More Mail Art

Today is dedicated to postcards. There were cards that I sent out as part of various swap challenges. The first card is a version of a screen printed card that I had in my stash. The theme of the challenge was Mostly Purple. The card is made from duplex heavy paper. This has a Columbia Blue reverse side. The images were printed with my Gocoo Printer.

As you can see, I was in a NY state of mind. The above card was a sender's choice. I had some bits and pieces leftover from a subway map reprint. I glued it to a blank watercolor postcard. I then cut out a larger version of the Statue of Liberty stencil in the first card and then used it to hand color the image. I also used an NYC stencil in the lower left hand corner.

This swap was an interesting topic--Altered Text. The goal was to take a printed text and make a poem out of the the words by indicating which existing text should be read. We were to use the original text as the basis of the design. I found an old book that was being thrown away outside of a second hand store. Most of the pages were brittle and water damaged so I salvaged it for this swap. I stenciled over the page with two separate stencils in red and blue.  The poem ended up reading: trying to remember, Mother's hands, she smiled a wonderful smile, There was no one like her, Nana died, gently, sweetly, as an old lady.

The reverse side was stenciled with the same two stencils, in red and blue, but opposite from the front. I always like to clearly delineate the salutation section from the address section on a handmade postcard. I just find that it is easier for the letter carrier/post office to know how to process it.

Coloring--Day Five

For the coloring book swap, we are required to send our coloring book to each artist in the swap. Since I provided a small book for my swap, I decided to give each of my swap partners, an uncolored envelope for themselves to keep and one to send my book through the mail. They could either leave the envelope uncolored or send it colored through the mail. I thought it would be fun for each of the swap recipients to receive something fun in the mail. I also provided labels for each swap partner to use.

Of course, the first artist in the swap was the luckiest in that they got to chose what they want to keep and what they wanted to color.

That's all for another week. Have a great weekend and I look forward to share more things next week.

Coloring--Day Four

I refuse to send out a plain envelope in the mail. It really takes very little effort to fill up an envelope with color. This is my rent check envelope. This is the back of the envelope. Here I used Tombow markers and detailed with a extra fine tip Black Sharpie.

This is the front of the rent check envelope. To say the least, my landlord knows when my rent check arrives and has expressed his appreciation of the extra effort. His office carefully opens the envelope and has collected them over the 10 years that I have been sending them. His secretary teases that she is going to have an exhibition of my rent check envelopes.

Coloring--Day Three

I have been sending out a lot of mail for my swap-bot challenges. This was the envelope that I used to send out the coloring book to next artist for the coloring book swap. I decided to keep the front of the envelope plain because the artist had such a long name and the city name was long as well. I needed as many lines as I could fit in so there was little room for any extra decoration.

The back of the envelope was decorated with a mod 70s vibe. I used Sharpie markers to fill in the all of the blank spaces.

Coloring--Day Two

This is the second page of the coloring book for my first partner. This page was filled in with Tombow dual tip markers. I used a subtractive method on this page. First, the page is filled in with markers. This method works well because Tombow markers are very heavily pigmented. The page is then lightly misted with water. The final step is to take a paper towel and place on top of the wet surface. Press down (do not wipe since you don't want the ink to spread). Lift the paper towel and continue to blot the page (do not re-mist) until you reach the level of coverage you desire.

This technique mutes the colors a little, especially if you use bold colors like I did. 

The above image is the blotted paper towel. I am sure that if I used an absorbent artist's paper that I could have used this blotting image as a basis of some other artwork.

Coloring--Day One

This is week will be dedicated to coloring. Different people have different definitions of coloring but I simply go with the most basic definition--adding color to something. I am participating in an adult coloring book swap. We have three other partners and we are required to color two pages in our partners' coloring book.

When I color, I always color on a smooth surface. I usually enlarge my coloring surface by using a piece of foam core. I like the smooth surface of foam core. The problem with coloring directly on a surface is that you can transfer the texture of the surface onto your coloring page. Since I normally don't want to do this, I work on foam core. On top of the foam core, I usually place a piece of newsprint to capture all of the bleed through and so I can make any notations that I want.

