Catching up on Mailart - 2

Lately, I've been having trouble getting images up onto my blog and to IUOMA (International Union of Mail Artists. I don't know why, and because I don't know why, I can't fix it. I had planned to put information about the pieces that I posted in my previous post but was unable to do so as the images came up as code with no way for me to know where one image stopped and another began, so no info, thus my own comment on my own posting. I had hope to be more active again on this blog, as in the past, but that looks like it won't happen. too bad. Not that I have a lot of visitors, but this was a nice archive for me. I'm going to attempt to add a photo to this post. Wish me luck (me to myself) Well, it's showing up here as code. I hope it appears as an image in the actual post. Puzzled, very puzzled.

Thanks to friends, I now know what I had to fix to! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

Clouds

I'm BAAACK - where have I been so long??

Portrait of Me by grandgirl Z

Postcards to Voters

Postcards to Voters

Postcards to Voters

Poem by Z

Sky at Lombardy and monument

I've been writing a lot of postcards to get out the vote. Campaigns are listed through #postcardstovoters and are for candidates all over the country. If you're in the U.S. and interested in writing, you can join by sending an e-mail to Join@tonythedemocrat.org

The portrait of me was done by the grandgirl while at home and brought over as a gift. It wasn't from life, but from memory, she said.


















I gave the grandgirl three words to write a poem from - she wrote phonetically. See if you can read it.


















This view of the two buildings and the statue are sometimes the best view on my drive to Battery Park. The light hits them just right. I was driving so it was difficult to capture, and a bit dangerous, yes, I know.

Have you ever taken photos from your car while driving?

A new month! When did this happen?

#92

#93

#94

 The sky/water series above were created by adding circles to some photographs that a friend gave me. It's rare to have an actual photo to work on these days, right?
I never have any of mine printed. I post to Instagram, or a blog, or Facebook, and that's it.

Working on top of the photos required my Pioneer brand glue stick to get a good adhesion to the surface. We'll see how they do going through the postal services.

Here's Bizoo on his favorite cushion, which I happened to be using in this chair. Soon as I got up, he went for it. So happy!




This is a sticker collage that Z made recently. I have to scrounge around on my work table to find new stickers for her. I'm giving up Cavallini stickers even! She loves doing this and I love watching her compose the composition. She likes to layer the stickers and she doesn't care about right side up or down. I want to emulate what she does. 
"J'ai mis toute ma vie à savoir dessiner comme un enfant." Pablo Picasso

Some Mail Art and more

#189

#190

#191

Rte 40

Folk Festival 2014

The two pieces with the hands are old familiar defaults. Grab a piece of paper that I've punched circles out, add circles inlayed or on top, add a hand; compose and Voila! More Mail Art!

The Cavellini card is for an exhibit that Mark Block is putting up about Cavellini. It's the 100th anniversary of his birth and I just happened on an announcement for a 2013 exhibit on his work. Perfect to take apart and re-position.












More on the topic of Inequality of Income: I just read an article today and got this information that I"d like to share with you even though it's no longer Blog Action Day.

"The average net worth of the bottom 50% of families - a group of about 62 million households - was $11,000 in 2013. Adjusted for inflation, that figure is 50% lower than in 1989." Are you shocked? I am! And then there's this; "The average real net worth of families in the country's top 5% has jumped from $3.6 million in 1989 to $6.8 million in 2013...an 89% surge."

What can I say? Again, no solution given in the article to how to correct this inequality. Dang!!

Really? A month?

I can't believe that nearly a month has past since my last post! Incredible! I don't think this has happened in all the years I've been doing this.
Well, what's up! We went on a beach holiday on the 14th of September for a week. That was lovely.

 I left origami birds for the Fold the Flock project in Corolla.

photo credit: N.Scalin

We stayed in a lovely beach "cottage" that our DIL found through the internet. I wanted to stay there forever!

 The beach was beautiful and quite sparsely populated this time of year.

Our grand-girl loved the ocean and the sand. One gigantic sand box to play in, right!

Catching Up, Mail Art & More

#124

#125

 I've  been having fun with a circle stencil and water soluble 9B graphite.

I added a bit of color with water color pencils.

