The motif is an Ukiyo-e, “Cat for mouse repellent” by Kuniyoshi Utagawa. The base color is gold blur from the bottom. The cat is drawn with maki-e technique using white lacquer mixed with palladium powder. A sparrow is drawn on the cap ahead of the cat’s line of sight. Since it uses a transparent barrel and painted with transparent lacquer, you can see the pen nib. A mouse which seems like running into the pen is drawn at the grip section. The base color of the grip section is painted in itame-kinji, the mouse is drawn with tsukegaki technique using black gold. Also, a customer’s precious diamond ring is drawn as a collar of the cat. Even though there are many elements in a pen, such as a diamond, gold base maki-e, transparent painting, and various motifs, the pen became very calm and elegant.

Firstly, creating big waves with charcoal powders. Then carving delicate waves with the Chin-koku technique. It is possible to express intricate swirls and waves by using very fine blades. The width of each wave line, the spacing between lines, etc., are quite finely finished for a pen shaft with a tight radius.

The motif is a play picture folding screen (Shibai ebyobu) by Kinzo (Hirose Kinzo, commonly known as Ekin), a famous painter in Kochi. Ryoben was a high priest of Todaiji Temple in the Nara period. He has a legend that he was kidnapped by an eagle when he was two years old and left in a cedar tree in the front of Kasuga Shrine. But he was rescued safely. So, there are many Kabuki plays based on this story.

The lacquer is mixed with egg whites and other substances to create a special strong viscosity, and using a special comb scratching the surface to draw waves. Due to this drawing technique, motif will be slightly different from each other.
Wave patterns are very popular in many designs like “Hato”, the wave created with charcoal powder and whale designs. The technique can create various images by changing the width of the waves.

Chin-kin is a technique to carve the Urushi lacquered surface and embedding gold, silver, charcoal, and other colored powders to the line. For this “A tiger and bamboo” motif, some special techniques are used in addition to the general dot carving and line carving. One is a rubbing technique (to scrape the painted surface by rubbing with a chisel), and one is a hair carving technique which can express thin and fluctuating line like real animal hair, is used for tiger hair. The entire body is carved with the hair carving technique. And for eyes, carving circles in the center, putting gold leaves, and carving around the circles with a dot technique.
The line carving technique is used for the tiger beard. The dot carving technique is used for its fangs and tongue. The Single chisel carving technique (a technique in which only one side of a flat chisel is used to create a powerful carving) is used for the bamboo. For the ground, both the rubbing and the dot carving techniques are used. This piece must be the top class of Chinkin works considering the carving techniques used and preciseness.
It is full of techniques such as a very delicate Chinkin technique, blur technique with flat sword like chisel, and so on.

Paulownias and a few phoenixes are carved with Chinkin to the kuro-roiro (black Urushi lacquer) base. The line and the dot carving techniques are used. Carving on pen body is really difficult because it is full of curved surfaces and Chinkin cannot start over.

It is a new dragon motif using the Ryukyu (Okinawa) Tsuikin technique. In the 1700’s, the Ryukyu Tsuikin has been developed getting a hint of Tsuishu technique. In Ryukyu Tsuikin technique, mixing pigments into Urushi lacquer to create so called “Mochi”, soft thin Urushi lacquer plate. Then cut and paste the mochi according to the parts of motif. The three-dimensional Urushi on the pen body gives the motif a full of dynamism and reality.

Cherry blossom is expressed with Ryukyu(Okinawa) Tsuikin technique. The “So-zuke” technique, which is the Tsuikin technique is used for all surfaces, is used.

The flower is expressed with shu (red Urushi) on a gold base, the leaves and bud are in green and greenish yellow Urushi on a gold. Furthermore, “Shuai-urushi” is used to add shades and depths for the motif.
The “Kakiwari” technique is used for express the details of bud. “Raden” is wrapped around the pen body. Because Raden needs thick urushi, it seems rather blackish finish for the first. However, the texture of the briar wood might gradually become visible as aging.

Draw a spider with the “Taka-Makie” technique on the Fuki-Urushi coating base.