I am now working on a series of drawings of a Siamese cat and flowers.
Why? Well, please check this topic: “the lotus babies”
I’ve prepared four different designs-spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Some WIPs for the summer version:
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Hi Maki. These are lovely as always! Thank you for posting the progress images. What type of pens do you us? Your work is so inspiring. I’m getting into pen and ink drawing, some with ink wash and some with watercolor wash. I’m using nib pens and technical pens currently, but I’d love to know what pens you us to create your stunning art.
Brenda
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Hi Maki -
LOVE this new series and seeing the progression of the drawing. I’m wondering how you did the fence in the background.
Terri Robichon
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Hi Maki,
Love seeing your work! This is yet another beautiful work. You are pretty amazing
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Hi June, thank you so much for your very kind words! 
Hello Brenda, thank you so much for your kind words. I’ve been using a ballpoint pen called zebra rubber 80. Some additional information can be found in this topic.
Hope this helps!
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Hello Terri, thank you so much for your kind words!
As to the background fence, it is pre-printed on my drawing paper.
Actually I should call this new series as “Siamese cat, flowers, and SHADOW”, because I decided to include a shadow pattern in each of the series expecting to bring about some atmospheric quality to the scene.
With this particular summer version, you can see that the shadow of the fence and the cat, plus the shadow on the wall are hand-drawn. As to the fence, it is not a shadow but a silhouette of the fence. The fence is not an organic object and I wanted perfectly “industrial” image for this part, so I used a copyright free fence photo, black and white, to prepare the background. I did not want it to be too dominant in the composition so I changed the transparency level of the photo down to 20 or 30% using photoshop. I printed the photo on the drawing paper and started drawing on it.
Hope this helps!
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Hello Maki,
Wow! As always lovely and wonderfully designed! I am looking forward to seeing the other three seasons as you develop them.
Very appropriate to do summer when we are looking at winter season, at least here in the US.
Teri
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Hi Teri, thank you so much for your kind comment. The next piece is the spring version. This is also perhaps appropriate to do as we’re too beginning to face the winter season over here. 
They are just lovely as usual.
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Hi Maki - Your explanation of the fence makes perfect sense and I love how you incorporated that background element digitally into your beautiful image. I also appreciate your information on the type of pen you use, and the attachments regarding that. This forum is such a great place to continue to keep learning from each other. I’ve wondered for a long time what pen you use, and just never asked.
On a personal note, check out this week’s members minute where Matt looked at my watercolor of an old car by a barn. There was actually a little black cat in my reference photo, and it made me think of you the entire time I worked on this painting. Hope you like it.
Terri Robichon
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Thank you so much for your kind words, Denise!
Hi Terri, I watched the critique and added a very stupid comment. Sorry about that. 
Hi Maki -
Don’t be sorry. I wrote you a reply after your comment over at the Members Minute. So pop over there and take a look.
Terri Robichon
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Hello Terri, thank you for your reply to my comment at the Member’s Minute. Yes, I’ve known that my comments are pretty long, but even they are the results of stringent editing. I’ve once read Stephen King’s “On Writing”, where he wrote about one of his editors who said you can shorten your writing by 30% by editing without compromising the quality of your writing. I think this figure is right in my cases too. The deleted 30% is always something less relevant to the points now being discussed. The remaining 70%, no matter how long it seems for some people, is necessary from my own viewpoint to substantiate my points. And more importantly, these comments are not necessarily for the recipients alone but for myself too. I mean, I take commenting as an opportunity for my self-reflection. I think it was Demian by Herman Hesse that I read a phrase like “you are not offended by anything that does not exist in yourself”. In other words, if something offends you, you have something in yourself which makes you react to it. It is not about offending only but should apply to other cases too. There are some artworks, comments, questions which make me want to respond here. I take it that there is something in the artworks etc. that is important to me too. Then I feel that I need to identify what it is, and commenting works well for that purpose.
By the way, regarding your ice skates painting, I would do something like this:
I used the “drop shadow” function of photoshop to create this image.
Shadows are versatile. I usually use them for making my works atmospheric but they are useful for making a well-balanced composition too. You will perhaps see what I mean when you look at my next spring version of flowers and a Siamese cat.
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Hi Maki - I so agree with you on the subject of lengthy replies. You stated it better than I could. But mostly, I want to say THANKS for such a great suggestion on a fix for my skate painting. Of course, I can’t alter the original black background but for future projects with this problem the suggestion won’t be forgotten. And you never know, I might even give this painting another try in the future because the subject matter is meaningful to me.
Terri Robichon
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Thank you so much for showing your process. It is a help to know that doing something that is so right, is not a dashed off thing. Yours are always so detailed and thoughtful.
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Hello Jane, thank you so much for your kind words! 
Maki. This is wonderful, as always! Thanks for sharing. Love the them, love the art, love the cats!
Patricia.
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