#126

#127

#128

Cards

cards

In cleaning up my studio table, I found cool stuff to cut up into substrates. With only one added piece, I get an interesting composition.










This collage is on a piece of card stock that fits into a First Cover envelope. I made this specifically to send to someone who likes Mary Cassatt.








Here's another composition using the same substrate as in #125.












More circle Mail Art.












Here's how I created the circle pieces. I worked on large sheet of water color paper, making circles with the stencil and the graphite and pencils.


I added water and when dry, I cut the paper into Mail Art sized pieces, Artist Trading Card pieces, and left overs for book markers.

No waste!




After the pieces were cut out, I sprayed them with matte fixative.

Hmm, I'm thinking I should do the spraying before I cut them up, oh yeah, that'd be better. Right?








This is a view of the 23221 Post Office the other day. I was sitting in the parking lot and noticed that the clouds were gorgeous! Notice the light on the side of the building had come on because the light was low. The wind blowing was nice to show the flag better.








Here's my studio table post clean up. I'm so happy that I spent the time to clean up and organize. on the left is a plastic box holding received mail. I'm pulling pieces from that to send responses. On my wall, are new inspiration pieces.

I'm happier in my studio now that I have more making space on the table.

How messy does your space have to get before you clean it up?

Mail Art and more

 Here are a series of three new pieces of Mail Art.

I took out a small drawer of scraps and looked through it for some ideas.

 I found more film negative strips that had been my friend's and a large piece of card stock with 3 numbers on it.

This is the result and I"m quite pleased with my output. It's getting me back to some fundamentals of design.

And I like that.

 This was the view, looking up, from our bedroom window. Bleak! Really bleak!. The sky was so grey and our tree is so trimmed back. It's like a cartoon tree in some desert.

I thought it might snow, but it didn't. Snow is, however, predicted for Wednesday. We shall see.

I think the gloomy exterior prompted me to work with bright yarn. I finished up a pair of mitts with these colors today. Another satisfying project completed.

Some Mail Art and more.

 I altered this vintage card a few days ago, when we were last expecting snow and made some comment about how this little musician was waiting for it in the mountains. I got lots of comments on Facebook about her lack of proper clothing.

This little saucy kitty was perfect for altering this lake view. 

 My friend Sarah Hand makes delightful creations and I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase this one from her. I love birds, and this one is a real sweetie.

 Here's what I did on my Mother's birthday - put her photo on the table at my knitting class. We lit a candle on a doughnut and wishes her a happy day. And according to my sisters, the birthday gathering was lovely.

 My honey and I celebrated our wedding anniversary yesterday by taking a drive up to Northern Virginia. It was a nice day away from home and look at the sky at sunset. What a treat!

And here's another altered vintage postcard. This is Mount Vernon, which I'd like to visit someday. It's not that far from us. I really like putting these dressed up kitties to use and am sorry that I have only a few of them left. I hope that whoever gets kitty cards really enjoys them.

Birds on the lake, postcards, and knitting.

 I took the route through the park the other afternoon. The sky was beautiful, the sun was shining. When I got to fountain lake, there were lots of gulls on it and while I watched they lifted off into the air and circled several times.











There were a handful of us watching, transfixed, in a magic moment. Then, the birds were gone and we all moved again. It was beautiful.

 I stopped into the shop to get food for Bizoo and stopped to see who was looking at me. What a cutie!  I wanted to take him home. I liked his cute "hands" and his awareness of my presence. 

I'm going to a knitting group on Sunday mornings because I want to learn to make fancy stitches, to challenge my brain. I've learned how to knit cables! Yay, I'm happy about that.

Now I'm trying to do a chevron stitch, not having a good time with it. Can't wait for Sunday to get help. I'll show you the results when I get some.

I'm having a lot of fun altering vintage postcards with these vintage children. I'm not doing a 365 project so I'm free to skip days and to make several in one day, which I've done.  Here are two of the 5 I've made so far. I'm calling one "Fiddler in the Lake" and the other "Music to soothe a little bear." 
I'm pondering numbering them, keeping track of who I send to, or not. I don't want to feel like I'm doing a 365. Any thoughts on this for me?