Mothers and Children

This week's featured cards have something to do either with Mothers, children or special celebrations in Japan the week of the fifth day of the fifth month. Hover your mouse pointer over a card as it floats by and it will stop, and show the title and the artist's first name and last initial. Slides shown with an * are posted with details below. Most of these with samples use images that are included on the Helen Hyde sheets and can also be purchased individually. More information on Helen Hyde is included in the last post for today. A few if this weeks featured samples include images that can be found under Children's Day. Remember to mention Art Neko Blog when ordering any of the items featured in the blog this week for a 25% discount. Offer good until the next week's blog post.

Moms and Kids

With Mother's Day coming soon, this week's blog theme is mother's and children. As a mother of four kids I feel truly blessed. I would love to take credit for what great adults they have grown up to be, but I think too often we take too much credit or too much blame depending on the situation. My kids have all worked hard to become who they are and while I did my best to provide encouragement and guidance, their successes are their own.

I picked this photo with David, my youngest, because Art Neko could never had come into existence without his tireless and patient efforts to set up and train me on how to maintain my website. In this photo he is helping me with an exhibit of cross stitch charts I made while in Japan. Yoko, standing at the right is also a very proud and doting mother. The small portrait next to me is of her son in full kimono in his 5th year of age which has a special celebration in Japan. Yoko had me enlarge and digitally chart that portrait and at the time we left Japan she had stitched about a quarter of her project. Talk about a mother's devotion!

This photo is about 14 years old and David here is now married and in his third year of graduate studies in math at MIT. I never could have started Art Neko without his gift to me of designing my website. Now if I could just get him to help with this blog.....Children, the gift that keeps giving (even after they leave home....)!

The week in which the 5th Day of the 5th Month falls (May 5th) includes several special days in Japan. Included in this weeks's post are projects relating to Children's Day (formerly Boy's Day) and Greenery Day, two of these special celebrations. As always, mention Art Neko Blog when you order any of the items featured this week for a 25% discount on those items.

Cute Kids

This little Boy With Daruma is representative of the art of Helen Hyde. Two sheets of Taylored Stamps Helen Hyde are available as sheets or singles. More information about her is listed in the final post for this week. Daruma are used for making wishes for the new year and giving thanks for wishes that have come true.

Creating this card was fun and easy! I don't do a lot of images of children, but this little guy stole my heart. Stamped and embossed with black, the image was colored with Tombow markers for the boy, and red and gold twinkling H2O's for the dolls. I stippled around the edges with rose and yellow colors of ink, highlighted parts of the images with gold metallic marking pen, and layered the small square daruma image over gold metallic floss. The background paper is washi - an unusual design, but just right for this celebratory image.

Apricot Blossom is also designed from a Helen Hyde print. The main image was stamped with black ink on a white cardstock panel. I colored the little girl's dress with twinkling H2O's and other parts of the image with Tombow markers. The little girl image was layered onto a background panel made by stamping the cherry blossom background image from Judikins in deep rose ink onto white mulberry paper. That panel was layered to a deep pink cardstock so the main cherry blossoms stand out against the white and the white looks pink over the cardstock! A piece of the pink carstock was stamped with the blossom border on a Judikins Asian bolio, embossed in gold, and then layered underneath the little girl image.

"Sweetie"

This little Daisy Girl is from the Taylored Stamps sheet, Women and Girls 1. Almost any image on that sheet could be put to use on a Mother's Day card.

The image was stamped with Timber Brown StazOn.
Blended pencil crayons were used to color the image. To make a more vintage type look, I used Ranger Distress Antique Linen direct to paper all over the image on top of the pencil crayon coloring. The image was first mounted on Basic Grey from the Porcelain Line. The other two mounting papers are also Basic Grey. Edging is gold Krylon pen.

Hi Mom

Long Stemmed Rose was use three times on this card, perfect for Mother's Day, birthdays or other special events. This image is available singly or on the Taylored Stamps Botanicals 2 sheet. Each rose was colored with water color markers directly on the stamp. The stamp was then spritzed with water and stamped on water color paper. I varied the colors and the amount of water for each rose.

The images were torn out and mounted on coordinating papers by Basic Grey.
Words unknown source.

This manga style Ninja Boy is so cute and is very versatile. He could be on a Mother's Day card, a birthday card for a child, or even a party invitation.

The image was stamped with VersaMark and embossed with sparkle black embossing powder onto "Obscure" paper by Basic Grey. I used the colors from the paper to pick markers to color the image. I took the circular lines from the image and used circles to further enhance it

Greenery Day

Greenery Day, a holiday celebrated now during Golden Week in Japan is celebrated by members of Oriental Stamp Art with an annual electronic swap.

