Alf here, bringing you the final conclusion to this Art Nouveau tutorial. In part 2 of this drawing guide (also 11 steps), we will be putting a background to our masculine physique. If you missed part 1, you can take a look at that here: http://alfpardo.com/art-nouveau-in-progress. If you want to see the completed Spring work, visit this: http://alfpardo.com/art-nouveau-spring-completed-d
Let me rant for a bit; for those in a hurry, just jump to the tutorial below all these words. ;)
Fun fact: in Alf Mucha's posters, you'll notice that he used lots of gemstones, emblems, headdresses and flowers to decorate the background and adorn the female figure. There was a lot of symbolism at play during the Art Nouveau period, and how an artist chose to present their artwork was heavily influenced by those symbols. They weren't haphazardly chosen; they were carefully researched and executed to bring the best of both the beautiful and symbolic worlds. Mucha didn't just stick the figure in a frame and called it a day; he did plenty of sketches beforehand and picked the best way to present his subject matter. Did you hear me? Even frames have symbols embedded in them!
Jump back to this tutorial. We will create a background that is infused with symbolic life and meaning. Art Nouveau doesn't always have to be super-ornate; it can still be achieved using simple techniques. After all, Mucha's inspiration for his stuff was Japanese woodblock printing (ukiyo-e), which were very simple, yet beautiful pieces of art. Now take a look at this:
http://pinktentacle.com/2010/04/50-japanese-town-logos-with-kanji/If you can read kanji/chinese characters, you will appreciate that link. It's a list of Japanese towns' personal logos. What's cool about that series is that the kanji derived from the town's name was incorporated into the logo. All very simple and well-executed, and a good inspiration for logo designers, too. After going through the list, I wanted to incorporate something Japanesey to my Art Nouveau series. So for my first series, I've decided to go with the four seasons: 春夏秋冬 (shunkashuutou: spring, summer, autumn, winter)
I decided that I wanted to incorporate the kanji for 'spring' into my frame. Spring in Japanese is 'haru', 春. I want my man to be in the midst of the cherry blossom season whilst enjoying the scenery and Mt. Fuji. So, let us begin.
1) Sketch your symbolic frame. Looking at the kanji 'haru', I wanted to create something like a Japanese town logo. Spring is about abundance and fruitfulness, so I played around with the plant motif. But in the end, I decided to go with a rainbow motif. Besides, it complemented my man's fabulousness anyway.
2) Take your sketch and make it a reality in Illustrator. If you're a designer and you're not creating logos and vector stuff in Illustrator, there's something wrong with you. Get good at the pen tool. For this logo, I just used lots of circles and the Divide tool in Pathfinder.
3) As you can see, I used the emblem as the top of my frame. I continued the terminal lines of the haru emblem to create some more frames to house my scenery. Then using the pen tool and direct selection tools, I warped some ugly-looking branches and the mountain top of Mt. Fuji. Use the original sketch as a guide to build your frame.
4) Then I got crazy with cherry blossoms. Make one petal and then create a flower out of it. Then duplicate the shit out of that flower, changing the orientation and size for variety. You will use these assets in another step.
5) Going back to the frame. Select all of it and copy into your Photoshop document, pasting it as a Vector Object. Change the colour of it in Illustrator. You can also do it from Photoshop; select your frame layer and go to the layers options menu and click 'Edit Contents' and you will be taken back to Illustrator to make the change. When you save in Illustrator the change will be reflected back in the Photoshop document. Add a faint inside stroke to the frame to give it contour.
6) Copy and paste your branches as a Vector Object into your .psd file. Make sure that it is above your frame layer, then create a clipping mask out of it (option+command/ctrl+G). It'll hide that layer within the confines of your frame like so.
7) Do the same with the blossoms and arrange its layer so that it's behind the branches layer. Add a color or gradient overlay to it. Create a clipping mask out of it.
8) Again, paste the same blossoms as a Vector Object on top of the branches and change its colour. Create a clipping mask out of it and any other element you want to include inside the frame.
9) Create some drifting petals from the cherry blossoms. Copy and paste into the .psd file as Vector Object.
10) Arrange those petals on top of all the layers. Add in Mt. Fuji and its reflection. Create a gradient background outside of the frame.
11) Play with your filters and picture adjustments. Add Noise to give it that old film look. If you have money, invest in Topaz Photoshop filters to achieve the look of the final product. I reiterated the spring emblem at the bottom and also included my signature.
I hope you guys enjoyed this 2-part tutorial; I will be finishing this series with more tutorials.
Here is the finished product. Stay tuned for the other seasons!
xoxo Alf
