And at Last I See the Light

        This week I'm posting about my Festival Poster project. The assignment was to find any festival in the world and design a poster that would attract and showcase what the festival is all about! I chose the Yi Peng Festival in Thailand. I actually had no idea that it was a real thing! I've always loved the scene in Tangled where Rapunzel and Eugene sit in the boat and watch the release of lanterns. I've heard and seen people celebrate with floating lanterns and so I just looked it up and low and behold its a real thing! Yay for Google Search. I did some research on it and found a website chalk full of information! This was the short description I wrote:
       "The Chiang Mai people of Thailand release thousands of lighted lanterns in the sky while making a wish. The sky transforms itself in a wonderful and surreal sea of little lanterns floating away. The spectacle is mesmerizing.

The local celebration of Yi Peng in Chiang Mai is a religious ceremony in the Thai language paying homage to the Buddha. For some, floating a Krathong, especially when lit, are meant to honor Buddha. For most Thais, it’s a way to thank the Hindu Goddess of Water, Phra Mae Khongkha, for her help in providing the most basic of all human necessities. It also is associated with creating good luck and ridding oneself of anger and negative thoughts. Some Thais will cut their fingernails and hair and add them to the lantern to symbolize the letting go of the bad elements of one’s self. The ceremony is celebrated throughout the kingdom on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. This year it was celebrated November 6^th.

I used the element of repetition and the principle of harmony in my poster. I wanted an overall feeling of releasing one’s negativity which I portray by the swirls. The swirls then sweep the lanterns up into the sky, like the actual event. I used watercolor paints and then finished it off with editing on Photoshop by enhancing the color and adding the title and information. "

Like I said previously, I used watercolor to achieve the look that I was going for. I originally wanted to create it all on Photoshop, but I couldn't figure out how to create the swirls on there so I finally settled with painting. It actually didn't take me too long! I spent the weekend at my aunts so I just sat and did it all morning on Friday. Here's some pics showing how I did it piece by piece:

          The first thing I did was do layers and layers of purple. I've only painted with watercolor once so I didn't really know what I was doing, haha, so it was fun to just experiment with it. The moon was painted in yellow, but because of all the coats of purple, it turned it to an orange! 

        I then painted the fabulous lanterns. Those were surprisingly easier to paint then I imagined! Thank goodness for really high quality (expensive) paint brushes. 

        I sketched the swirls in first just to get an idea of what I wanted. Then I free-handed it from there. Trust me, there were moments I wanted to tear this all up and other times I wanted to kiss the water for creating an effect I could never possibly do. It was a love-hate relationship. 

        Once it was all dry I took a picture of it with my phone, downloaded it to Photoshop, resized it to be 16x20, and added the title/information! I'm still not too sold on the font, but if my teacher likes it, then so do I. 

Well, one big time final project down, four more to go! BRING IT ON. 

xoxo, 

Meagan