Postcards: A Favorite of My Own

I occasionally text while I am working on my art.  I send out snippets to some friends for troubleshooting, other friends I sent images just to show what I am working on.  When KB saw just the color of green I was working with, she said "I love that."  So I told her once I finished the card I would set it aside, and only use it as a reply to the next postcard she sent me.  The card then sat in a drawer for months.  I stopped making cards in this style, largely because I forgot that I had made cards in this style.  If I was making any art, collage and journaling dominated my time and thoughts.  But it finally happened.  KB sent me not one, but five postcards.  I looked through my available cards, and found this in a drawer.

Journaling: It Is All Related

Human memory is not great.  Human memory is well documented as often being garbage for accuracy.  If I were a reliable news source, there would be several citations for that, but mostly this is blog is about stick figures and postcards.  Sometimes both.  Maybe a little photography in there too.  Visual narrative, as it were.  Potential memory anchors.

I have just started reading Telling Your Story by Jerry Apps, a book about preserving "your history through storytelling."  Apps recommends the exercise of drawing the floor plan of where they lived when they were ten to twelve, and then add any details they remember.  Room assignments, furniture, smells, sounds, stories.  I decided to give it a try, but opening with the first house I remember, where I lived until I was six(ish).

Because of how variable images can be displayed on the numerous devices of the the world, I included an image of the whole page, followed by slices.

Imagine watching ten three-second movie clips, and then trying to draw a map based on the information at hand.  That is what this process was like for me.  The accuracy or inaccuracy is the result of tiny flashes of memory, combining my actual experience with stories I have been told and visuals gleaned from similar spaces.  This is memory archaeology. 

Postcards: Cheater Post

I have been catching up on my reading, which means falling behind in my postcards and my photography.  To have more than nothing, here are two exchanges.

I received this wooden card:

and replied with this collage:

I received this print:

I replied with this collage:

Thinking About Tattoos

I have been thinking about my next tattoo for a while now, and drawing it is an important step.  And redrawing.  And being dissatisfied.  Which brings us to today's crackpot theory.

Artists learn just like children without realizing it; we play with something until it breaks.  Or at least I do.  I think teacher's are better than your average bear at realizing there is no common sense.  Sort of.  Common sense is what you have known so long you no longer remember learning.  If you never learned it, it must be because everyone knows it, right?  I learn what I do by failing.  Taking my art past where I should have stopped.  I draw it, and redraw it, and overdraw it.  Somewhere in the first 30-60% of the process was my best work, but I can't see it at the time.  I just keep going.  More lines, or thicker lines, or more color, or different color.  Futzing about instead of starting afresh.  You may remember that I have touched on productivity vs perfection before.  Through the images below, you can follow the path from the rough idea to just a pile of overlapping "maybe it needs."  If this ever becomes a tattoo, it will be completely redrawn by the artist; no more than the first image needed.

Hopefully I learned something.

Barista Powers as written on the register

I was bored on register, so fired off a quick comic.  First, the comic in its finished-ish form.

 

But, here is how I wrote it:

where are the other characters...

What prompted Pam to say that?

How do I reply to Pam?

Postcards: Clipshow

I am a bit behind on production, so today's post is more of a highlight reel.  Here are some of my collage favorites (not currently in the mail).  I have been considering having these printed, just to see how I feel about them as flat images.

Postcards: Laudanum Poster

Do you have a favorite collage artist?  Collage style?  I am trying to figure it all out.  Get caught up, as it were.  I have been steadily getting more material from the library.  I recently reread Griffin & Sabine and Sabine's Notebook, as they have always been an inspiration.  I just read for the first time Paper Politics, which I think is more similar to my collage tennis work than my postcard work.  While Mike Mignola is so freaking awesome his work my never be a clear influence on my work, I checked out Baltimore: The Plague Ships for any spark of creative stimulation.

Where does that leave me?  Trying to mix things up.  That said, first step is to dirty up this postcard with some walnut ink.

I had a sticker I wanted to use; my solution was to present it as a poster.  In an attempt to remain outline-less, I started free hand painting bricks.

I put the sticker on, trimmed it down, and dirtied it up a little to more closely match the saturation of the wall.

Time to figure out a foreground figure.

Of all my attempts, I liked cigar smoking skeleton the best, but I did not want to add a flat pencil drawing to this card.  Why not try a style I have little to no experience with?  Time to layer some construction paper.

Finished up, without lamination.

With lamination.

Postcards: Soul Box

Do not adjust your set.  That first picture is indeed the same.  I went on a massive collage-ing session, and so this jumble of images on my floor is relevant yet again.

I have come to appreciate rectangles in composition, and so I took some.

Sometimes I choose images that are much larger than a postcard; I often then just glue them down where I think I will get the best of the image and then trim them to the card.

This card is half a pair of cards, and so I numbered it.  Also I just wanted to send this image, and did not have much to say.  Or I had too much to say to fit on a card.  However you look at it, I ended up drawing a one.