We may only be half way through the year, but in this busy modern world, its a lot closer than you think. If you've read our Early 2009 Interior trends article, you'll know one of our predictions is the influences from the orient and specifically Japan. As a result of predicting trends early, we hope to be able to produce some new canvas artwork to suit the future trends.

It's all about the East: Asian & Oriental influences are key here. Vintage floral Japanese textiles are key and give great inspiration, simple and clean shapes with striking colours.

The palette for Oriental Sweetness is strong vibrant colours such as burgundy, red and purples, contrasted with neutral shades and brighter shades, even unlikely colour matches work well. Bold is beautiful.As your base, we suggest off whites to give a majority cover and some clean contrasting line.

Oriental and Japanese floral designs have always been very minimal block colours and flat tones to give a vibrant and elegant image. It's like pop art, but pioneered hundreds of years early! I'm seeing a similar style in modern graphic design.

Blocks of colour that would have been delicately painted with watercolour brushes are only now becoming a popular graphic design technique, thanks to computer programs such as Adobe Illustrator.

Simple, vector based shapes are the key focal point to a design,no tone is apparent or necessary with this simple yet very elegant and slightly understated style. Focal point canvas art will add a level of personal input. But think carefully about what you want.

Over the last 4 years,here at WHoArtNow we've seen a consistent popularity with Oriental images, and for 2009 we believe its only going to get more popular. With some fresh new images from our in house artists and Frazier Boyd working on some Oriental Floral Stencil images, your soon to be spoilt for choice if 'Oriental Sweetness' is for you.