Korea Sheet

Hover your mouse on the slides above to see the item number and the name of the person who created the samples shown. You can also slow down, speed up or pause the slides by using the buttons below the slide window.

Well, hopefully we are back on track--but then one never knows what is waiting around the corner. We still are working on moving up and resettling my husband's mother from Albuquerque to Portland and I have grandkids arriving next week for two weeks -- but barring any unforeseen calamities I should be able to changeout our specials every two weeks or so.

This week we are featuring our Korea Sheet. You can see the individual images as well as some samples in the slide show above. Dee, Heather and Bonnie created samples especially in honor of Father's Day as well as others. Barbie Dopson, Sandra Grimes and Kavi Coulson also have samples in this posting's slide show above. Send us a copies of your work with Art Neko and Taylored Stamps and we will add them into our slide shows.

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.

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.