Watercolor: Puss in Boots aka Le Chat Botté aka Il gatto con gli stivali (with appearance by medieval killer rabbit, look it up). OG wingman, originally 16th century Italy, made famous by "Shararu" 😆 Perrault. 長ぐつをはいた猫。もともとイタリアのおとぎ話、フランスのチヤルル・ペローのヴァージョンで有名。ファッション+殺されたウサギ+嘘=成功というモラルです。

Shrine cats Osaka

Setsubun 節分 let's chase out the demons & welcome in good fortune 鬼は外福は内 水彩画　ニャンちゃんの節分

Pinterestの画像は、作者を特定できないことが多くて悲しい。投稿者はそれを隠したいかのようだ。ましてAI Slopだらけだ。

丙午のしめ飾り (プラ版で作った😄) Happy New Year of the (Pink Pegasus) Fire Horse

Handprinting New Year Postcards for 2026 Year of the Firehorse 丙午の版画年賀状の制作 HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🐎

Reading a 30-year-old book about mindfulness, it's amazing how the clouded default state of fixation on personal problems, past & present, is one we would aspire to, unable to resist the escape from thinking of our phones. The floor is so much lower since social media took over. 📚💙

Vampire Watercolor 水彩画: ヴァンパイアはカラーで夢を見るのだろうか？影の中をうろつき、赤の雫しかなくても、眠るときには懐かしく緑や金を思うに違いない。

いよいよ水彩画のテープを剥がす Watercolor: finally taking off the tape

What I read for Halloween 📚💙 こわいやさん The Buffalo Hunter Hunter 怪談レストランナビ Dracula Good times

Halloween: The joy of cafe sketching at a Japan patisserie. Vampire art and spooky goodies. 大阪のパティシエで吸血鬼のを描く

たぬきのフッション、天王寺 Tanuki fashion, Osaka

Kovvmory vampiric bat monster oil pastel process. 吸血鬼みたいな怪物の絵 finishing up the Halloween #drawtober illustration

I love spooky season. 🎃 I wish it could go on longer. I used to think stores that put up Christmas decorations before Halloween were crazy but now that I have holiday merch I see customers really do start buying Christmas stuff mid-October!

Sketching the vampire monster Kovvmory with its bat friends & munching delicious hamburger steak & Japanese dessert at a cute Osaka cafe. 西宮の可愛いカフェで吸血系モンスターを描く。ハンバーグ、カスタードケーキ大福、ふわふわのきなこミルクが美味しい。 Music: pixabay.com/users/melodi...

Recarving & reprinting double-sided yokai Nekomata postcard design 猫又の版画のハガキを刷り増した

After tearing through ~380 pages in 2 days, I'm 60 pages from the end of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and I would just stop. Now. To wait a couple weeks for someone to catch up & discuss it with me. One of these days I'll join a suitable book club.

Shrine cat, Osaka. 神社の猫

オイルパステル。Kovvmoryについてはほとんど何も知られていない。吸血鬼の一種と言われるが、実際には互いよりも、彼らが共に行動するコウモリに近い存在かもしれない。真の吸血鬼たちはKovvmoryを恥ずかしく思っているようだ。それが昆虫(だけ?)を食べる食性のせいか、それとも知性のなさのためかもしれない。低い青い光を放つことで昆虫を引き寄せる。「ムーンフィッシュ」とも名付けている…ただしその名はよくない由来から来た可能性もある。（サンフィッシュ＝マンボウ、鈍さで有名な動物。）作品を引用して敬意を表すことが多から、この絵の細部では、河鍋暁斎と歌川広重への敬意を込めてコウモリを2匹引用した。

Oil pastel. Little is known about the Kovvmory, widely said to be a kind of vampire. Kovvmory seem to be in a stupor or dream as they bob heavily thru the night sky. Japanese art often pays homage by directly referencing other works so I included bat poses from Kawanabe Kyosai and Utagawa Hiroshige.

I block anything that's a blend of cartoony and suggestive and sometimes I feel like I'm blocking all of Bluesky. Is this what Twitter was like?

It's already mid October so I've picked up The Buffalo Hunter Hunter to multitask with a seasonal Halloween read & best new books of 2025 lister in one 📚💙

cafe sketching in Sumiyoshi Osaka カフェでのデッサン、大阪

可愛くて美味しいカフェのおやつ　西宮市 delicious and cute cafe goodies Nishinomiya

Cozy creepy cute 🦇 Cafe sketching Japan 可愛くてこわい カフェでのデッサン

秋の空 The beauty of an early morning Autumn sky in Japan

My nephews have the sounds for the Japanese words for "hawk" & "elephant" in their names so I designed this logo & made some prints & bags for my sister 甥っ子の名前はケンゾーとタカシなので妹の誕生日のためにこのロゴをデザインして版画の作品を作った Printmaking

