Sleepy kitty, clouds, a couch, and of course, some Mail Art.

Okay, so our Bizoo is enormous! See how he fills up the wave scratcher? So big! 

And yesterday, we had such amazing clouds and colors in the sky. I couldn't get a clear angle to get the part with the orange but this photo, with the top of the monument is pretty dramatic, right?


We had dinner at an interesting place, a home set in a working space. When I turned to look, the couch was illuminated and looked like a stage set. There's the dog's lounging area in front, and behind, out the windows, you can catch a glimpse of part of the orange sky. This, too, is pretty dramatic. I'm having such interesting (dramatic) visual experiences, aren't I?

#295

#296

I've been very fond of this little house and am happy to use it isolated like this. Random text makes things mysterious, and the flat "wall paper" underneath does, too.








Time to alter some old postcards again. I cut out lots of the little Victorian scraps so I'd be ready when the "inspiration" struck. I made some comment on how this little gal always cries when visiting the shrine. I'm sure you can come up with a better explanation.

 

 

 

#297

Today's Mail Art is a rondo - I used the cover from a round of President (brand) brie cheese. It's 6" in diameter and a nice color, don't you think. I'd had it awhile and am happy to use it. The big bird with the small woman is a nice scale change. She's a beautiful, Iranian actress. I didn't see the film she's in but it's supposed to be good. Now, what's the name of it? hmmm.

Catching up on Mail Art & a fun something to see.

#144a

 I'd been saving this wonderful tea pouring hostess for a good background and found it in one of my husband's assemblage cards. He's made lots of cards of his images and the first batch wasn't to his liking so he was going to discard them. HAH! No, please "donate" them to me, I'll alter them! I think this one worked out perfectly. Oh can I stand it!? When something turns out so good, I just love it!



Last week, I began a series of minimal, 3 bits only, cards.

#145

#146

I added quotes to them -

#145 "To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour."  William Blake



"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." Baruch Spinoza

#147

149

##148

 "You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings." Pearl Buck

#144

"If you want peace, work for Justice."
Henry Louis Mencken











"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King












"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will live as one." John Lennon

#143

This vintage vehicle is parked on a side street off of Monument avenue and every Christmas it's embellished with lights, objects, and inside Santa! A wild sight to behold and we appreciate it's fun presence.








"Can I see another's woe and not be in sorrow, too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?"
William Blake


What to do as the new year approaches? I'll surprise myself, no doubt. What about you? What will you make?

Thursday, how'd you get here so fast?

#60

 My friend bb (aka anonymous) send me some new hole punchers. This one makes a border and since I'm not into perfection, it's all wavy. I like it! I also like the way I was able to find a punched out circle that gives a transparency effect to the edge of the black. "hello, little lady, down there!"

#61

This card is actually a rectangle but I forgot to put a black paper behind it on the scanner. It's 4" x 6" (10cm x 15cm appx)  I really amuse myself with these altered cards. This one is a lovely Harry Callahan photo. I've entitled it "Herbert and Doris enjoyed a walk in the cool water off Cape Cod." Ha ha ha ha, oh I'm tickled by this and the comments people make about it on Facebook.

#62

Today is day 62 of my 365.2 project. I sewed some "grass" on one of the watercolor experiments from the workshop & added some pencil marks, then glued it onto a substrate. It sort of works for me. Does anyone have any suggestions about what adhesive to use when gluing watercolor paper to a backing? 

 This was the threatening sky last Friday night when we went to the opening of "Still Here" exhibit at ArtSpace. Gorgeous, right? And look at the old-timey factory smoke stack.

 Here's the darling little "shelf"/cubby on the pole. It was missing for a day or two or three, then reappeared.  I put some shiny new pennies in it, for good luck.

 This is the sign that is on the opposite side of the pole. I'm happy the little girl decided to make her feelings known.

Here's my Wednesday cloud photo. We were on the way to the airport, to get N & J.  I took this with my phone through the window. So fabulous, so awesome. So varied! All in one sky, different types of clouds. Awesome is too tame a word. Got any others for me?


On a side note: we have NO water. A problem with our neighborhood! Glad I filled some little containers with water as I'd planned to play with watercolors today. But wait, what about making a cup-o-tea? Guess I'll go out for that.

And so I get to 1000! YAY!

#998

 Somehow, in my excitement of uploading the final few, I got them out of order. Here they are. The last of this series.

