Illustration pen pal: Torii gate and Amabie postcard

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Out of the blue, I got a postcard in the mail from a friend. One side was a beautiful landscape he created with pen and watercolor, the message on the back described a book called Griffin and Sabine, a lavishly illustrated and interactive book about correspondence between two artists, and he invited me to respond in kind.

I couldn't possibly say no!

I wanted to respond with a Japan-inspired illustration. Painting isn't my medium, but I liked how the flowers turned out on the deck of cards, so after some thought I landed on digitally tracing and painting a famous torii gate and added an Amabie. 

image shows horizontal post card of torii gate and Amabie. The tori gate was traced from a photo with digital tools and given a watercolor texture, a hand-drawn Amabie was also traced and added in
Not my best work, but doing it is how I get better


Design process:


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