The Japanese Holly focal image here was created using the "watercolor spritz" technique.The watercolor markers were applied directly to the stamp,then held at arm's length and spritzed lightly with water. The image was then stamped onto watercolor paper. When dry, I tore around the image and highlighted the edge with gold Krylon pen. Coordinating washi paper became the background,
which was then remounted on dark brown metallic card stock.

Celebrating Mothers and Children

More images from the Helen Hyde sheets.

Helen Hyde

While visiting our sons at the University of Oregon several years ago we attended a special exhibit at the Schnitzer Museum on campus of Asian Art. I was quite intrigued by the prints by Helen Hyde. Born in New York in 1868, Hyde had wide-ranging art studies in her youth, in San Francisco, New York, Berlin and Paris. She travelled to Japan when she was 31, studied Japanese painting techniques, and began to produce woodblock prints, working with local craftsmen. Much of her work was considered Many of her main themes were considered "saccharine" and her images of women and children were not properly appreciated at the time. She died of cancer at 51. I think these images are really quite sweet. My favorite technique is simple stamping and coloring with watercolor pencils. All these images can be found here on two sheets of images inspired by the works of Helen Hyde. Images are also available singly.

Week of April 22

We are going through some difficult times here with a loved one in terminal stages of cancer. Friends tell me it is important to take time for oneself during stressful times like this. So I am going to take a journey through some recent good times with this week's blog. Our theme this week is Marine Life and these samples by the Art Neko Team members take me back to a recent visit with a friend from Germany who caught a salmon on my brother's boat in the Columbia on her first ever try at fishing as well as a day I spent with one of our team members and her son at the Oregon Coast Aquarium last fall. The images using the Japanese sailing ship take me waaaaay back 40 years ago when I spent a summer on staff at the Boy Scout Camp at Spirit Lake on the top of Mt. St. Helens north of here in Washington state. One set of campers left Saturday mornings and the next came in Sunday afternoons so my husband, daughter and I and the rest of the staff had the sailboats and lake to ourselves each weekend. Nothing like viewing an August meteor shower from the middle of a lake high at high altitude. Of course the camp is no longer there since the mountain blew it's top off in 1980. I hope these samples will get some of you thinking and planning your summer vacation on the shore somewhere.....

All Dolled Up

The featured image on this card is from the Japanese Marine Sheet 1 Taylored Stamps. The image was stampedon marbled paper with VersaMark then embossed with gold. The bling is peel off sticker shapes by Stampendous. I then edged it with 18K Gold Krylon pen and mounted it on patterned paper, then onto brushed gold card stock. The card below was made similarly with different colors.
Below is yet another version of a card using the Japanese Jellyfish image.

Jellyfish at Sea

I just love this Japanese Jellyfish image with the calligraphy poem! This one was stamped in black ink and embossed with detail black embossing powder on a background that I made using a resist technique and glimmer mist sprays. The Judikins crashing wave stamp was stamped randomly with Ranger resist ink on a sheet of Bristol smooth art paper. I then sprayed the sheet of paper with different colors of blues and pearl glimmer mist sprays from Tattered Angels. Finally, I overstamped the design with the crashing wave stamp and Memories white ink. Because of the mica powders in the sprays, I sprayed the background paper with a workable fixative to give it a smoother finish to accept the ink on the jellyfish stamp. The jellyfish panel was trimmed to size and then mounted onto alternating panels of white and marine blue. The first blue panel was decorated with a rope border made with a Fiskars border punch.

Torii Gates

I've added two versions of the Torii gate stamp available from Art Neko on the Taylored Stamps Torii Gate, Ox, Willow, Fish and Harmony Set. Both of them are stamped in black ink and embossed with detail black embossing powder on a polished stone background. The first one is layered onto adjoining panels of woven reed paper from Washi Accents and a purple floral washi design. The second stamped panel is layered onto another woven bark panel with the backing paper removed to show the colored cardstock underneath. This paper is also available from Washi Accents. Coordinating panels of cardstock are layered to finish both cards.

Heading Home

Another OSA layout challenge, this one was a little strange for me! When I saw all the triangles, I immediately thought of the Japanese Fishing Boat in the Art Neko marine series, and then tried to fit other images with it to make a coherent story following the layout design. The boat is stamped and embossed on a hand colored piece of cardstock created with glimmer mists (Tattered Angels) and polished pigment powders (Luminarte). The triangle behind that one was a shimmery lilac cardstock that I decorated with scattered stars. The small circle design of Sun on Waves was stamped and embossed with silver on a piece of purple cardstock and cut out with a one-inch punch. The smallest triangle was cut from a larger image created with a Fred Mullett woodcut-design stamp. I liked the story suggested by all the pieces combined, and I thought the panel shapes and the designs of the stamps worked very well together. All of the stamped panels were arranged on a piece of purchased, hand-painted and marbled art tissue that picked up the blues and purples in the triangular panels.

