Sympathy cards

Sympathy cards almost always involve flowers.

Their fleeting beauty reminds us of life itself.

A hand-painted card is so much more personal.

Sweet and gentle and kind Jason Anderson served in the military.

He came back and became a firefighter.

But the experience in the military apparently left scars that no one knew about.

He knew no other way out.

Kristin was an amazing woman with a wonderful husband and four loving children.

Her cancer came on suddenly and was aggressive.

Such a loss.

I searched long and hard for a photo of flowers bending down.

It evokes such sadness and honor.

For my Christian friend, I chose a Bible verse.

I went back over the black ink and then went over it with a wet brush to get the black to

surround the flower in sorrow.

Roses are always a good choice

The blend on this tulip makes it particularly vibrant

and filled with hope

For Pastor Pat (given to his wife Lena).

He was like everyone's grandfather and

everyone's spiritual consul.  A great man.

 For my cousin, when her husband died very suddenly.

The joy may be a long time in coming

but I think she finds the joy in her grandchildren

 Sometimes, simple is really nice

For a member of the garden club who deserved a last, lasting flower

Simplicity but from the heart

Fun Birthday cards

 I don't ever buy cards anymore,

 I love the challenge of coming up with original cards

custom made for each person.

This kitten was actually painted without a slogan.

We had a contest at the Japan festival to caption it.

The winning caption was "Are you Kitten Me?"

But it wasn't til my cat loving friend had a birthday

that I figured out to add "You're how old?"

A friend who looks to be very young (practically a teenager!!) was turning 50.

I looked up which animal was the oldest and

 found this 183 yr old tortoise named Jonathan.

Compared to him most of us are very young!!

Turns out the koi lives to be very old as well (150+)

So, I painted this second card but liked the tortoise better

However, I now have a 50 yr old birthday card back up!

The nautilus is a beautiful creature, quite delightful to paint.

You can literally see each year on its shell.

A great symbol to use for a birthday

For a little girl who loves hello kitty,

a Hello Kitty etegami.

It looks so much more artistic than the real thing :)

The Mamas and Papas

There's something about babies in their mama's arms. Or papas.

The images make perfect etegami for new moms.

Although... this one was painted after seeing children ripped out of their mother's arms

and separated at border crossing.  It's just not right.

This etegami reminds us that guarding our aging parents fiercely

is just as important as when they guarded us when we were little.

This arose after taking care of my mom and dad in nursing homes and assisted living.

I painted this for a friend who has a grown up son with severe autism.

Such children need their parents through their whole lives.

A daunting task.

 Kokeshi (wooden dolls) and their babies are easy to paint and so very sweet!

(The Japanese one has the words to a song about sweet little baby).

Painted for a new mother who used to live in Bern (Bear)

Not to forget daddys!! This one painted for my son.

 Could've been for a new mom but ended up giving to my mother.

She has it on her wall above where she eats breakfast.

And for a new mother.

Encouragement

My favorite part of etegami is sending it to people who 

will be encouraged or uplifted in some way 

by the message and painting I send.

My favorite words of encouragement are: "Hang in there!"

Sometimes there is nothing else to say.

People are going through hard times and 

many times you can't say "Hope you get well" because often they won't.

But just to let them know you are thinking of them

 and are quite aware of what they are going through.

That is what is important.

All of these paintings are from real life photographs.

Some are rather humorous and the hope is that the recipient will smile.

The expression on this panda is probably familiar to many.

"What the heck have I gotten myself into???"

I think I have painted just about every photo that is available for animals hanging on!!

And then there are the times when the person is actually sick and

will most likely recover. Then I feel OK to send the traditional get well card

with the quintessential sad puppy eyes.

I didn't like how this one was turning out while I was making it,

but after it was done, from a little distance, it painted itself quite nicely.

I tried a very minimalist approach with this little puppy.

Just a sharpened chopstick outline and minimal paint.

Again, from a distance, very heart-warming.

Red-eyed tree frogs are fun to paint and seem to have a positive quality to them.