This page was colored using Copic Markers for the background. I always keep my colors (regardless of medium) out until that particular phase of the coloring is completed. I used the markers for the background only. I use the newsprint to sample the colors that I want to use and to make notations of the colors should I need to reference them later.

The foreground of the page was filled in using Sharpie Extra Fine markers. Granted this is a non-traditional style of coloring. This is more like a mix of coloring and doodling.

Snail Mail3

Envelope Front

I refuse to let an envelope leave my apartment without some type of embellishment. This was a hand delivered note to a friend of mine in Manhattan.

Envelope Flap Side

I don't know why people make such a fuss. This literally took me ten minutes to do. The outlines were done with a stencil and a fine tipped Sharpie marker. It was then "colored in" with extra fine tipped Sharpie markers.

A little effort results in an outcome that the recipient always appreciates.

That's it for my return this week. Have a great weekend and I will see you on Monday.

Snail Mail2

Most of my time lately has been dedicated to Mail Art and envelopes (either making or decorating them). The brief for this was flowers, 70s and butterflies. This is the outer envelope for a coloring book challenge that I signed up for in swap-bot. The backgrounds are done with my alcohol inks. Stencils were used to make the designs and the designs were filled in with Copic markers. The black boxes are the areas designated for the postage meter strip and the bar code meter strip.

The back of the envelope was dedicated to butterflies and a giant sunflower. These stenciled designs were filled in with fine tip Sharpie markers.

First Wax Seal

Here is another of my wax seals. This was the first one that I ordered. It is a custom order from Get Marked.  This is a double R in a overlapped script R. The wax is from a local store called Paper Presentation. Unknowingly, I purchased wax sticks for glue guns and they melted fine in a regular melting fashion.

Plain Seal

Seal with PearlEx powders

Seal with Gold Pigment Ink

Wax Seals--My latest obsession

It is my nephew's fault I got involved with wax seals. He is eight going on thirty. He wanted a Harry Potter themed birthday party. He told his parents that Uncle Russ needed to get involved with the preparations this year. I have always been enamored with wax seals but never really experimented with them. Years ago, I tried but I found them too messy and the seals broke too easily in the mail. Things have changed drastically over time and the process is much cleaner and less stressful. The above image is the sample page in my wax seal book. It is easy to take the book around to show clients how wax seals work.

The above image is the simple wax seal with no adornment.

The above image is the wax seal with silver highlights. The highlights are created with stamp pad pigment ink. Rub your finger across the stamp pad and then lightly rub the image on the seal.

The above image is the seal in relief with an inked background. This uses a pigment ink stamp pad as well. To accomplish this look, the brass seal is dipped onto the stamp pad and then placed in the melted wax.

The above image illustrates two techniques: highlights using PearlEx powders and wax seals with ribbon.

For my nephew's project, we used the gold background technique (next to last photo) on the outer envelope. Each "student"/guest will go to the  sorting hat to get assigned to a particular house. Once assigned, they will get a scroll of assignments . At the end of the party each student will graduate and get a diploma signed by the headmaster and sealed with a ribbon.

Smail Mail

Since the demise of the Iron Craft Challenges, I have returned to Swap Bot to try and find a creative outlet. Most of my swaps have been affiliated with Mail Art, Postcards, and Envelopes. This is a postcard for a swap called Mostly Green.

When I read the recipient's profile, she was a fan of postage stamps and Monet. The color palette was inspired by Monet's Water Lilies series. The card is made from cold press watercolor paper. The paper was laminated with a scrap piece of decorative paper and the remnant of a map. I chose stamps that had the green and mauve theme of the Monet palette.

The obverse of the postcard was treated with my handmade alcohol inks. I like the pointillistic look of alcohol inks in a spray bottle.

Returning (Hopefully)

I really haven't been away but was finding it tedious to upload pictures to my computer and then format them and then post to blogspot. I was sharing a lot of my projects directly to my Instagram account (russromano). I could take a photo and directly post it to IG and it was much quicker to get everything out in the world.

