Forty Four Hundred Miles

Yesterday my mailbox was happy again. I received my first post card from Post Crossings from Anu in Finland. The post card is a picture of one of her favorite artists, Raija Nokkala, titled Under The Umbrella. She is a PostCrossing addict, having sent out her millionth post card from Finland in January 2012. Wow!! That's a lot of post cards. That's one way to get mail. Here is the card.

I went to her Flickr site where she has a massive display of all her postcards very neatly captured in sets and collections, everything from National Parks, postcards for trade, Finnish towns and villages. And then I went back to her description of what kinds of postcards she wants." I prefer real, modern and new postcards, thanks. No any seasonal cards (Christmas, Easter etc.), ad-cards (unless it's something related to my preferences), free-rack cards, greeting cards, plain photos or self-made cards, please." I'm not sure if she considers "self-made cards" what I consider mail art, however, if I ever get her address to send her one, I might mess up her game plan. She'd be getting mail art from me, something that is "self-made." You know, something like this.

Tickled PInk

I sent this to Hannah in the Netherlands several weeks ago. I got this message from her today. "Hello, I love the card you made for me! I love making cards as well. This one is very special i think. Thanks a lot. Hannah" and she wrote another message: "Hello Jo, I watch your blogspot and you made my day happy two times now. I loved the card you send me and after watching your blogspot i am a fan of your work, Great. Thanks for sharing. Hannah" Makes me happy to know that Hannah is happy. And college student Lizzy, in Russia which was the first one I sent, wrote this message after getting her post card mail art. "Thank you for card,Jo!!! It is amazing=) I have never received hand-made card!! It is so cool and musical=)) Your russian is funny=) (I used Google translator when I sent her the postcard. I guess it sounded funny to her) Take care Lisa" It only took a little over a month for it to reach her. And I was HAPPY,no TICKLED PINK HAPPY when I came home to find this in MY mail box.

This was made by the awesome,cool, artist Robin. I find her blog delightful, actually, she usually give me a good chuckle in the middle of my chaotic work day and I really like that. So, she makes these awesome journals among other things, and I am lucky to have been the recipient of one. This little cutey is so sweet- almost too pretty to use. Thank you so much, Robin. Thanks for stopping by.

Laughter

Quinn McDonald is a writer, an artist and a creativity coach. I really like her blog and her new book new book raw Art Journaling. Her post today had to do with creating poetry found from the spines of books. She made the suggestion to go to our book shelves and look at the spines of books and make poetry. I did it this evening. This is what I found and little poems I created.

The Sun the Moon and the Stars Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Echo Maker and

Traveling Mercies, Some Thoughts on Faith Hard Laughter tho I think it gives me more of a chuckle if I read or write it like this: Traveling Mercies Some Thoughts on Faith Hard Laughter I have faith, but this seems to remind me that even when I am hurting, I need to remind myself that I need to laugh more. And we all know the benefits of laughter. and finally

Godmother On the Road with the Archangel The Color of Water or rewritten like this: Godmother on the road with the archangel, the color of water. I can see using these in words in my art work. They create some interesting images and color in my mind. I'm glad I did this. It reminds me to get back to using my poetry in my art work. Thanks, Quinn. Thanks for stopping by.

Rain

I was just playing in the studio yesterday- loose card stock pages. Threw some paint down, glued down some torn, found papers, much of my it my own art work, scribbled and doodled with lots of different markers, and this is what I got.

Good for mail art. Don't you think? It's a very rainy day today, all day, according to the forecasts. I guess we need it and I shouldn't complain too much with the exceptionally pleasant days we've had lately. Hope you're having a good day. Thanks for visiting.

She's Growing

I decided to bite the bullet, meet a deadline, despite my feelings of "I don't know if my stuff is THAT good. Don't be ridiculous. Life is too short not to have done this. Just bloody well, do it," I told my self. What is it you ask? Seth Apter has an open call for The Pulse of Mixed Media. He wants to include more artists and will do this on line. I spent some days thinking about what I would do in this 5x5 space and while I was working on some other projects, I just kind of fell in to it. I made 2 in case I didn't like one of them, figuring I might have the other one to fall back on. We were asked to choose one or all of three questions when doing this project. In other words our art had to reflect or answer the question. I chose "If your art work could talk, what would it say?" Here is/was my answer and my art.

