The Fujiyoshida Cenotaph Mon. Diorama
This image depicts my project from the 2019 school competition. After looking through various monuments, I stumbled across the Fujiyoshida Cenotaph Monument located near mount Fuji, Japan. The very moment I saw it, I knew it was the one.
I quickly got to work, and after planning out the schematics I acquired all the necessary materials. I cut out a bunch of cardboard boxes to make the body, frame and backdrop of the monument. For the base of the monument, I used styrofoam which I painted to give the look of concrete. For the ground, I got a small grass carpet and cut it into the shape of the frame. I even went to the level of using actual mud and rocks to make the walkway, followed up with a Torri I made with cardboard.
I painted the border of the frame brown and made the nameplate golden yellow to give it the look of a wooden frame with a neat name plate as seen in art exhibitions. I even wrote the Kanji for the name of the monument!
For the body of the monument, I painted it all by hand and glued a red straw to the top of the roof to represent the finial. Furthermore, to more accurately match the environment around the actual monument, I painted mount Fuji and some cherry blossoms in the background to make the overall piece feel a bit more grand.
The basic six color acrylic paint set I bought for this project were the exact same ones I used to do the Japanese suburb painting. So technically this can be considered my first painting even though I don't really count it as that.