tastes great

Just a postcard, done in the 3 elements style of some previous ones, but with doodles this time. The black splat is a bingo marker banged down hard. Gelli print background.

f-bomb on a postcard

Read no further if the f word offends you. I used it on a postcard to someone I knew would appreciate it and am showing the card in this post.

These three went off to specific people who should have them by now so I'm posting them.

This went off to a girl I've been friends with since
we were in 7th grade. 48 years! We met the first day
and were inseparable thereafter. Grew up in
each other's houses. Barely kept track of one
another for decades. Now we write back and forth
a few times a year. Not a whole lot to say.

Scored a couple how-to-type books at the library sale and
made this for a typewriter loving person I know.
Hi, Pamela!

I freely admit that I have a crude sense of humor and
swear way too much. That said, it's no wonder I couldn't
stop giggling over this postcard.
I know the recipient will enjoy it too.

postcard re-do post

As I suspected, the photos I snapped with the tablet camera were pretty bad so here are the postcards again but scanned this time, the only way to go with flat items, IMHO.

And since I'm sitting at a regular computer with a normal keyboard, I'll even do some commentary.

These are all available so if you like one, shoot me an email or leave a comment and I'll send it off to you. Don't be shy - I made them to send, so claim one if it grabs you.

These 3 elements were all random things that I kinda liked
but couldn't figure out exactly what to do with. Then I came across the
"growing old gracefully" in my words box and the three stages
of a woman's life zipped thru my mind - child, woman, old and gray.
The dog seemed fitting as stage 3 since it's
what I see in the mirror some mornings lol.

The school girls shot was from a calendar and the silly knocked-kneed
lady is from a park brochure my traveling friend Julie-in-SD gave
me a while back. Whistler Canada, maybe? Julie, are you reading this?
I liked the images together and found some words that fit.

These two odd images of men kept turning up as I sifted thru
the box looking for things to use. Normally I like things in
threes - the golden rule of thirds - but I had nothing else that
went with these so did them like this and ended up liking
it well enough. Bizarre words to go with them and
played with drawing frames.

This woman is actually hanging from gymnastic still rings.
It was an add for something or other, no idea now, and I just
liked the long image. Added some color to perk it up
and an enigmatic question.

There was a series in a magazine of this man making various faces.
They all looked about like these and I've used a couple of them
on cards months ago. The newspaper phrase seemed perfect.

Post cards

I've been tearing out images that grab me for years and filling boxes and file folders with them. What I haven't been doing with them is using them for anything, so this weekend I zipped thru a box, used some and threw the rest away. Felt good. I may work my way thru a few more boxes.
Meanwhile here are the cards I made. They're all on cardboard cut from a shoebox I was about to throw away.
I'm doing this post on my tablet using photos I took with the tablet camera, which I think might not be all that hot, so if the whole thing sucks when I look at it on my puter later, my apologies and I'll redo it.

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just one

Last nite, while flipping thru an old LIFE mag I bought at the library book sale (more on that later) I spotted this opera singer with her mouth open wide. She was just begging to be on a postcard so that's what I did. One of my gelli print backgrounds, some old book text, and 'look out' from my little box of fun words. The great splat is from a bingo marker, banged down hard on the card.

MMSA paint chip postcards

Rhonda came down on Sunday and we worked on making stuff for two upcoming MMSA swaps - paint chip postcards and mixed media ATCs. She brought a pile of paint chips but I sat and looked at a blank postcard for 5 minutes with zero ideas. Finally got out some that already had a background on them and then it clicked. Two have stencil and spray ink backgrounds, one is a gelli print, and one is strips of gelli prints. I managed to find paint chips that were exact or close matches to the colors on the cards and did some doodling with gel pens. The chunks of solid color stand out amid all the colorful patterns.

collaged postcards

Made a batch of cards to replenish my stash. If you haven't gotten a card from me in a while, maybe one of these will show up in your mailbox!

more stamp heads

Finished up another batch and that's enough of those for a while. As before, if you'd like to swap for one, just let me know in the comments or via email.

stamp head postcards

Contrary to the lack of posts on this blog, I actually have been making some art lately. Got in a slump there for a while cause I had one good book after another and wanted to do nothing more than sit and read.

My mail art pal Connie made a batch of stamp head cards using images from a children's book that were cool and I remembered I had one also, prime for cutting up. It's a 1953 book of children's stories and poems. Some of them are a hoot, so politically incorrect and bordering on racist. I steered away from those and mostly just went thru the book looking for images that stamps went well with.

If you see one that blows your skirt up, email me and we'll swap!

me & Connie & found poetry

One of the recent themes in my ongoing swaps with Connie was found poetry, something I really enjoy. Ours are both ridiculous, just how I like them best.

I started off with a gelli print background. I had the fish already in my goody box. Found the lady in a 1946 American Home mag. The text came from various magazines, and the scallop was cut freehand from a carpet catalog. Did some doodling and mailed it off.

Connie's is great, and I got it before I made mine, so I sort of riffed on hers for inspiration. Crazy poetry. Love Eva Peron flinging her kitchen gloves off while wearing her heels. And that apron belongs on a French parlor maid.

icad 1 thru 8

Yes, I climbed onto the icad train this year. I've started it before but never made it to the end. I'm just not good at things you gotta do every day. Well, I mean, I brush my teeth and change my undies, but with non-essential do-it-if-you-wanna-the-world-won't-quit-spinning-if-you-don't type stuff I pretty much always fall asleep somewhere along the way.

