OUIL402 PPP1: Studio Brief 2 - The Illustrated Self (Geisha: Final Piece; Mineko Iwasaki)

Mineko Iwasaki

I decided to focus on Mineko Iwasaki for my final piece. Her past is immersed in the forbidden flower and willow world in Japan. This all changed when she broke the geisha seal of silence and spoke to an American author, researching a book, about her experiences growing up as a geisha. He promised her identity was to remain secret, however in his acknowledgements and consequent interviews on his new book; 'Memoirs of a Geisha', he told the world how Mineko Iwasaki's part in the research was hugely to thank. On the books publishing Mineko received criticism, shunning and death threats; asking her to go down to the temple and drown herself. She had broken so much of what is sacred to geishas; trust, respect and mystery. She quit being a geisha, married and instead became an artist. I have depicted her leaning on a portrait of her in her youth, when she was one of the most famous geisha's in Japan. I have not drawn her too sad as she is happy now living with her family and being a practicing artist however I wanted to depict and sadness in her eyes and pose that suggests she is looking back and missing old times. 

Living in a geisha house from the age of 5, Mineko was not allowed contact with her relatives and so the other girls became her family. She lost everything she knew and the relationships with the geisha community when the book came out. I wanted to border the image to make it look more whole so I added some Japanese maple leaves in warm tones to represent autumn, and a later stage on in her life. The younger portrait of Mineko is surrounded in cherry blossom flowers which represent spring and her youth as well as hope and possibility in her career. The blossoms spread above to the present day Mineko to show the hope is not lost and the start of a new chapter in her life. 

Nature is extremely important to the Japanese and many plants and animals are symbolic. They have a cherry blossom festival every year to celebrate the arrival of spring and the national flower which symbolises hope and renewal. 

The red maple leaf which surrounds her is also a symbol of grace, elegance and tastefulness; which I think are all crucial to being a true geisha. This world still surrounds her. 

Above: Mineko as a child when she was living in the geisha house. 

Above: After 'Memoirs of a Geisha' was released she wrote her own book; 'Geisha, A Life'. 

Above: This is the image I used mainly for reference for my piece. I chose it because I thought it captured both her future and past concisely in one image and as it was quite simple it gave me scope to make it my own. 

I recreated my own version using watercolour on paper. I decided to use richer colours and warmer tones as I think her life is something to be celebrated even though their is much sadness and many mistakes along the way. I wanted to convey a sadness in what is now lost in the past but I did not want the overall image to be too depressing. 

I then scanned the painting into the computer. I was not very happy with these results as although it was a high resolution the colours were totally suppressed.  

I decided to go on with it anyway and worked on the image using photoshop:

I began by just experimenting with the face by making the features look more realistic. I was happy with this outcome however when I revisited it I really didnt like the patchy effect of the photoshop paintbrush tool and I think I used a too dark colour for some shading on the face. I decided to start afresh and after looking at some of Jason Raish's work I thought it would be cool to add a surreal and animal esque influence to the portraits by making their eyes much larger. I thought this would work well as geishas see it all but do not speak of their clients conversations/behaviour/plans. However, after I had got this far I became unsure that it would reflect the serious element of geisha's, as I didn't want to take away from their beauty. So I then went back to my original image. Looking back on the second piece I think it would be cool to see how it would turn out as a finished piece; this is something I may explore in future!

Instead of scanning it in this time I took a high quality photograph that still captured a lot of the details. I decided that this was a better option as it captured the intended colours best. Also I am working on it digitally so most of the details will be added through Photoshop anyway. 

The first thing I did on Photoshop was to add some red tones using the paint brush tool. Red is a colour used a lot in Japanese artwork and I think it was important I included this colour to add passion and some intensity into the piece. 

The next thing I did was to use some paler skin shades to change the face shape of the younger portrait. When I painted her the face wasn't very recognisable to Mineko and she looked much older! So I readjusted her jaw line, cheek and gave her a lighter complexion. I also decided to work on some base shadow so I added some dark brown tones to the darker parts on the image; mainly focusing on the eyes. 

I then worked on adding some rich fuchsia pink which I think really bought the characters to life. I added lots of warm and light tones to the skin and I added some darker tones like black and dark blue to the shadows, hair and eyes. I also worked on the lips using similar shades of pink and red as those in the leaves and kimonos. I also focused on detailing the hair and I added her hair accessories in a light blue matching the background.

I then added some details to her kimono, I tried to follow a pattern similar to a traditional one however it was quite complex so I made it a less detailed version. I used colours similar to the purple shades in the maple leaves and the dark blues used for shadows throughout.

Then I decided to add a new layer to work on the cherry blossom flowers. In traditional Japanese art these flowers are often depicted really simply with five petals and a joining circle in the centre. I used a light pink as the base and added some white for simple detail/highlights. 

I then got to work on the Japanese red maple leaves. Using reference images I studied how the veins in the leaf looked and how the colours worked together. I used a thin paintbrush tool on Photoshop for this. 

I decided to use a light blue to suggest sun/light coming down behind the leaves, it also connected the background of the younger portrait to the background of the rest of the image. 

I decided that I wanted to create a slightly magical/mystical effect, in sync with the Japanese spirituality and the magic in the beauty of the geishas; their music, dances and graceful secrecy. So I used white spots like snow or spots of sunlight in the background falling through the trees down onto the two characters. I had some land on the photograph of the young geisha to bring her to life. I hope that it is still clear that the older geisha is leaning on an old photograph though otherwise the piece may just look confusing. I am worried that the white spots have made the image too cluttered as this is often one of my problems with composition; I add too many details. Yet I will still keep them in as I do believe that they add some magical element to the piece. 

So this is my final outcome. I added a small white border to the A1 portrait using a rough dry paintbrush in Photoshop as I wanted a less smooth line around the piece. 

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