Postcards: The Wages Of Sin

As you well know, if you are a regular reader, is that I struggle with quotes.  Choosing them.  Laying them out.  Writing them legibly.  All of it.  You might think I would keep that in mind when adding someone to the postcard exchange, and you would be wrong.  I asked Pam if she wanted an image or quote, and she went with quote.  That was silly of me.

As usual, I turned to Terry Pratchett for my literary needs.  I considered “She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you,” but I thought that might lend itself to discouraging, which is not the goal of postcard exchange.  “If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy” is really great, but I have already used it, and wanted something unique for Pam's first card.

So I went with this.  

Below you can see me struggling with layout, which is 100% my MO.  I wrote the quote out once in grey, and knowing that I was early in the process just went ahead and wrote over it with the red.

I think it was around here I started whining to Jen about layout.  Here I switched the line spacing and went at it again.

Unhappy with the uniformity, I changed orientation, hoping to find a way to emphasize certain words.  I end up using less than half the space, but stumbling across a format that allows for emphasizing Death.  

Orientation not being the problem, I rolled back to the horizontal design, but incorporated the line split after Death.  The stamp in the corner solves some of my spacing issues, and is, in my opinion, cute.

Jen suggested I go with a brown background.  Actually, Jen suggested a hot pink background, or an institutional beige background, or a pink and brown background, a photo of an officer worker as a background, or someone being run over as a background, or a halo, or TGIFridays's green stripes.  I aimed for institutional beige and landed on sandwich bag brown.

Because any artistic process has to be as frustrating as possible once you have a goal, I put the stamp in the wrong spot.

When masking the card, I made the lower border two millimeters larger than the other three borders.  I then stamped the card upside down.  Luckily I have a tool for correcting this sort of error.

And there you have it.  Is it perfect?  No.  If it were digital, I would play with spacing until I had everything just so.  But is it as good as I can draw it by hand?  Probably.

Postcards: The Texas exchange.

My good buddy Aaron is currently doing research in Texas, and kindly sent me this card.

I know Aaron from Madison; I thought a Wisconsin postcard was thematically appropriate response to the San Antonio Riverwalk card.

Aaron never received the card!  Who knows what happened?  Lucking I scanned the card; I was still able to share it with him.  Not in the chosen format, mind you, but he go to see it all the same.  Once he let me know that he never received the card, I created another.

I am hoping this card contains such Murica that the Texan postal system is more inclined to deliver it.

Postcards: The Collage Process

Sometimes I am driven by an idea.  Rusty sink orange?  Great.  Let's go make a card.

Other times I am making a card because it is my turn to send a card.  That is my goal with the postcard exchange, always reply.  This occasionally results in me just staring at my supplies, hoping a postcard makes itself.

Better to have anything than a blank card, so I glued backgrounds to three cards.  That's like having accomplished something, right?

I continued gathering collage supplies, and sorting them into piles that might work with each background.

When assembling, I'll let the design bleed over the edges of the card.  When I am finished assembling the card, I flip them over and trim the front flush with the back.

Tah dah!  

I have a calligraphy card coming up, and progress on those tends to be verrry slow.  Knocking out a few collage cards in a single sitting helps me maintain an average rate of at least one card per week.

Postcards: The Fish Stamp

You will just have to believe me that it looks better in person.

I bought this fish stamp with some silver and bronze inks, and just started playing around.  The stamp is a great pairing with metallic inks, and I like the pattern I was able to develop with it.  I do not like, however, these stupid inks that do not dry.  Had I done any research, I would have discovered that many many artists have thrown away their Colorbox inks after discovering they don't dry.  Numerous forums with members panicked by the discovery that the cards they stamped the day before are as smudge-able as the moment they were stamped.  I ended up baking this card in the oven to get it to dry out.  Not practical. I now know Ranger Archival Inks are the way to go.

Postcards: Postcard Duo

I don't remember why now, but I wanted to make two postcards that formed one image.  Just the natural next step to postcard making for me.

I started with just messing around with a single sheet of watercolor paper, with guidelines drawn in pencil to indicate the borders of postcards.

The next step was two tape two blank cards together so I could work a single image across them.  Here I used a wedge stamp with the walnut ink my father made to create those wisps.  The border along the bottom was my sister's suggestion.  

I inked up my hand and printed across the two cards.  After that, I removed the masking tape, and turned to my original paper for guidance on the lettering.

And there you go.  Two cards that work (hopefully) side by side or individually.

Edit edit edit.

Almost done... with this round.

In me trivia, if I were league and had a league name, Rob Anybody, up until this moment, was up for consideration.  Aggravated Robbery is a good one too.

Postcards: Gilead

One of my more satisfying compositions.  

This design was driven by feedback from my sister.  I showed her the cupcake card and she responded with "Bright colors!  Free things!  Cupcakes!  I love it."  That sentiment drove the design of this card.  I didn't have any more cupcake coupons to use, but I did still have some really colorful stickers.

The pink background is origami paper.  The gentleman on the left is from some food packaging.  The cassette and the heart are stickers.  There's a little bit of washi tape along the bottom holding the whole thing together.

I hope she likes it.  The style, to me, is reminiscent of the collages she made for her mixtapes.

Photography Wins

I am editing pictures again!  More MRD work.  And since photography is actually my job, it gets dibs on my post-dayjob time.

I do have both postcard and comic ideas; I will be back with those soon.

Postcards: An Exchange of Foods

Postcard exchange as it was meant to be.  I was offered a cheese tray.

So I responded with a cupcake.

I once again did not think to take any process shots of the collage-ing process.  The yellow background and the "feel good do good" are an ad for Keep Cups, the cupcake is an expired coupon, and the warning label is from my weird sticker collection.

Postcards and Letters: Will brings his A game

I received a letter recently, and dang, I am outdone.

This is from Will!  Will is one of the most significant influences on my recent artistic development.  He gave me my first fountain pen, and has supplied me with notebooks too numerous to count.  He writes blogs about virtue and current legislation, among other things.  Together with his wife, we have brunch and talk about coffee, ink, paper, and pens.

Postcard: Collage #NotForJen

I am not sure this one has made it to the recipient yet, but I felt like gambling.  Or really, I am just impatient.  Either way, check it out.

Jen does not care for misspelling.  They agitate her with great intensity; I agreed to put a warning in the title so she would know to skip this post.  Previous uses of #NotForJen were spider related, but now it is dual purpose.