EASTERN SPRING FESTIVALS AVATAR CONTEST

(Please read the second post, too. ^-^)

Spring is a lovely season full of love, light and hope. Let´s look how Asian cultures celebrate this time of the year. The festivals often have hundreds or thousands years of tradition and many people participate in colorful rituals.

[b]Challenge: Design a HA attending one, some or all of the spring festivals listed below. You are allowed to use all clothing items, CWs included, and you don´t have to own the items. Please post the HAs here, preferably with the Share function. Contests ends on April 30th midnight Subeta time. The prizes are listed together with the description of the festivals

The Qingming Festival occurs between April 4-6. It is also called the Clear and Bright Festival. Traditionally it marked the time of year for farmers to begin plowing and sowing the fields. It is considered a day of sacrifice to the ancestors. Traditions include sweeping the tombs of the dead, flying kites, planting trees, and eating only cold food.

The winner of the Qingming Festival HA Contest carries off

The Holi Festival of Colors (also called the Festival of Love) is an ancient Hindu religious festival held in spring. Holi is one of the most important festivals in the Hindu calendar and is a fivefold celebration: the beginning of spring, the beginning of the Hindu new year, a time for renewing old relationships and ending conflicts in current relationships, love (signified by Radha’s love for Krishna, a Hindu deity) and the triumph of good over evil.

Celebrations begin with the lighting of bonfires the night before Holi. This is accompanied by singing, dancing and general merriment to the sound of dholak drums. The next day, Holi, brings laughing and dancing crowds throwing colored powder and water at strangers, friends and foes in a celebration of joy and goodwill. After a day of virbrant and energetic play with colors which coats everyone in a rainbow glow, families then take the time to visit each other’s houses, exchanging sweets and Holi delicacies.

The winner of the Holi Festival HA Contest carries off

Taiwan Lantern Festival

There are lots of different lantern festivals in Asia, but perhaps the most stunning and most renowned is the Taiwan Lantern Festival in spring.

While the event is celebrated with lantern making, lantern riddle games and displays of glittering decorative lanterns, the most magical, romantic and striking event happens when the lanterns are adorned with the wishes and dreams of each owner and then released simultaneously along with thousands of others.

The winner of the Taiwan Lantern Festival HA Contest carries off

The Songkran Festival celebrates New Year’s Day in Thailand. Songkran – the world’s biggest water fight – begins in April.

Perhaps Thailand’s most energetic and well-known cultural festival, Songkran brings reveling crowds to the main streets, rubbing brightly colored chalk or talc on each other and throwing water. Armed with buckets, bowls, water guns and even hoses, the young and old take part in this friendly war of waters, indiscriminately ‘blessing’ all passers-by in the warmest month of the year. The throwing of water is symbolic of the spring-cleaning aspect of Songkran and is also seen as a way of paying respect to others, while the chalk was traditionally used by monks to mark blessings.

While it’s not clear exactly how Songkran began, the festival has roots in Buddhism, with many Thais still honoring the festival’s origins. Locals celebrate the New Year by returning home to their families, spring-cleaning their houses, sprinkling water from silver bowls onto the hands of elders and monks as a sign of respect (known as Rod Nahm Dum Hua), paying homage to Buddha and taking food and bags of sand to monasteries.

The winner of the Songkran Festival HA Contest carries off

An international celebration of yoga, dance, and music in spring, taking place in the heart of the island of Bali.

The venue is surrounded by tropical rice fields, temples, and timeless spirituality.

The goal is to deepen the practice of yoga, to connect with the spiritual self, to others and with nature. From dawn to dusk and through the starry nights, the festival will inspire with world-class yoga, dance, breathwork and music within a conscious community

The winner of the Bali Spirit Festival HA Contest carries off

Japan is known around the world for its cherry blossom festivals.

Hanami is the ancient tradition of going to enjoy the blooming of cherry blossoms (sakura) and sometimes plum blossoms (ume) in parks and throughout the countryside in Japan.

