novelty gifts

nine cool things on a tuesday

~ jama ~ 12 Comments

1. Happy March! What better way to bid farewell to winter and anticipate spring than with Aiko Fukawa’s sweet, whimsical art!

I’m a longtime fan of her hug-me-adorable anthropomorphized animals; the innocence and gentleness in her pictures help restore my belief in the goodness of the world.

A 2005 graduate of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Design, Aiko works as an illustrator and designer for the Japanese paper brand AI, creating advertisements, book covers, stationery, magazines, picture books and more on a global scale.

Though she considers cats her spirit animal, I especially love her rabbits. With Easter coming up at the end of the month, I simply can’t get enough of them! In addition to animals, Aiko is inspired by everyday life, plants, and music.

She’s been drawing since childhood, and her favorite memory is the Christmas morning she woke to find all her stuffed animals lined up in her room.

Her secret to success? “Wake up early.”

She hopes future generations will accept and respect diversity. She’s also an advocate of animal rescue centers and firmly believes people should never buy fur.

Drink of choice: coffee. Favorite food: CAKE!!

See more of Aiko’s work at her Website and Instagram. Items featuring her designs (stationery, framed prints, notebooks, stickers, washi tape, coin purses, etc.), can be purchased via online sites such as Acorn Toys & Goods, Moth Chicago, and Nico Neco Zakkaya.

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nine cool things on a tuesday

~ jama ~ 26 Comments
“Autumn Festival” by Heegyum Kim.

1. Happy September!! What better way to anticipate the best season of the year than with Heegyum Kim’s delicious art. The little girl and her animal friends are celebrating fall with pumpkin cupcakes and donuts, apple pie and carrot cake. Yes, please. 🙂

Originally from South Korea, Heegyum is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer currently based in NYC, where she lives with her husband and two corgis, Fry and Mandu.

She studied Communication Design at Pratt Institute and Ewha Women’s Institute in Seoul. After working as a graphic designer in the beauty industry for ten years, she decided to shift her focus to illustration. Her favorite subjects are animals and nature depicted in a whimsical, humorous, and graphic style. She likes to explore shapes and colors to show characters’ unique personalities, and typically works in gouache and colored pencil.

She recently published her first children’s picture book, Un Hiver Chez Bleuet (Michi, 2023). This project actually began during the pandemic, when she shared a drawing of a blue bear on Instagram (she’d always loved the color blue and often made pictures entirely in blue). Her followers loved it so much that she started a Blue the Bear series, which she made into a postcard book.

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nine cool things on a tuesday

~ jama ~ 8 Comments

1. April showers bring May flowers! We’re celebrating the merriest of months with stunning images by Japanese artist Shinya Okayama.

I wasn’t able to find much biographical information about him online in English. Wish I could read Japanese so I could have done additional detective work. 🙂

But we do know Okayama was born in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1982 and that he studied at Sokei Academy of Fine Art and Design (2003-2007).

I stumbled upon his work on Pinterest and was immediately taken with his beautiful colors, extraordinary level of detail, and gentle depictions of children and animals, who are portrayed on equal footing and living in total harmony.

He paints an idyllic world, where children are free to explore their surroundings and enjoy wonderful adventures with many wild creatures on land and from the sea. He injects elements of the surreal in some of his pictures, as boundaries between earth and ocean disappear.

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nine cool things on a tuesday

~ jama ~ 14 Comments

1. Hello April (come she will)! I see you there on your chaise lounge, totally relaxing with a glass of wine and a bowl of cherries. Who said April is the cruelest month? Doesn’t look that way to Nevada based artist Elaine Cory, whose vibrant, textured paintings transport us to a dream world.

She’s known for her color saturated florals, gorgeous landscapes, and pretty street scenes that make you wish you could be relaxing on a balmy tropical isle or sitting at an outdoor Parisian café right this very minute. Mais, oui!

An Army brat, Elaine lived in Germany and France and traveled to many foreign countries, which opened her eyes to the beauty of the world. Upon returning to the U.S., her family settled in San Francisco, where she frequented museums and art galleries.

She attended San Francisco State College on an art scholarship and worked as an interior designer for about 20 years. All the while, she continued to paint, working in acrylics and mixed media, developing her distinct impressionistic style.

Elaine sells originals at her Etsy Shop, Elaine’s Heartsong. She calls her paintings “jewelry for your walls.”

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nine cool things on a tuesday

~ jama ~ 7 Comments

1. Get in the car – we’re off for a December ride! ‘Tis the season for bundling up, picking out that perfect tree, shopping for gifts and making sure our animal friends are happy.

British artist Stephanie Lambourne’s colorful and quirky pictures are just the thing we need to get us into the holiday spirit. 

Based in Suffolk, England, she earned a BA in Fine Art and a post graduate degree in Art and Education from the Hornsey School of Art (now Middlesex University). After teaching at schools and colleges for a few years, she transitioned to painting full time in 2003.

Inspired by walks along the beach, she featured coastal landscapes, cottages, beach huts, boats, and seagulls in her earlier paintings. In recent years, her main focus has been people and humor (“unreal characters in sometimes strange pursuits”).  

She works in acrylic, rarely doing preliminary sketches, preferring to draw ideas straight onto the canvas to create a sense of freshness to her work. 

Though I’m sharing mostly holiday/winter themed pieces today, her pictures are set in all seasons. Her objective is to make people smile, to immerse the viewer in a lighthearted and slightly offbeat narrative from a bygone era. It’s fun to imagine just what the people in her pictures are really up to. 🙂

For more, visit Stephanie’s Instagram and FB Page. Her fine art greeting cards may be purchased via Green Pebble and The Blank Card Company. Original acrylics are available at Southwold Gallery and Bircham Gallery. DM her directly for any inquiries or commissions.

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