I am kind of pleased with it. I am pleased with myself that I did it and met the deadline. I mailed it to N.Y this morning. In another note, MY MAN had a birthday a couple of days ago. During one of my trips to Ben Franklin several months ago I found one of those little photo albums on the $1.00 shelf specifically made for Valentine's Day with hearts, stickers and cutesy stuff. I gave it an overhaul, collaged, painted, stamped over it and filled the album pages with 4x6 pieces of my art. Here are some of the pages.

And then I wrapped it up in this.

And because he's such a wonderful chef and shows his love for me in the kitchen (ha ha ha . I just realized how that looks/sounds.) I got him these because, well, because. Doesn't every man want some of these?

Thanks for stopping by.

Much to Our Chagrin..........

Having a "smashingly" good time playing in the SMASH book. I took this line from one of my father's typed sermon pages from the late 1960's. The line "Much to our chagrin and regret," caught my eye. I cut it out and placed on the page.

Spring is all around. I hope you're having a peaceful day. Thanks for visiting.

More Garden Series

I am really enjoying making mail art. These started out like this:

Some of them have become this.

I think they will find their way to the post office for mailing soon. Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Spring!!

The last several days have been exceptionally beautiful here. I want to be outside but I also want to be creating. Yesterday I gathered up a bunch of loose background pages I've been stashing.

Eventually these loose pages will find a new home in an art journal.

I took them outside in the back yard.

and placed them in different spots.

And then I lined them all up against the side of the garage.

Happy Spring and Happy Easter!

Findings

I pulled out this box of old Sanford oil pastel crayons that have been with me since the late 1980's. I got them in Boston where I lived for seven years but I didn't really know what to do with them. Some of them are a little dried out, some are softer, kind of like me. lol

I started drawing these crazy flowers with these crayons. Found I could do some smudging with my fingers. Found out they work as a resist. Then I threw some gesso down on another page, drew some more flowers and then some watercolor down. I like that the oil crayon and the gesso both act as a resist.

I kind of like the result. I will be playing some more with these. Thanks for stopping by.

Brain Farts

This is another page in the altered book. This is how it started.

I took paper and rolled them up to form the stems. This was trial and error to get them tight enough and then keep them rolled long enough to smother them in Mod Podge or Modge Podge or whatever it's called. I found that if I started rolling the paper around a skinny paint brush it worked ok for the first several, but after that, I guess I perfected my technique so well, I could't get them off the stick. I had to tear them off, followed by a few expletives. I found some big stamps made from cork in the 4 for $1.00 bin at Ben Franklin a while back. The big red flowers are the stamp. I wasn't too thrilled with them with the paint. I wanted to cover them up, actually. So, I took some rub-ons, also from the 4/$1.00 bin and tried those. Couldn't figure out why they were so shiny on the page after I stuck them on, and then I remembered these were not stickons but rub-ons. Duh! I was having a brain fart moment. Do you have brain farts? I liked them better but not enough to keep them as is.(Not the brain farts. The rub-ons) It still looked empty to me so I figured I'd take the paper bit a little further and cut out petals. Arranging them is ok but the challenging part is gluing all these babies down. And Good Lord, don't let me sneeze! Now where are the jeweler's forceps?

Help!! I think I am beginning to like it a bit more now. It's full and bright, and I like the contrasting patterns and color with the paper. I changed the background color and may still change it again. I'm not sure. What do you think? It's all in the playing.

Thanks for visiting. Jo

I Can Imagine Anything

Thought I'd share some finished and in progress pages from the SMASH book which is really turning out to be an art journal after all. The pages are pretty sturdy card stock, so far, are holding up very well, and I am finding inspiration from the already designed pages. I kind of like the size of this book which is larger than the previous two with THE SKETCHBOOK PROJECT and IN THE VAN. Here's a page I have finished.

And this is another finished page.

And what follows are beginnings of pages. I find I am working on laying down backgrounds, several pages at a time.

I will share more with you as these pages are completed. Hope everyone is having or had a good weekend. Thanks for stopping by. Jo