You can imagine someone smiling when seeing one of these.

Even Snoopy is quotable!

In remembrance of the Thai SEAL diver

I was riveted to the news this week following 

the discovery and rescue of the soccer team and their coach,

 trapped deep in a cave filled with water.

There were several reasons it was so compelling:

-These amazing divers willing to risk their lives to save the boys.

-The international cooperation of many countries

-The humbleness of the Thai people to accept and praise the help of others

-The bravery and courage of the boys themselves

-It was such courageous, righteous behavior in the middle of a bad behavior week.

There is an Irish legend of selkies, seal people, 

who come on land and become real people,

but can return to the sea and live as seals as well.

 Let us hope that Saman Kunan is now a real seal,

diving and swimming freely..

Time for some humorous etegami

 Sometimes, it's just fun to paint something funny.

Animals can certainly conjure some funny etegami

 I have a friend who we only see now and then (they live far from us),

but he loves to say "Bite me" a lot.

You know. Like when you say, that's a strange color shirt"

he would say "Bite me!"

In fact, he has a shirt that says Bite Me in 8 different languages!!

For fun, I sent him this etegami. (He LOVED it!)

I love the photography of Joel Sartore of National Geographic Photo Ark,

 who is documenting as many animal species in captivity as he can.

He does beautiful portrait work of these animals

and I love to paint them.

 Both the cheetah above and the mandrils below are from his collection.

This one, from a Beatles song

 Another friend always wanted to stay in the background of photos

to hide her "long neck". Well, I think long necks are beautiful!

 I mean, Audrey Hepburn? hello!!

A Japanese friend gave us "unagi pie" (eel pie) as a gift.

 It is from Hammamatsu where  their specialty harvest is eel.  

However, these are like a crispy sweet flaky cookie. 

They are delicious but are made with dried eel flour.

I LOVE them and they are nostalgic for me.

In my weird mind, I imagined the eel saying

"Whaaat? I'm going to be made into a pie? egads!!!"

This is a painting of a photo is from the Comedy Wildlife Photography contest.

I have painted several of them.

They will certainly bring a smile to your face.

Of course "it" rhymes with ......

The minute I finished this cute little giraffe, it was obvious what the words would be!!



This one, painted with a sharpened chopstick, was inspired by the clever saying.



The day after a new president was chosen (and you know who I'm talking about),
 I just couldn't believe it!! I felt upset, confused, sad.
So I guess this one really isn't so funny after all...

Flowers for Japan

The Etegami Train

There is a short train line in Japan that needed a shot in the arm to keep it running.

Someone came up with this idea to have a whole train dedicated to etegami.

I decided to enter two etegami and was thrilled to see my paintings on the train!

Way up in the right hand corner..

My entries were these. On the left, the flame lily flower. 

Translation " the flame lily: burning like a fire"

On the right, the heliconia: "Unusual. Beautiful. The heliconia flower" 

  
The Fukushima Flower Project

Another etegami art call comes from Fukushima. In the wake of the tsunami disaster,

artists are called upon to paint flowers to share with the community.

These were Texas flowers I painted in 2017

The pink dogwood

The Texas bluebonnet, of course!

For this one, I painted the flowers on white and cut them out and 

pasted them on the tan etegami postcard.

A good way to make large white objects stand out!

Black tulip magnolia are actually deep purple. Absolutely stunning

 Another dogwood：“Refreshing white color"

For 2018, I thought the flowers needed something extra: Animals.

But having gotten no encouragement or word back from the committee,

I'm not so sure it's what they wanted. Hmm.

"The fragrance of a flower brings peace to the soul"

This cutie pie frog peeking out of a tulip.

It's a play on words "kaeru ga mieru". I can see a frog!

In smaller letters, the words of hide and seek:

"Are you ready?

"Not yet!"

This is one of my favorites. The frog is clinging to an anthirium flower.

He says "I'm OK if I'm alone as long as I have a flower"

One of my friends pointed out it looks very phallic.

Ha Ha Ha

I sure think that fuchsia look like dancers!!!