Bamboo forest

Oil Painting.  This was a quickly done painting done as an original work for a class on pallet knife painting.  Just about everything except the person and the Japanese lantern were painted using a pallet knife which was quite a new experience for me.  It is much more thickly painted than my typical works with a lot more texture than what comes through on the photo.  This will be one in a series of paintings depicting the story of the Bamboo cutter, a Japanese myth .

The story of the Bamboo Cutter is the tale of Kaguyahime who is discovered as a tiny infant inside a mysteriously glowing bamboo stem by an elderly bamboo cutter. He and his wife raise her as their daughter, and Kaguyahime quickly becomes a beautiful young woman.   Kaguyahime grows to be a woman of unearthly beauty. Unwilling to marry, Kaguya-hime (The Shining Princess) sets her suitors tasks they are unable to fulfill.