Product Description
Christmas - 7 November 2006
This year's Christmas stamps feature secular designs. Because of the introduction of a new pricing system, this year's stamps include two each for 1st class and 2nd class. The 2nd class stamp is illustrated with a Snowman, the 1st class with Father Christmas sitting on a chimney, 72p shows a reindeer, and £1.19 has a decorated Christmas Tree surrounded by presents.
This is the set of 6 self-adhesive stamps from regular sheets.
The stamps feature illustrations by Japanese digital illustrator Tatsuro Kiuchi. He works in Adobe Photoshop and calls his work digital printmaking.
“The brief for the stamps was very open”, explains Tatsuro. “I was asked to come up with some sketch ideas on a Christmas theme which would incorporate the graphic and print-like quality of my work.” This resulted in a series of instantly recognisable symbols of Christmas.“Even though many Japanese people are not Christian, Christmas is quite popular in Japan,” he continues.
“Christmas Day itself is not a holiday. Some people go out for dinner with their friends and families, but I usually work. New Year, which we celebrate on the first three days of January, is much more special to Japanese people, and that is our holiday. However, I have worked on the Christmas theme a couple of times before.” This has been mostly for magazine and book illustrations published in Japan.
Kiuchi works exclusively on computer. “I build up the image using many layers of transparent colours. To get the detail right, I created an image on screen that could be printed four times larger than the actual stamp. I set out to make the colours vary, but as the work progressed, blue became dominant. In the final set, I have used a lot of blue in a range of different shades.”
