Gansu — Tea territories

Create one exceptional, completely flat regional ceramic-print artwork. This is the actual printable illustration, never a cup, product photograph, mockup, presentation board or simulated ceramic surface. The collection reference controls drawing language only: invent a new composition for the specified region and replace all Guangdong-specific objects. The source map supplies a regional inventory, not a paper texture or a layout to trace literally.

TECHNICAL CONTRACT: native canvas exactly 3840 x 1280 pixels, true RGBA PNG. Keep every visible mark, letter, ornament and antialiased edge inside x=60..3780 and y=110..1170. The final delivery will use a centered 3840 x 1152 export for a 250 x 75 mm wrap; leave the native safety area completely transparent. Compose for a long horizontal physical print, not a conventional poster. Nothing is cut off at either end. All exterior space and meaningful holes between objects must have alpha zero. No painted background, white underpainting, sky rectangle, tinted paper, land silhouette, colour fog, opaque backdrop or checkerboard. The wearer-visible ceramic supplies the unprinted space. Use the specified colours as ink, with normal edge antialiasing; do not invent extra white, black or metallic ink. Never print dimensions, crop marks, palette swatches, filenames, reference names or instructions.

ART DIRECTION: create a memorable hierarchy, a major focal scene and a quieter counterweight; alternate large close forms with medium stories and a few small discoveries. Let tea life interact with the region. Connect selected objects through a real roofline, tabletop, lane, ridge or river contour; retain clear breathing channels so each gesture and vessel is legible. Do not impose any percentage of empty space. Avoid both a cramped rectangular carpet and timid isolated stickers. Use confident, intentional linework that will survive the 75 mm print height. Limit texture to useful material clues. Any water, snow, steam or clouds are sparse outlines with transparent interiors, never washed fills. No photographic gradients, glow, heavy grunge, blurred edges or tiny illegible hatch fields.

FACTUAL DISCIPLINE: the scenes below distinguish cultivation, processing, trade, hospitality and non-tea infusions. Do not turn imported tea, berries, ginseng, barley, trees or grasslands into tea plantations. Do not invent a local tea cultivar, a named historic tea shop, medical effects, a precise trade route or archaeological evidence. Landmarks are cultural/geographic motifs, not assertions that tea was grown or traded at their gates. A contemporary tea pause next to a landmark is an authored scene, not a documentary historical claim. Keep people natural and respectful, with plausible hands and gestures; use no decorative pseudo-script.


C3: LIVING TEA TERRITORIES. Make an oblique, connected illustrated tea world, held together by a locally meaningful river, street, mountain fold or caravan corridor. Large foreground hospitality or craft overlaps medium buildings and small distant geography. Five flat inks, expressive editorial drawing and carefully observed vessels. No administrative outline, amusement-park badge grid or generic ornamental tea leaves. Integrate a strong condensed regional heading in the lower rhythm, not in a separate title band.

REGION: Gansu. Exact ink palette: #564238, #B97D2E, #428A99, #9E4F39, #8E8A54. The first colour supplies the main line; the others have deliberate separate roles, not gradients.

AUTHENTIC SUBJECT MATTER:
The tea story has three genuine southern growing valleys, not a province of imaginary desert plantations: Wenxian/Bikou with a picker and fresh-leaf basket; Kangxian/Yangba with a wooded tea slope and shallow leaf tray; Wudu/Yuhe with a compact tea garden beside a simple processing bench. Keep these lush scenes distinct but close enough to read as southern Longnan. A larger Lanzhou or Linxia Sanpaotai hospitality scene uses a three-piece lidded gaiwan, a pouring kettle and a small tray of dates, raisins, rock sugar and a few berries; ingredients are a variation, not a mandatory eight-item formula. Tianshui Guanguan tea is a modest clay pot simmering on a tiny stove with toasted dates and a cup, not a teapot shaped like a building. Gannan hospitality uses a butter-tea churn, bowl and host near a yak and low pastoral shelter. This is a drinking culture, not tea cultivation on alpine grass. The Hexi/Qilian corridor appears as a restrained distant dry ridge, creating the surprising contrast with the green southern valleys. No fabricated museum, cultivar or historic tea caravan label.

SPECIFIC COMPOSITION:
Use two climatic arms joining at a central tea table: an airy ochre Hexi ridge from upper left, and a richly drawn southern Longnan valley curling from lower right. The joint is a Lanzhou host pouring Sanpaotai; the vessel is the foreground hero. Follow the southern arm through Wenxian picking, Yangba leaf sorting and Yuhe tea bushes. A clay-pot stove sits on an intermediate architectural ledge, and a butter-tea host with a yak appears toward the cooler highland counter-arm. Draw terrain as contours and small bounded patches; no single province island. Place the title low beside the table where the panoramic flow naturally opens, preserving a visible transparent channel under the serving arm.

VISIBLE TYPE: exact main title "GANSU" once. Use only these optional small English labels, integrated beside the appropriate scenes and large enough to read: WENXIAN, YANGBA, YUHE, SANPAOTAI, GUANGUAN TEA, GANNAN. Do not add other text. No Chinese characters, bilingual captions, pseudo-calligraphy, gibberish, slogans, logos or signatures. Prioritize visual storytelling over words. Do not allow letters to merge with foliage or buildings. The design must feel like a collectible regional artwork that a tea professional would want to handle and study.