No Mail Art - just some of my photos this morning.

Market Day

Market day

Tiny sweets

Chris Milk's chicadees

Bizoo (thinking of Chicadees?)

Brown sugar yogurt cake!

Shelf with Weather gram

Mail Art, Little Free Library, and more

#98

#99

 I made this Mail Art to send to someone who sent me a lovely piece of Mail Art back in March and I've been sooo remiss in responding to people. I feel awful about it. Slowly I'm getting mail out. Oh everyone who sent me Mail Art, please know that I loved getting it.




I made this altered card using a postcard that we got at our most recent visit to the National Postal Museum on my birthday last week. I added the colorful old postage stamps to it. It's going to my niece and nephew in Wisconsin. They'll get a kick out of getting real mail.

#100

I've been having fun punching out circles from old Art magazines. I'm preparing for a workshop that I'm going to do in two weeks, and I'm going to offer up a tin full of these circles as part of the project. More on this after it happens.



My workshop last week went really well. It was on Artist Trading Cards. Super fun to share. The participants were all teachers, grades kinder through end of high school, all different subject areas. 

#101

So these two cards are the start of some fun for me, as I plan to make use of the circles, also.  I like circles a lot, and these are so planetary, and minimal.

 I'd seen this Little Free Library a few weeks ago when driving by the Richmond Ambulance Authority building. How cute, I thought, and today, with a book to deposit, I stopped there on the way home from playing with my grand-girl.






This is beautifully crafted and painted to look exactly like the ambulances.  It had a nice amount of books in it, not crowded like some of the other smaller LFLs. I hope that more people pay attention to it.

Do you have any LFLs in your neighborhood?

 My niece and her husband joined us to celebrate the American Independence day, 4th of July. She brought head bands for all of us to wear. Here she is modeling one. Cute, aren't they?

 Bizoo waits on my bedside table every morning waiting for me to wake up. He taps my head sometimes, and other times just sits patiently. The treats are in the top drawer!!
He knows it, as does our grand-girl, who likes giving the cat treats. We did, however, find her munching on a few herself, yesterday.

I just had to share these flowers with you. They were among the bunches at Amy's farmers' market stand last week. Gorgeous, like a painting, yes?

Mail Art, a blatant promo, and something else.

 Yet, another Cactus and Lily card. After I took this photo of the card, I "cancelled" the stamps with a rubber stamp. It looks better with that addition, but this is good, too.

 I made this collage to send to a friend, not that she needs a reminder to enjoy!

 Here's the cactus with a new "friend." Lily has gone the way of cut flowers. What would be a good caption for this scene! ha ha ha

 Bizoo keeps watch while I sleep. I opened my eyes to him the other day - I grabbed my phone and caught this. "Treats, I want treats!" I can read his mind!

BLATANT PROMO -
So the daily practice of making a skull every day for a year, set my son on a path that grew into something he didn't expect. Part way through he got a book deal - which became his first book SKULLS.   Since this book captured less than half of the project it was a dream of Noah's to have a book with the entire year's worth of skulls. Now, that's going to be a reality.
A new SKULLS book has been developed and it's on kickstarter now. It's going to be so good. If you like skulls (and we all should since we all have one) or know someone who does, then -
Be a supporter HERE.  

May! It's finally here - with Mail Art & Bizoo

 I'm happy to be making Mail Art daily, though I'm not doing one a day on a regular basis. Not ready to commit to a 4th project like that, but here are the cards from the past few days.

I'm using the old colored paper that tears and marks up easily.

I think the reverse is really good, too.

I added these women who are NOT in distress - oh no, these women are seeing the Beetles in person for the first time!

I put a photo of my grand in the care of this old guy. It made me laugh to do this. I'd accidentally printed some of her photos on regular paper so the color wasn't that great. It was easy to cut it out of the background.

May 18, 2013

Look at our cute gatito! He was so tiny and had lots of room in his sling bed.

He forgot about this bed after awhile, sleeping in other locations, so I moved it upstairs in the "library" area of our bedroom.

April 30, 2014

He rediscovered it a couple days ago.






No more gatito!
But still so pretty.

Some Mail Art and more, of course.

 I'm back to my old favorite Mail Art fun: altering vintage postcards. This one got a bird on it and some text and was sent out to someone who needed encouragement. A person whom I do not know and who doesn't know me. I hope he feels encouraged by it.