Sailing

This card features the Japanese Fishing Boat image from the Taylored Stamps Marine Sheet 2. The Haiku by Issa is also on that sheet. The sailing image is layered over a "dragged" background. The background was made by tearing a piece of copy paper and dragging ink over it onto the base cardstock. Once a line has been inked, the copy paper is moved 1/2 inch and another line of ink is dragged onto the cardstock. The copy paper is moved and lines are dragged until the background is complete.

Doesn't the dragged cardstock look like the marks left in the sand after the tide goes out?

She Sells Seashells......

When I make water-themed cards, I love to create cards that have a sense of motion. That's why I chose to use this bright background -- I think it gives the sense of fluidity to the card! The background was created with a technique from the Technique Junkie Newsletter called "Frog in a Blender". The technique uses Future Floor Wax to float ink -- and then the cardstock is dipped into it.

The seashells card also features shells that have been cut out and covered with Glossy Accents -- they are shiny and dimensional.

All of the stamps used here are from the Marine Sheet 2.

By The Sea

This card was made using the Japanese Fishing Boat image available as a single stamp or on the Taylored Stamps Marine 2 Sheet.

This card was created for a sketch challenge for OSA. I think the appeal of this card is using a unique image from Taylored Stamps Marine 2 sheet. The image is stamped with Midnight Blue StazOn ink and mounted on black. That part was put aside while the background was built. Several patterned papers were used using the same tone of blue. Layering on black created great contrast. The vertical image was then added with the pearlsadded last.
I think the featured Japanese Fisherman image being vertical on the horizontal background really makes the image stand out.

The background of the tan card is by Basic Grey. The divisions are from a reed type paper similar to something used for placemats.

I stamped Japanese Fisherman using Kaleidacolor Cappuccino Delight.

The starfish is a button with the shank removed and colored with Krylon gold and adhered with Glossy Accents.

The sand dollar image is also from the same sheet.


All images come on the sheet Japanese Marine Sheet 2 by Taylored Stamps or can be purchased individually from Art Neko.

One Fish, Two Fish....

The Catch of the Day image was stamped with VersaMark on pre-colored paper by Basic Grey.
Gold, silver and copper embossing powders were sprinkled separately on the image. A little gold here, a little silver there etc, and then heat embossed. Copper Krylon pen was used to edge the image.
The background was made using different sized circles, stamped randomly with VersaMark on black card stock and then then embossed with gold,silver and copper powders.
The seashell image and verse were added to complete the card.


The second card is a completely different take on this focal image.

All these Taylored Stamps can be found by clicking the links in the description or the following link to the search for Marine items on the Art Neko website.

Two More Carp

The Catch of the Day was stamped and embossed on a blue cardstock panel and then colored with twinkling H2O's. I added chalks in the background for different shades of blue, and stamped waves with Judikins's crashing waves stamp. The fish panel was layered with crumpled copper foil paper and coordinating cardstock. I stamped the Japanese Fisherman in turquoise ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. Using a wave image from Stonehouse Stamps, I created a left and bottom border with copper ink and embossing powders and placed the cut out fisherman in the corner, looking into the fish panel. The Japanese Fisherman and the Catch of the Day are both available on Taylored Stamps Marine Sheet 2.

I stamped the Leaping Koi in waves image with black ink and embossed it with detail black embossing powders. The water and fish were colored with twinkling H2O's. I added a portion of the large wisteria vine stamp from Beeswax at the top of the panel, and colored some of the flowers and leaves with Tombow markers. I added some chalks to the background to get some sky colors. The finished panel was layered with a black panel to a folded white card. Leaping Koi is also available on Taylored Stamps Koi and Crane Sheet.

Utagawa Wisteria and Carp

Wisteria Koi in Orange

The background for this version of the Utagawa Wisteria and Carp is a scrap of waste paper left over from a class project using Zana Clark's color sprays. Swirls and curls were drawn with metallic acrylic flow paints as a resist, and then different colors of the sprays were randomly sprayed. I stamped the koi on a panel cut from the paper, and embossed it with detail black ink. I edged the panel with permanent black ink, and then layered it to white and then orange/peach cardstock. This panel was layered onto a panel of washi paper that just happened to show up at just the right time - all the lines and colors and motifs were perfect for the fish image with its swirl backgrounds! Total serendipity!

Wisteria Koi in Blues

I made this card in response to one of the OSA layout challenges - the layout is provided for us and we interpreted it as we wish. The Utagawa Wisteria and Carp image is stamped on a colorwashed scrap of watercolor paper and lightly colored with twinkling H2O's. Panels of purchased handmade papers and Kodomo ribbon were layered onto a marine patterned washi paper background and then layered to coordinating cardstock.

This image is also available on the Hokusai Dragon Sheet.

