In the Spring 2024 semester I was enrolled in the Art History course, Asian Art and Culture where I was introduced to Song Dynasty landscape paintings. Since then I have been fascinated with these paintings and for my creative response I created a digital image of a Song Dynasty Chinese landscape painting. 

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While in general I appreciate landscape paintings, there are elements of Chinese landscape paintings that I find even more interesting. The brushstrokes and natural elements in these works, such as- rocks, water, and plant life are all different from one another yet the natural motif stays the same across the board. Another element which I find fascinating is that all of these were done in black and white, as colored ink during Ancient China was not as plentiful as it is today. The way the artists included so much detail while only using black and white shows how much depth one can create while using shades of gray. 

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For my creative response I used Adobe Illustrator as it is my favorite program for graphic design. Unfortunately Illustrator does not use painterly brushstrokes, so I chose a vectored image of a typical Chinese landscape painting. As the viewer can see the image appears animated and cartoon-like, which is my favorite style of design. I wanted to create a digital image because I wanted to show that one can pull inspiration from a completely different artistic medium and apply it to the medium in which they excel. As artists we can take inspiration from almost anything and make creative, innovative work.