Chinese Zodiac Art in 10 Styles

Shuimo (水墨), the monochrome brush painting that matured under the Song dynasty literati: black ink on absorbent xuan paper, a few vermilion accents and a red seal, with empty space doing as much work as the strokes.

Best for: Quiet, editorial pins and anything where the animal has to sit next to a lot of text.

Gongbi (工笔), the "meticulous brush" court style: every outline drawn first, then layered mineral pigment — jade green, coral, ochre, gold — filled in behind it. The opposite discipline to ink wash, and the one the imperial painting academies taught.

Best for: Feather, scale and fur detail; the Rooster and the Dragon carry the most of it.

Jianzhi (剪纸), folk paper-cutting: a single sheet of red paper cut into a flat silhouette with the pattern carved out from inside, pasted on windows at New Year. Listed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2009.

Best for: High-contrast thumbnails and Chinese New Year posts — it reads clearly even at pin size.

The festive end of the paper-cut tradition crossed with gilded lacquerware: a deep crimson ground, gold cloud motifs and gold-leaf accents, everything arranged symmetrically around the animal.

Best for: Red-envelope and New Year framing; this is the style used on the printed report covers.

Qinghua (青花), cobalt painted under a clear glaze and fired onto white ceramic — perfected at the Jingdezhen kilns and exported worldwide from the Yuan and Ming dynasties onward. The waves, clouds and peonies around the animal are the standard motifs of that ware.

Best for: A cool palette that sits well against blue or neutral boards.

The wall paintings of the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, painted over roughly a thousand years from the fourth century on: malachite green, azurite blue, ochre and vermilion ground from minerals, flying apsara ribbons, and the weathered sandstone surface underneath.

Best for: The richest, most textured set — best as a full-width image rather than a small thumbnail.

Nianhua (年画), the woodblock prints pasted up at New Year by workshops such as Yangliuqing and Taohuawu: heavy black key-block outlines with flat red, green, yellow and pink printed inside them, plus auspicious clouds and blossoms.

Best for: Bold, cheerful pins; the folk-print look travels further outside China than most people expect.

A contemporary treatment, not a historical school: thin gold line art on midnight navy with constellation dots, borrowing the visual language Western astrology illustration has used since the 1970s.

Best for: Astrology and horoscope boards, where a navy-and-gold card is the house style.

Modern Western watercolour: loose wet washes in rose, peach, lavender and sage on white paper, with botanical detail and light gold splatter. No Chinese precedent — it is here because it is the softest of the ten.

Best for: Nursery prints, wedding and birth-year gifts, and anything that needs to look gentle.

Contemporary flat illustration: the animal reduced to geometric shapes in a muted pastel palette — blush, sage, cream, dull gold — with a light grain over the top.

Best for: Small sizes, app icons and slide decks; it is the only set that stays legible under 100px.