Postcard: Play in Massachusetts

It just happened.

Backgrounds is a category of collage I have.  Things interesting-ish, but are certainly going to be layered over.

These two penguin youths were standing against the penguin adults in the previous penguin card.

Why not lean against giraffe?

Then ad all the things!

Postcards: The Savagery of Wildlife

Nothing fancy today.  I just really like old woodcuts and needed an animal-centric reply postcard.

Postcard: Boxer Bill

While out and about, Ben and I came across this poster.

We have both of course read Bone and Coraline.  Ben had also read Ghostopolis and Sidekicks.  I was inspired to get more books from this list.  Get Ben and I more well versed in this slice of culture.  I started with Cardboard, having grown up aware of Doug TenNapel, Nimona, because it looked cool, and Lumberjanes, because I keep hearing about how great it is.  We read Cardboard right away, and both really enjoyed the character Boxer Bill.

When Ben sent me a postcard from his trip to Ohio, I responded with this watercolor of Boxer Bill.

Postcards: Those Shelters

Once cut, unused collage parts travel from card to card until they find a home.  I cut out this building for another card, but it ended up not working (I was trying to cover a waterfall, or something).  So I just had a building with holes in it.  What to do?

I found a dramatic face, and cut it out and cut it down to postcard dimensions.  So then I had the lady from Hereditary, the holey building, and a bomber from another card.

It is here we jump briefly aside to share that I grew up with books from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  Not that I necessarily read them, but I became familiar with their covers as I flipped through my parents' books over and over again in that way that you do when you're restless but aren't sure you want to read anything.  I think those images, often surreal and sensationalist, really influenced an avenue of my art.  Not all of it, clearly.  The Fallout games have driven a great deal of my recent collage, and I like a million other things, but before we go on, look at these.

So, I had my building, my bomber, and my face.  What to do?

Lay down the bomber at the top of the card first.  Even if it gets mostly covered, neither the face nor the building reach to the top of the postcard.  Build on top of the bomber.

I liked the paperback sci-fi feel.  It was time to try on some words.

I liked The Literature Police, but it felt... sparse?  It either needed to be replaced or it needed a tag line.

Ominous!

I tried for the words mimicking the pattern of the floors of the building, leading you down to the most prominent eye.

Postcards: Tough Penguins

Looking at other collagists, I get the feeling I should use animals more.  Look at these two penguins!  They clearly need to be up to something.

I found them a friend.

A little context and it becomes the perfect card for Corey.

Postcards: This Bad Dream Will Come True

As you may have noticed, I have been making super optimistic postcards lately.  This one and the last one were sent to friends abroad, to keep them abreast of ambient America.

Postcards: Weird Vessels and Strange Odors

Sometimes you just see a picture of the dredges of society and you think "there's gotta be something therapeutic I can do with this image."

The caption helps.

I thought maybe this missile would work.

I ended up going with this flag/text combo.

Postcards: Take Hires Root Beer

Looking through vintage magazines, the advertisements have such a dated feel it can generate a sense of being an archaeologist, digging in paper layers of history.  I often flag ads for "I don't know how I will use that, but I am definitely going to use it."  Ads for medicine are always a good place to start.

I think the head coming out of headache-man's head is from an ad for a telephone company, and the "fagged out" is encouraging you to relax in Arizona or something out that way.  The blue strips are stickers Melanie gave me, apparently popular in the bullet journaling world.

I need to take the elements in a new direction for it to feel truly remixed, so I made this into an ad for root beer.  Root beer concentrate, I think.

Postcards: The Mask

Memory is fuzz on this one.  I know that I had been wanting to do something with this image from The Mask for a while.

Look at that crazy face!  It was begging to be made into a card.

But what is it saying?  Boku wa gaikotsu desu?  Sure!  Why not?

And thus Ross's postcard was made.