Hiroshige's Sanno Festival Procession at Kojimachi, Japan

Sanno Festival was (and still is!) a major summer festival in Edo, now called Tokyo. Hiroshige made a print called Procession at Kojimachi in the 100 views of Edo series. He used a prominent foreground composition with one of the floats featured up front, and another one of the floats off on the horizon. The bright primary colour scheme brings the joy of summer to the scene, which is something we all need right now in Montreal with another snowstorm incoming!

This is perhaps the closest I have come to matching the design quality and intensity of the original woodblock prints. I am working from the Taschen book which reproduced one of the best set of prints in existence, an early deluxe edition that was carefully preserved. My goal was to try and match the colours as best as possible. I Used phthalo blue in the main sky and the water, and indanthrone blue for the bokashi effect (the dark strip on the top of the sky) and prussian blue in the foreground float element. I chose those blues mainly to test them out (I just bought prussian and indanthrone). Phthalo is quite bright and clear for sky and water, indanthrone is a deep purple-blue, and prussian dries with that neutral purple look to it. The rest of the picture was done with another paint I just bought (Ferrari Red), and winsor lemon. I also tried to simulate the woodblock effect by painting a wood-grain texture in the sky.