Using photo of my dad

Here's a post card made with a digitally enhanced photo of my dad.

Modesto 's Airmail 100

I got my official response envelope from the Modesto Art Museum where I had entered a post card into their mail art show. This is a pic of the pc I sent them mostly done digitally. I was lucky to have a usable stamp on hand with an airplane on it. The other pics are the envelope and the stamp on the back that I got in the mail today from them.

Enclosed was a list of participants from all over the world. Germany, Spain, Japan, Netherlands, Italy, France, Brazil, Denmark, Greece, Sweden, Finland, United Kindgom, Belgium, Poland, Canada, U.S., Malaysia, Morocco, Portugal, etc. Participating in an art exhibit with people I'll never meet, but in some minute way our lives touched for a moment- it was fun.

Post Cards - New Year's series

NAPPY NEW YEAR!
A stack of small snapshots of babies which I bought on Ebay a couple years ago surfaced in my studio, and I decided it was the perfect timing to make New Year's cards. I had recently purchased a pad of Hippie Chic cardstock in a 4.5 x 6.5 size which I thought would make great backgrounds for "something - someday". Rather than put it away and forget about it, I used it for these cards. I wasn't sure how well glue would hold the snapshots on the backgrounds so I used little colored staples. I also printed the words Nappy New Year and Happy New Year on label/sticker paper, some transparent and some on white. And I snagged a little saying from a vintage post card that I thought would look good on them. The quote is "May the New Year hold its golden rays and bring you joys through other days. " I used a number rubber stamp and also the word hello on each card. I dont' know who these adorable little babies were, but hope they are thriving. Their images should make the recipients smile. Here are a few. BTW, I hope you have a great year ahead.

Post cards - Wanderer series

Before Christmas some friends and I went to a stamp art shop in Roseville. While browsing, a stamp caught my eye that said, Not all those that wander are lost. Well, being a John Muir specialist - wandering and sauntering are words that evoke all kinds of images and thoughts. So I bought it. Awhile back I had carved the little rubber stamp of John Muir I decided now to use the two together to make some post cards. I used some of the cards from the Rigs Institute Press speech sounds set I bought at a thrift store, I glued some dictionary pages on one side, and stamped on the words, and the figures. Adding alittle color to the edges and sometimes another postal stamp in the corner, they were done quickly. Here is a sample. this is a series of 12.

Post cards - Mona series

While cleaning my work area I came across a background I made awhile back and had never found a use for it. I'm in a use it up or throw it out frame of mind, so thought I'd use it to make a series of 4 post cards. Here are a couple of them.

Post cards - cat series

Another series I've done lately is a third series of cats. 2o of them. There is nothing complex about them. I used images cut from books, altered with other images, like adding a human mouth or eyes, and a quotation . I also used some rubber stamps and stitched around the edges to secure the image to the recycled post cards. Most of thequote are snippets of quotes from the 2010 calendar Butter my Butt and Call Me a Biscuit. Here are a few samples.

More on Postal Art

I've had a lot of spare time to devote to making post cards while it's the rainy season, so have been working in series. I spent a couple days making backgrounds from some experiments done to resemble birch forests. I was trying to recreate something I did a few years ago. I couldn't do it, but the resulting pieces would make good backgrounds for post cards, so I cut them up. these are fluid acrylic paints and torn paper napkins on Stranthmore cold press watercolor paper, 140 lb weight. i used a 9 x 12 pad, so it cut easily into 4 4x6 post cards. I had the bird images printed a few years ago for another project and thought they'd be right at home in a forest. And a new book of quotes, The Reader's Digest Quotable Quotes. I suspect it was Reader's Digest that got me interested in quotations when I was a youngster. Ford Times, another little publication, had the best images of birds, and RD had the quotes. What more could a kid want to read? Oh yes, the best of all, the World Book of Knowledge in 20 volumes. It had it all. wonderful illustrations, projects, poetry, stories, and endless subjects to read about.

Here are a couple of the new birds in the woods series. A series of 20, each one uniquely different.