WIP fat yokai Nekoshō Can't get 3 tails out of my sketchbook 又 妖怪の猫魈の版画

かわいいだるま　中井神社　大阪 Cute daruma, Nakai Shrine, Higashisumiyoshi, Osaka

Communal drawing, sharing the yokai love 久しぶりにパステル！垢舐め

すねる "suneru" = sulk (英語の「カタツムリ」と日本語の拗ねる」 Never forget by learning with Japanese-English puns! オヤジギャグで学ぼう! Ink drawing sketchbook snail 🐌

"ba-né" = spring; coil Learn Japanese with Japanese-English puns 🐰 オヤジギャグで学ぼう! Ink sketchbook bunny rabbit drawing

lighthouse = tōdai = "toad eye" Learn Japanese with Japanese-English puns 🐸 オヤジギャグで学ぼう! ヒキガエルの目 Ink drawing flashcard

生国魂神社行宮・大阪本町

夏の通勤はあまりに蒸し暑くて、いくら気を付けても、オフィスに着くと汗びっしょりだ。

妖怪の猫魈の版画 Printmaking, the yokai Nekoshō on different colors of paper

My family is returning to Goodreads after 8 months trying @thestorygraph & @fableapp I appreciate they're offering an alternative to Bezos but unfortunately it's regularly impossible to input non-English books & difficult to enjoy reviews from our community. Got to fight the oligarchy from the top.

猫魈 Nekoshō blockprint 版画 If you see a very old cat with an oddly fat tail, it may be this boss level, extremely rare yokai. Even today it's rare for a cat to live the perquisite 30 years. 化け猫は三十年生きると猫魈になると言われ、とても珍しい妖怪です。もしとても年老いた猫に太い尻尾を見つけたら、この妖怪かもしれません。

版画, 猫魈 Printmaking, 3 surfaces.

How are other creators based outside of the US dealing with the end of the de minimis rule? How are you changing your holiday plans? Japan Post suspended US-bound commercial (& more), so I'm mulling special emergency US printing or giving up on the US market entirely this year.

＞トランプ米政権下で導入された新たな規則により、これまで認められていた免税措置が停止されたことを受け、米国向けの郵便物の一部について配送を停止する国・地域が広がっている 日豪など米国向け小包の一部配送を停止、トランプ政権による免税措置停止で www.cnn.co.jp/business/352...

Tanuki summer love, Osaka. たぬきの夏の恋

As a foreign language reader, I'm flummoxed as to how to avoid Goodreads/Amazon. I tried The Storygraph & Fable, but both continue to be clunky & often require me to input a (usually rarer Japanese) publication into Goodreads before I can log it with them! What's the point then? Anybody found a fix?

目目連、水彩画 watercolor Mokumokuren, the eyes in the paper sliding doors of old houses. That feeling of being watched, of eyes creeping into our privacy, is a very real monster of our time. 目目連というのは古い家の障子に憑く妖怪です。鳥山石燕の創作と言われています。見られているという感覚や、本当のプライバシーがないという感覚は、現代における確かな“怪物”です。

蛟(淀川)、水彩画。蛇のような水の精霊、中国の龍の特徴を持つことが多い。 Mizuchi, ancient Japanese river serpent, often depicted with Chinese dragon traits. There's a famous story about a man (offered as sacrifice) outwitting a Yodo River mizuchi here in Kansai. Edit of a larger watercolor.

I remember my 1st idiom bc it shook me so hard. "Don't cry over spilt milk," in the pages of a children's book in kindergarten, the teacher explaining what it meant, the feelings of shock & relief: that it was OK. That's the beauty of our old wisdom & stories; there's comfort in our shared truth.

Chimera, watercolor. キマイラ、水彩画 Isn't it nice just relaxing with your selves? 3 heads: lion, snake, fire-breathing goat, on 1 body = iconic monster. She's female, despite almost always being depicted with a male lion's impressive mane. ギリシャ神話の伝説的な怪物で、蛇、ライオン、火を吹くヤギの三つの頭を持っている。たてがみがあるのにメスとされている。

Original Cactus Cat watercolor on sale at MAYU PUSH, Nakazakicho, Osaka アメリカの怪物のサボテン猫 オリジナル水彩画を販売している

英語の「炎に引き寄せられる蛾のように」という慣用句は、日本語の「飛んで火に入る夏の虫」に似ているけれど、英語のほうが「危険なのに魅力的すぎて抗えない」といったニュアンスが強い。 水彩画を投稿したばかり

Like a Moth to a Flame is similar to the Japanese "Tonde hi ni iru natsu no mushi" (A Summer Bug Flies, Into Fire) but we use it much more to talk about being unable to resist the allure of what (we know) will ruin us: a love interest, fame, money... Watercolor & gouache diptych part 2