12th in the "Women of Japanese Horror" painting series.

This is the grandmother of all Japanese ghost women - Oiwa, the housewife who was viciously poisoned by her no-good bastard of a hubby (the dork in the painting) so he could go off and marry a aricher girl. Well, his plan certainly backfired - Oiwa cursed everyone involved with him, haunting each of them to death or to the point of suicide, and finally getting back at her husband himself. She was really more like the ancient Greek Furies - she drove others to either repent or commit suicide. Pretty good method, if I do say so myself.

This painting depicts the climax of the story, where Oiwa follows her cowardly jerk of a husband up to a mountain hermitage and comes out of an old lantern in order to finally get back at him. Scary stuff, it is.

The scan sucked for this. I repeat, I need to get a new scanner. Egads.

Watercolor, pencil, gel pen

Oiwa © herself and the dudes who based the Kabuki dramas on her tale
Art © Carrie-ko