#78 & 78a, the letter "O" and other stuff.

 I'm sticking with the "3" items dictum in today's Mail Art. These old gents went well with some old, but not-as-old paintings. #78 can hold his own "O."

 Poor guy #78a can't hold his "O." The folds of his toga fit nicely with the woman's striped dress, n'est pas?  Such cool old guys!

 This old building is called The Branch House and is now our Architecture museum. I pass by it on my walk to Spanish Meet-ups on Friday mornings. It's quite impressive.

A bit up the street from the Branch House is this lovely apartment building, though I now think it might be a condo. It's quite a unique building for our neighborhood. This is the view as I walked past the entrance.

#77 series, the letter N

 Some days everything falls into place. It just happens.

 The letter "N" series is based on two things, a composition by Gauguin  (a self portrait with a yellow wall behind him and his image in the lower left) see below, and the dictum "if you have 4 things, use three.

The mat board was blue and I saw it as a really good background for these simple compositions.

I saw this painting in an issue of France magazine this morning and it just got stuck in my head when I went into my studio. What an inspiration.

#76 and more

 I managed to get today's mail art done this morning. Yay! Now to get all of yesterday's piece and this one into the post before 1 p.m. Oh, it's the letter "M" day and a good way to use the museum tickets and such that I've saved.

 Happy Valentine's day! Here's the crazy cake I made yesterday for the dinner party. One large heart shaped layer with three small heart cakes on top of it. I had to secure them with skewers as they were sliding off at first. The cake is a simple one-bowl cocoa cake with a butter cream icing.  My honey did the decorating with M&Ms and cinnamon Jelly Belly candy.

This is the salad that I made. Decorated it with red beets, pears and blue cheese. It was a savory before the sweet dessert. Thought I'd share food with you, since I've been focusing more on my mail art lately. Wish I could send you some cake, or salad.

#75 series

 This is the day for the letter "L." I was thinking of all sorts of "L" words this morning as we walked to and from the market.   Thinking, thinking, "L" words.

 Nothing came to mind except Love and Like and Lovely. Nope, didn't want to do those.

 Then it came to me, as we walked, that I'd cover a large piece of mat board with music and then toss different sized black squares on it and glue them where they landed. Love the random aspect. Fun!

 I got so energized that I forgot to photograph my process, so you'll have to imagine a large piece of board, covered with music, and then black squares.  It was quite meditative to cut out the black squares in 3 different sizes. And now I have a stock of them in a tin.

 After I cut them out, I added the color bits and the letters. I worked on some of this while talking on the phone with cousin D. I got carried away, I couldn't stop myself.

 I had to keep making them and now I have a whole stash to address to mail tomorrow. I made it to the deadine of midnight (EST/GMT -5)

 Oh, yes, I decided on the word for this series after I completed the postcards.
Learning, that's what the "L" stands for. I love to learn, I spent lots of time learning to play the piano, I spent lots of time learning to be a good basic design instructor, I love learning Spanish, and new stuff in general.

Yes, "L" is for learning, may I continue to do so for a long, long time. 
Have you learned anything new recently?

Tea Time and baking day.

 This is what I had after baking today. I made corn bread from a package called Miracle Maize cornbread and Muffin Mix. I never tried it before, the company's been around since 1903, so I figured I'd give it a try. The corn bread was delicious! I, also, made Mexican brownies (with cinnamon in them) topped with a really delicious frosting of cooked brown sugar & butter (and some other stuff.) This was part of the Chili dinner that I'd donated to the Richmond Peace Education Center auction last November. The purchaser called for it for today. The dinner consisted of vegetarian chili, corn bread and brownies.
Since the purchaser lived nearby, we walked over with the food in a red basket, very Little Red Ridinghood, no?

 I buy my eggs from a woman who lives over in Surry County and raises hens and bees. These are not factory eggs. They come in all sizes and colors. This dozen had a pale greenish-blue egg amongst the browns. Pretty.

This lovely photo of a tea cup is actually a postcard that was submitted to the new mail art call for TeaTime Mail Art. You can see the entries and why we had to renew the call, here.  I'll be adding more cards soon as many new ones have arrived. Please do check it out.

#74, 74a & 74b, the letter K, and our garden

 I had more of the playing cards to have fun with, and how perfect for the "K" day. Also, someone in Belgium put out a mail art call "The King" so this was perfect for that call.   I love this woman's pose and so does the king.

 This beauty comes from the 1949 Photography magazine. What a look and notice the king looking at her. She's going to someone with a "K" in their name.
I didn't cover these with laminate. I may coat them with matte acrylic, however.

 In this king card, I liked the way the woman and the king are facing the same direction. She is definitely enjoying what she's viewing but can't tell about the king.
She's going to Europe, where it looks like she came from. What do you think? What country?

 Today we had three workers continuing the backyard/jardine makeover. I'm pretty happy with the way it's going as I can visualize the end result.

These men worked so steadily and accomplished so much in the time they spent back there. They'll be done more quickly than we thought. How nice. They're from Guatemala, which I may have mentioned, so I'm getting to practice and, hopefully improve, my Spanish. Today I learned the work for bathroom sink.

#73 & 73a, the letter J

 "J" is the letter of the day, and these two women, from back in 1949 (scored an old Photography magazine over at Whiting's Vintage Paper) just seemed so full of joy to me.

In #73, the background is art work by an artist from Uzbekistan, what he called a paper etching.
These are being sent to people whose names contain the letter "J."