#999

I used cardboard cut from cracker boxes. I like the color that they give for the substrate.










I'm not happy with some of my gluing on these. The paper is silk screened color and very sensitive to anything on it. The adhesive moved around a bit when I burnished the pieces down. Oh well.

#997

This is the front & reverse of card #1000. I'm sending it to Andy, who started the whole thing back in 2010. He was like: let's start a 365 project with Mail Art. Want to join me? And I did. Thanks, Andy, it's been a fun time. The 365 project was fun and got me started numbering, and then I couldn't stop when I was finished.
 You can see what I accomplished during my 365 project here.  And you can see what I've done since that project ended a year later here.

Having fun altering cards

#176

 I purchased a bunch of 10 cent postcards at the VMFA sale. I'm having such a good time altering them. I hope the recipients enjoy them as much as I do.

#176a

#177

 This lovely caladium was in a porch flower box nearby. I'm going to get some for my garden, I think.

These mums were in a vase. They were so alert and so white!

#92 moving on towards 100!

 Okay, I've moved away from simple cards on this one. My process is below.

 I've noted in my title that I'm moving towards 100. My son, the 365 guru, noted yesterday's card number while he was having dinner with us last night. "You're close to 100," he said.  He told us that when he'd gotten to 100 on Skull-a-Day, it was a sort of tipping point. 
So far, so good for me, as I anxiously move forward to that magical number. I'll report on how I feel when I hit that mark.

 I covered a piece of cardboard with a background of scenery.

 Next, I added lots of my cut out large automobiles. They were large in life and they're large in my cut-outs.

By the time I trimmed the cardboard, I was able to get 2 postcards and several small collages that will be fun to play around with as ATCs.

I'm not sure what these cards say, as far as a narrative goes, so I'm calling #90 "When gas was cheap and I was young" and #90a is "When gas was cheap and jumping was fun."  Maybe you'll come up with a better story.

#44s

"1920 fears"

"1950 style"

Some of the participants in Mail Art 365 write a lot about each of their daily pieces. They write their motivation, their technique, their recipients, and such. Me, I write nothing but the number of the piece. I read the other day that some people like to know about the above things so I decided to write about them here. And post process or technique the way I did the other day.



Since I'm trying to use up the scraps that I already have, I find it interesting how I find ways to combine them, ways I'd never thought about but work for me.

The backgrounds on these are from that Merrimekko "newspaper" I got in NYC. I searched in my tins for vintage items. I wanted a person and a thing and some writing. I was happy to re-discover the 1920's bit of advertising. It was from an article about what fears were focused on during the 1920s in the states. The old-timey Georgia Belle seemd to be perfect for the 1950s bathing beauty.  These turned out okay. Now to make today's piece of Mail Art. Running late!!

#42 series for my MailArt365 project

H.H. Tribute

 I recently learned that there is a Fan club for Hannah Hoch. She's was a collage artist, or photo-montage artist, associated with the DaDa movement. I like her work very much and decided that the piece I wanted to send to the fan club would be a tribute to her. This series is entitled "H.H. Tribute."

#42a H.H. Tribute

#42b H.H. Tribute

#42d H.H. Tribute

 The "a" card is going to the Fan Club. The #42 card is going to someone special in my life, who always encourages and supports me, and has amazing energy, wit, intellect, oh I could go on and on, but I won't.

#42c H.H. Tribute

Good Mail Days

Andrea's mail

 I've been really fortunate to receive some terrific Mail Art. Some from people who are participating in the MailArt 365 project and some from my long time mail friends. What a joy to get real mail, right?

 This is my #40 series. I'm using up the big sheets of solid color paper that I gleaned from a design or art magazine at some point. Big sheets of color, exciting. I stayed with just color, kind of experimenting, and trying to be somewhat random. I wanted it to appear that I just tossed the bits onto the paper and glued them down.

 But of course, you can see that is NOT how it turned out. I had to control what was happening.

 I like the way the spatial changes take place. What's on top, what appears to be a hole in space, what's the background, some ambiguity going on, I hope.

 This one really pops a lot moire on this page than in person, I think. I'll have to wait to see what the recipient thinks. Since I made these over the weekend. They just got mailed today.

This is a 4" x 6" standard postcard, so why did it turn out so small? I had the same setting as for the #40 series images. So strange. The same with Andrea's mail. Small. hmmm. This one came from one of the MA365 group. Nice!