Also I just don't like doing art on index cards. They don't hold up well to wet work, they aren't large or sturdy enough to send as postcards, the lines bug me, etc, etc. While digging thru my drawers of stuff I don't use much, I found a box of tabbed manila cards, 4" x 6", nice and heavy, perfect for daily art. So I began, and made it thru day 3 before completely forgetting about it in the crush of working 45-50 hours a week and trying to keep the house somewhat under control, food on the table, the garden watered, the dog walked - all the things you gotta do as a semi-responsible tax paying adult.

So I caught up yesterday and here they are. I did the first one to the foreign language prompt cause it was fun to pretend I knew Italian, but the rest are all mostly collage cause that's what I enjoy doing. These will be going out as postcards as I feel the urge, long before icad ends.

MMSA blue & brown

A color combo theme at MMSA this time. My art buddy Rhonda has about a billion postage stamps and she's been sharing the wealth with me lately. When she was down a couple weeks ago, we sorted thru a big box, loosely separating them into a dozen or so categories with the non-starters going back in the box. We sorted blues and browns out while we were at it, knowing this swap was coming up.

I made a loose symmetrical grid on each of my two cards, then filled in the background with gel sticks smeared in with my fingertips. Added a few faux cancellation stamps to the ones already on the postage stamps and called them done. (my spell check doesn't like "faux", wants it to be "fax". seriously, whatever dictionary they loaded didn't include faux??)

from Linda G

Somewhere along the mail art trail I crossed paths with Linda Gibbons and we've been very informally swapping postcards back and forth for a while now. These are two recent ones from her. Thanks, Linda and I'm sure I owe you one now so it'll be going out this week!

The three images are packing tape transfers over a painted background. I love transfers cause the transparency of them allows the background to lend its own color and texture to the transferred image. I really like the minimalist black of the drawings made all the more insubstantial by being transfers.

Another neat painted background with a collaged image in the same colors. I like how the woman is easily visible but very much in tune with the paint scheme. Both cards have stitching which adds to their appeal. 

MMSA maps outgoing

Make a postcard on the theme "maps". That was a recent call on MMSA, so I did. I just grabbed the first couple maps I came to in my map file folder. One of them was a map of the US, the other a rental car guide to Denver from a decade ago.

They're pretty self explanatory. On the last one I added in all sorts of places from books, movies, history - whatever I could think of. Each has a map related saying on the back, such as "East, West, home is best" and "No matter where you go, there you are".

a few more postcards

I finished up a few more cards yesterday. I tend to work in batches. One evening I'll collage a bunch of backgrounds, then days later find an image that inspires me, then make some more backgrounds, then have a day where I sit down and try to find images that seem to go with backgrounds, etc. So I always have half-done cards laying on the table, waiting for further inspiration to strike or finishing touches to be added.

I like using gelli prints for backgrounds so the first two are from a batch of those. I found the image of the woman painted on brick before I found the postage stamp of the Roman fresco guy. Since they were facing opposite directions, they seemed to go together, even tho they're from vastly different eras in time. Looking at it now, it needs a bit more pen work, maybe some white, to perk it up a bit.

The one with the pens stamp has been laying around for months with only the pens stamped on it. Got that far and got completely stuck on what else to do. Then found 'many pens labored' in a book and glued that on. Then it sat for another couple months until the mail art creed 'send good mail' came to mind and seemed to fit. This one needs more work also.

I made another batch of backgrounds with various book pages on them, and had this picture of a girl ripped from a photo album. I thought about cutting her out from the scruffy edges but then decided I liked her just like that.

And so a few more cards get made, each with its own little story.

I finally finished a few things

Seems like I've been endlessly working on things but never finishing anything. This is partly due to having a couple ongoing projects on my work table - my Documented Life journal and another one I can't remember right now - and partly due to the fact that I do indeed start more than I finish, being a confirmed "works in progress" girl. 

But I did get a few postcards done the other day. For those of you who signed up to follow me recently and are rethinking that decision, DON'T LEAVE! I do post original art more often than not. Just not lately, it seems.

These are up for swaps so if one of them grabs you, let me know by email or in the comments and we'll do it.

This one and the one below are done on a background that I no longer remember how I did it. The surface is very smooth, like maybe it was paint on a magazine page rubbed in well with a baby wipe. (?)  But I kinda like the result. Too bad I can't replicate it...
Doodled paisley and ribbon because I was in doodle mode and had no other ideas.

Doodled flowers for same reason as above. Plus I'm trying to learn to doodle. It comes naturally to most people, I think, judging by the endlessly filled pages that people come out of boring meetings with, but I just sit there and take notes. <sigh>

Large card with collaged gelli printed background and a pic of a kid eating snow. Good advice for you folks back in the new Siberia that is the eastern 2/3 of the USA.

Another collaged gelli background and same kid in the snow. Looking at this on the screen, I really like the gelli printed phone book page. The very small type just becomes scribbles when you put some paint on it and makes great backgrounds. If you're not using your old phone books in your art, you're missing a great paper resource.