I received a new batch of old postcards from B & R on Friday. They give me new views to alter.

 I started to put photos on Instagram and began with plant and flower photos. We have these growing in our front rock garden and I love how alien they look close up.

 Last night, as the sun was setting, I suggested that we drive over to Fountain lake instead of going directly home from The League of Space Pirates live streaming event. This was what we saw. We stayed, sitting on a bench until it was dark. There were lots of other people enjoying the sight/site. Notice the duck, which was doing a solo tour of the lake.

This is a view of the walkway at VMFA that captured me last Friday. There was something so captivating about it - the light, the trio of trees at the top, the curve of the rail, the pale clouds. I really liked it.

Bizoo photo by Chuck Scalin

Bizoo is very, very fond of a large zipper plastic bag. The kind that one stores a blanket in, or a sweater. He goes into it and turns around to face the opening. Maybe he thinks he's hidden when he's in it? I keep it in my closet and bring it out for him to have a bit of play time with it.

Here's our girl Z wearing the coat, dress, and hat outfit that her Aunt M wore when she was this age. So cute! Both of them.

Do you have any clothes from when you were a baby?  Nice this didn't go out of "style."

Optimism!

The Kitties always dress in costume when they visit famous sites.

 Mary England of Uncustomary has set this month's theme as Optimism.

Perfect! If you ask any one that knows me they'll tell you that I'm an optimist, though I went through a period where I wasn't but that was temporary and unusual. Why am I optimistic? I have no idea, I wish I could tell you why. If I could I'd write a book and cure the world of pessimism. oh well.

 My parents were optimists, maybe that helps, being around people like that growing up. Or maybe it's in the DNA? I'm sure there are already books on this subject, probably lots of them, I haven't checked.

There's plenty to get down about, just read the news, watch TV, listen to the radio, all bad stuff that most of us can't do a thing about.

 I'm lucky! I can make stuff and that takes me away from the bad news into the state of bliss that fills me up with optimism.

And I can hang out with children in a fun way, like yesterday spending time with my friends' 6 year old. Wow, what fun that was to just have a conversation with him. Or spending lots of time looking at a photo album of baby photos with my grand, who just loves doing that. Lucky me.

 And then there's the cat, who helps us laugh and forget the bad stuff in the world. Lucky us. A moment to laugh!

Why is this bag so intriguing? He loves getting into it.

I got Mail Art the other day from someone in South Africa. On the outside it said "full," on the inside was a card that said "empty."  I guess optimism is the one that puts the focus on "full."

And here's a quote from Wendell Berry that says "optimism" to me:
"Be joyful /
though you have considered all the facts."

My wish for you - have a full day, full of things that will give you joy and a sense of optimism.

Mail Art, a question, and some other stuff

Bizoo

Z

 Bizoo was in C's studio lying on some tissue paper. This was acceptable as he wasn't tip-toeing over the art work, supplies or tools that are everywhere.

Z's cute face captured on a recent walk with her Pa & C. The hat was made by Great-Aunt Phyllis. Happily she likes hats since it's been really chilly here.

#315

This is a view of the wall in the studio in Paris, showing all of the altered Mona Lisa cards that I made back in the winter of 2012. I still have these cards. What to do with them? Hmmm. I was going to scan and post, then mail out, but do you think I should try to find a little venue to display them first?
I need some input on this.

The little Victorian children are on an OLD French postcard showing Mont St-Michel. They love the miniature sheep!

#316

This was made after I returned from Washington DC and my visit to the National Postal Museum. That's an old Metro card, a photo of Owney, the postal dog, and some other images related to the P.O.

#317

This is a memory piece using some paper from one of my grade books and some torn bits of art work. I discarded two grade books that I had from 2002 & 2003. I looked at all the students names to see how many I remembered and hoped that they were all doing well. Then shred shred shred, gone!

#318

Some more Victorian scraps. I cut up a bunch while watching TV one night. We usually don't watch much but have a couple of series we follow. I can't just watch TV.

#310

And here's a cat that reminds me of Bizoo, waiting on a vintage postcard bridge.

And some related to vintage postcards news: I'm one of three jurors at the Od Dominion Postcard Club show tomorrow. Bad part, I have to be at the venue at 0830, and it's not close-by. More on this next post.