Things That Fly

This week our theme is Things That Fly! As is often the case, I am running a bit behind...lucky for me that my husband is in Africa this week working on a malaria project--automatic extension on our income tax filing!

Be sure to scroll through all the April 16 postings to see all our samples this week!

Now through Wednesday, April 23rd if you place an order from any of the following pages and mention Art Neko Blog you will get a rebate of 25% on those items. Remember to mention Art Neko Blog when you order.

Birds, Butterflies and Dragonflies

Items from other stamp companies, such as Designs Inkd and My Heart Stamps For You are limited in quantity and will not be restocked. If these items sell out your payment will be refunded.

We are finally getting some nice spring weather. Too bad all the cherry blossoms got blown away before we could really enjoy them, though.

Candice

Follow The Leader

Three dragonfly images (available singly or on the Garden Friends sheet)were lined up on an acrylic block and stamped with VersaMark on very dark brown card stock. The dragonflies were then heat embossed using Ancient Gold line by Ranger. The color of the powder within that line is Enchanted Gold.

Metallic watercolors by Yasutomo were used for coloring the wings. Gold Krylon pen edges the panel. The panel was then layered on to it's background. Peel off stickers embellish the dragonflies.

Editor's note: One of the beauties of um's is that you can "compose" several stamps together on an acrylic block and stamp them all at once.....CJ

Blue Butterfly

I love this image which can also be found on the Garden Friends sheet or purchased individually in three sizes.

It was stamped this time with embossing ink and then embossed with Adirondack Espresso by Ranger.

The butterfly was then colored with Prismacolor pencil crayons.
Layering on complimentary colored card stock and patterned paper completed the card.

In Your Pretty Colours

I call this tech "Chalk on Chalk". Three chalk colors are blended to create the background and spritzed with hairspray from the dollar store to fix the chalk.

When dry, ink stamp with VersaMark or similar embossing ink and stamp on prepared chalk background. With a Qtip, dab different chalk colors to the Versa Mark stamped image.

Use a soft brush to brush away excess chalk dust.
Easy yet quite effective.

This Swallowtail Butterfly is available in two sizes.

Mother and Daughter

Another "Chalk on Chalk" card. This time the this butterfly image has been stamped in two of the three sizes available on the Garden Friends sheet. (May be purchase as sheet or individual images).

The butterflies were then enhanced with gel pen and peel off dots and layered as shown.

The patterned background paper is from Basic Grey.

I am thrilled to join the Art Neko Design Team and happy to post my first artwork. As the publisher (writer, creator, photographer and head bottlewasher) of the Technique Junkie Newsletter, I hope to use many techniques to show off these beautiful Art Neko stamps. I hope I can do them justice!

The crane on this card was colored direct-to-stamp with waterbased markers, misted with water, and stamped onto watercolor paper.

The crane was matted in blue and layered onto a black cardstock piece (yes, that was black!) that has been brushed with gold and blue metallic paints. I layered that over a blue cardstock piece that had been embossed using a Cuttlebug folder. I added some paper piercing, grommets and ribbon with additional layering to highlight the crane image.

This crane image is available on the Asian Beauties 6 Sheet.

Thank you for looking at my art!

Pat Huntoon

Hokusai Swallows

The Hokusai Swallows (available as a single stamp or on a sheet) stamp an image with a lot of impact. For this card, I've used bamboo (Rubber stamp Plantation) to create a setting for their antics. It really doesn't matter what the plant material is - I've used them with cherry branches, pine, other bamboo images - the birds always steal the show. They are also great with architectural images. Stamp them in black and then add a little color with chalk or pencil. The first card was stamped on plain white cardstock, with color added by chalks. The yellow card was stamped on a printed scrapbook paper. The red card was stamped on white cardstock that had been sponged with red and pink inks. Very different, very versatile, very, very simple! I love these birds!

These two cards were made using some of the newer stamps from Art Neko. The back-ground for both cards is the Forget-Me-Not Background stamp and the Framed Bird is a small bordered square with a line drawing of a bird on a branch and a calligraphy seal. This stamp is part of the Bird, Cat and Lily set.

For the green card, the background was stamped in Olympia green ink and embossed on purchased scrap-book paper in shades of green with rose-colored highlights. I trimmed part of the heavier border around the bird square, added some rose-colored sponging to the image, and layered it with torn mulberry paper.

The orange card was stamped on hand-decorated paper - watercolor paper spritzed with water and then sprinkled with Duva powdered watercolor pigments. The pigment powders were further dispersed and colored with glimmer mist sprays. The bird panel was trimmed to remove the border, then a narrow black edge was added with an india ink pen. The bird panel was sponged with orange inks, and layered with gold, then black and attached to the background panel over a strip of rippled green paper. The background panel was layered with gold and black as well and attached to a white card.