Tribute to the The Great Wave: A color palette based on an old Japanese painting

The Great Wave Color Palette

After years of admiring this print by the legendary Japanese artist, Hokusai, I’ve realized the colors are just as dramatic as the composition. So I decided to extract a few hues and create a color palette.

I chose colors from the boats, the sky and, of course, the waves.

• #c1a06e – dark tan
• #d9d1ba – light tan
• #82b0b2 – light blue
• #346b84 – medium blue
• #1a3657 – dark blue

As with all my color palettes you can find this one on ColorLovers.com.

Haunted by a legend

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Hokusai is probably my favorite piece of fine art. I caught glimpses of it growing up in American culture, but didn’t know anything about the work until I studied it in art school.

Turns out the iconic scene is actually a woodblock print and not a painting, and its part of a series based on that little mountain you can see in the background. For some reason I fell in love with the piece in college when I found a huge poster print version for sale on a table piled with other pop art and cultural icons. From then on, the famous painting followed my through life…

• I proudly displayed it in my room during college.
• Then I hung it over my desk when I got an office job.
• At one point, the image was my desktop background.
• A coworker and good friend bought me a sketchbook with the painting printed on the front.
• After getting married I brought it home and managed to hang it over our bed… briefly. Something about the imminent death of those sailors didn’t sit well with the wife as a pre-bedtime meditation.
• Until I get my home office situated the historic image sulks in my closet. Nevertheless, it lives on as my current desktop background.
• And finally, I sold my old poster at a garage sale while raising funds to start a business. Someday we’ll meet again Hokusai.