Day2/31 #WorldWatercolorMonth 

Sackler gallery’s has a new exhibit ‘Inventing Utamaro’ displaying the famous triptych depicting the theme of “snow, moon and Flowers” of Kitagawa Utamaro. Along side this are also some fabulous woodblock prints of this legendary Japanese artist. I was really drawn to his woodblock prints. I managed to do a quick pen and ink sketch inside of a few and then used the sketches as reference to do this watercolor sitting just outside looking in. These prints now called okubi-e or large head pictures became part of his signature style. This one was titled ‘Wakana and Wakanoura of the Wakanaya’. 

I’ll be back again tomorrow for the second half of the painting.