"RYU" is a framed Japanese irezumi-style dragon poster for wall display, printed in woodblock fashion. A green scaled dragon with gold spines coils through blue-white waves, grey clouds, pink cherry blossoms and red peonies beneath a red sun, with black brush lettering at upper right. Swap the title word, the colours or the central creature to remake it with your own content.

the kind of Japanese irezumi artwork a horimono artist would draw as a full back-piece design, or that people frame as a print or wear on a tee. GRAPHIC LANGUAGE: large mythic motifs from the Edo woodblock repertoire - coiling dragons, koi climbing waterfalls, tigers, hannya and oni masks, phoenixes and snakes - drawn with bold black outlines and surrounded by peonies, cherry blossoms and falling maple leaves, all set into a dense background of curling wind bars, stylised clouds and crashing waves with curled claw-like foam tips. LAYOUT: one big flowing composition that fills the whole frame edge to edge, the main motif sweeping diagonally through it and the background bars, clouds and waves packing every gap around it, with the words worked into the composition. LIGHT: no scene lighting - a flat hand-drawn, woodblock-printed graphic, evenly lit like paper in daylight. COLOUR: saturated traditional pigments - vermilion red, deep indigo blue, jade green, golden yellow and peony pink - with black shading graded smoothly into the background bars, and bare cream left as the highlights. TEXTURE: smooth washi or cream paper with subtle woodblock-print grain in the flat colour areas. TIERS: the full composition tier is a dense edge-to-edge piece for a framed print, poster or wallpaper; the single motif tier is one dragon, koi or mask with a little wave and blossom around it on cream or white, for stickers, tees and tattoo designs. LETTERFORM COLOR PRIORITY: if the selected font defines its own letterform colour or material, that takes absolute priority; black ink or vermilion colour the letters only when the font does not specify. ATMOSPHERE: the black outlines, the waves, wind bars and clouds and the blossoms always appear around the words regardless of letterform colour. When no specific material is defined by the font: default lighting - flat, even daylight on paper, no glow and no cast shadows, on cream washi paper. A framed irezumi art print on a pale plaster wall: a coiling green and gold dragon sweeping diagonally up through deep indigo waves with curled claw-like foam, grey wind bars and clouds, red peonies in the lower corners, the word 'RYU' worked into an open patch of cream sky in the upper corner.