I’ve been thinking about past art projects, in particular, mail art. Years ago, when hubby and I lived in B.C., we started a postcard exchange with several of our friends from art school. It was a really fun way to keep in touch with each other and I loved receiving random surprises of wonderful artwork in the mail. I kept all the postcards that we received, with the intention of displaying them somehow as a larger piece of art. Sadly, they are still just sitting in a shoebox, untouched, but not quite forgotten. One day perhaps…
Back in those days, I was horrible at documenting everything, so very few of the postcards that I made were properly scanned before I mailed them on their merry way. I thought I’d share a small sample of ones I made for an Alphabet series (you’re probably not that surprised to discover that I’m the type of person who likes to make art in a series). Each postcard was a different letter of the alphabet (and I really did manage make it through the whole alphabet, although don’t ask me what I did for the letter X). Of course there was a theme to the whole thing… fashion. The definition of each word represented was written on the back of the postcard.
All of the postcards were made on inexpensive card stock, using water colour paints, rubber stamps, and graphite pencil. The first step was to lay a light wash of water colour in a fairly random pattern. Once dry, I would make my sketches in simple pencil and then go back in with the water colour to bring out certain areas. Then I would begin creating textures and patterns with rubber stamps & ink. Finally, I would bring out particular details of the drawing and patterns by filling them in with graphite pencils. It all involved just a lot of experimenting with layers and colours.
I really don’t get much of a chance to do any mail art these days, but sometimes I get the hankering to. I started a Pinterest board quite some time ago, dedicated to inspirational mail art. With close friends moving across the country and our inevitable move out to the farm in a few years, I’m thinking that we might have to resurrect the postcard exchange real soon. Besides, think of all the great stuff that Sam could start making into postcards. Fun times and exciting mail await us…
