This week's theme is Theatre (I'm using the English spelling!) - Japanese Kabuki theatre. I'm very fond of old Japanese wood block prints and this illustration was inspired by one made by Sharaku of the Kabuki actor Morita Kanya. For my version I've experimented with some new oil pastels which are quite a departure from the controllable coloured pencils, ink and watercolour I'm used to! These are so thick there's no way I can achieve any fine detail! After blocking in the colours and applying a further layer of black pastel over the whole image, I used the sgraffito technique ( scratching and scraping into layers with a craft knife) to reveal the colours beneath whilst bringing some texture to the piece. You can view a print of the original woodblock here and read more about Kubuki here.
