Finished piece now neatly cut in the shape and size of a metallic grey blue card and matching envelope.

Hiroshige’s ‘Cherry trees at Goten-Yama’

This is Cherry Trees at Goten Hill, from the series Twelve Views of Edo, done around 1835 by Hiroshige:
Reference illustration: Various people in grassy meadows slopping down toward the sea with sailboats. There are a few pink blossom trees.

After sketching in pencil, I used a 0.05 mm and 0.2 mm (for the closest sailboats) Uni-ball pin pen to create the outline:
Rough pencil sketch on watercolour paper
Outline in black ink. My pencil, a tiny rubber and the black pen I used are visible on the table.

Then I used watercolor. Light grey for the sky, green for the grassy hill:
Light grey watercolour applied loosely in the sky, pale green in the meadows.
I added the roofs of wooden shacks right behind the hill, as I decided I wanted them. Then I continued painting, adding burnt sienna to my grey mix for the roofs, and using a wash of Prussian blue for the sea:
Blue gradient, still wet, for the water.
I darkened the sienna and grey mix to add contrast to the roofs, started to paint the figures in grey and light ochre. For the cherry blossom, I used alizarin crimson:
Wet pink watercolour in the trees.
I ended up applying too much dark sienna to the roofs, that I couldn’t fix and darkened the figures as well. More alizarin crimson for contrast in the blossoms, and I was done:
People painted in some shades of grey, more pink added to the trees for contrast.
Finally I cut it and taped it to a metallic blue card, and was ready to write the birthday card for a friend:
Finished piece now neatly cut in the shape and size of a metallic grey blue card and matching envelope.

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