Hanami literally means "viewing flowers," but it generally indicates cherry blossom viewing. It's said that the origin of hanami dates back to more than a thousand years ago when aristocrats enjoyed looking at beautiful cherry blossoms and wrote poems inspired by them.

Because cherry blossoms are beautiful and fleeting -- the blooms often last no more than two weeks -- they have become symbolic for the impermanence of beauty. Cherry blossoms are often featured in works or art and even tattoos to depict the Japanese concept of mono no aware, or the wistful realization that nothing lasts forever. A more ancient form of hanami also exists in Japan, which is enjoying the plum blossoms (梅 ume) instead, which is narrowly referred to as umemi(梅見, plum-viewing). This kind of hanami is popular among older people, because they are calmer than the sakura parties, which usually involve younger people and can sometimes be very crowded and noisy.

The winner of the Hanama Cherry Blossom Festival HA Contest carries off

Have fun!

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To achieve a neat arrangement here, please post any questions in the chat thread [url=https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/884847/Hearts-and-Cookies]CHAT THREAD LINK and ping me there, thank youuuuu! ^-^

To achieve a neat arrangement here, please post any questions in the chat thread CHAT THREAD LINK and ping me there, thank youuuuu! ^-^

Have fun! ^-^

Edit: Since you already did so many designs with passion, there will be an overall winner this time. :-) After choosing the winner of each category and sending the prize, I´ll put all names in the randomizer and raffle off these beautiful flowers among them:

Also, please don´t forget to put some surroundings to your HA. I didn´t specify the normal "add a background and a foreground" rule for this very contest yet the festival is part of the contest, too. You can also use other layers like ground, back and such to give a hint of the festival idea.

I am looking forward to your beautiful designs! <3

Qingming Festival Outfit Not Found Holi Festival of Colors Outfit Not Found Taiwan Lantern Festival Outfit Not Found Songkran Festival Outfit Not Found Bali Spirit Festival Outfit Not Found Hanama Cherry Blossom Outfit Not Found

The Qingming Festival

Everything I looked up talked about "seeing the green" returning to nature, and eating green rice balls, and just a lot of focus on green, so that's where I headed with this design...

So yeah, I wanted to really head towards re-emergence of leaves and green, coming up out of a base of brown...

Private Outfit

Holli Festival of Colors

Can imagine how crazy all of the color throwing would be... And what better to start with than a white dress, to make sure all those colors show up? Private Outfit

The Lantern Festival

I really worked towards gentle, blushing lantern light, and playing with the colors and warmth here..

Private Outfit

Water Festival

So, rather than going for just water throwing, I went for sort of a water goddess or something...

Private Outfit

Bali Spirit Festival

Checked out the links online, and the place is very restful and green, with gardens and lots of open, asian-style or tent-like buildings, so here's my setting... It's a pretty simple outfit in the end, but the items are pretty carefully selected... :O

Private Outfit

Cherry Blossom Festival

So yeah... Cherry blossoms... And stuff... Private Outfit

Qingming Festival Outfit Not Found

Holi Festival Outfit Not Found

Taiwan Lantern Festival Outfit Not Found

Songkran Festival Outfit Not Found

Bali Festival Outfit Not Found

cherry blossom festivals Outfit Not Found

Qingming Festival Honoring the Dead

Qingming Festival

wip

Taiwan Lantern Festival

Private Outfit

Hanami Cherry Blossom Festival

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Hi dearheart, I have missed talking with you. I should be on the mend, only a couple of things left to check out. What has been happening in your days? Many long days? I hope they've been happy ones!! :-D

For my HA, I tried Hanami. (hope I spelled correctly) Please let me know if I need to alter anything.

Private Outfit

Very first time or maybe second time I've ever entered. EVERYONE has such BEAUTIFUL ENTRIES!! :-O

For Holi HA I tried this. After 6 hours, I am not happy still with it.

Private Outfit