and Happiness on the coin in an ancient writing style. I only had one little rat, so I drew one, then flipped it to draw it again on the other side, made them look like they are communicating to each other by changing the shapes slightly, so one looks like a male, the other a female. They could be a couple, lovers or love at first sight. My most challenging part was to draw two decent circles, one smaller than the other. I couldn't find my compass, didn't want to buy a new one after had finished school for decades. I found two bowls in the kitchen, and they seemed to be OK to fit into my work. Hopefully, my original design work would bring many people and families a healthy, happy, peaceful and fulfilling new year, especially Chinese and Asians.
BTW, how much do you think I should charge for this 8"x10" original painting of my design? And the prints and canvases prints are available now:
https://xueling-zou.pixels.com/featured/year-of-the-rat-xueling-zou.html


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