I am now going to see how things post to blogspot directly from my iPad. If things format correctly and look presentable I might provide more posts.

Here is my first experiment with posting. If this posts well then I will return tomorrow with more details.

Hobonichi 20_21

I received a Hobonichi Techo 2017 as a gift. I received it on 20 January after a mail forwarding fiasco from December. It was a heartfelt gift given to me by someone but I really didn't know what to do with it. For some reason, I thought the journal was going to be a different size. The size is an A6 journal which is about 4 by 5.5 inches.

There are a variety of Pinterest and Instagram hashtags regarding this journal. I decided to fall through the rabbit hole to try and find some inspiration. The pages work well with pens, fountain pens, and  Tombow markers without too much bleed through. It does not work well with Sharpie markers because of the bleed through.

I will be sharing a two page spread every other day as I complete them. I have decided to use a marker legend to coordinate thoughts and notations. Yellow will highlight commentary/thoughts. Orange will highlight work related items. Pink will highlight creative items and Purple will highlight miscellaneous items.

These past two days feature the inauguration and its aftermath.

Sketch Book Challenge 2017--Page 1

This is the first page of my Sketch Book Project. This is the first of four pages. The theme of the book will be repetitive design. My book is called OCD Doodling.

The overall size of each sheet will is 14 by 19 inches. The page will be folded from top to bottom once. The page will then be folded twice toward the center. Therefore, each page in its folded form will be 4.75 by 7 inches.

Happy 2017

Happy New Year. I am still recovering from the absence of the Iron Craft Challenges. I decided to find other avenues to fill the gap. I have signed up for The Sketchbook Project for 2017. I have two ideas and I might do two different journals. The journals are due March 31, 2017 so I still have plenty of time. The first project is a recreation of some of the hand lettered inspirational quotes from last year. I got through six months of daily quotes. This year, I might finish the project as well. The project would be a re-visit to some of the quotes and recreate them in the journal they send. The second idea is a series of fold out pages that will be large doodles using repetitive patterns. One of the themes for this year is repetitive patterns.

Another Iron Craft void filler is a revisit to swap-bot challenges. In these challenges, you swap out projects based on curated and moderated themes. You can sign up for the ones in which you want to participate. I am looking at the different paper swaps--envelopes, post cards, journals, etc.

The first one that I am participating is a post card challenge called D is for ____ Postcard swap. These challenges aren't always handmade items although I will be doing all handmade projects. For this challenge, I was assigned three partners. I decided to do three separate postcards based on a daisy. Each of the cards is based on a daisy stencil that I have.

The first card is a single daisy on a alcohol background.

The second card is a group of daisies on a plaid background. I used my Copic markers for coloring and the plaid background. The black outline was done with a Sharpie fine tip marker.

The third card is the same group of daisies but everything was colored using alcohol inks. The black outline was done after the inks dried. First, the daisies were stenciled using the inks. Second, the background was filled in by ovespraying the entire card with alcohol inks. Once the card was drying, the stencil was put over the daisies and the black outline was drawn using a fine tip Sharpie.

I hope that my swap partners like them.

Iron Craft 2016 Challenge #26--Infinity Scarf

For our last challenge in 2016 and in general, I wanted to pay homage to Kat (and Susi) who had the forethought to create something spectacular called Iron Craft Challenges. I am happy to say that I have, once again, participated in all 26 challenges this year.

To pay tribute to Kat, I wanted to try and knit. Granted, I needed a project that I could complete in two weeks and I knew I wouldn't be able to properly knit something on needles (believe me, I have tried in the past). I did a quick search on You Tube for Infinity Scarf.  I found this video called Arm Knitting (this like will open another window on You Tube).

I had two skeins of orange bulky yarn that I was hoarding, so I decided to give it a try. The hardest part was keeping the tension consistent throughout the project. I did have to start over several times. I also had difficulty sewing the ends to finish the project.

I lost track of the number of rows and was too lazy to count them so I just "knitted" until I was finished. Granted, my scarf was a lot longer than anticipated but I didn't mind that because I hate feeling like I am choking when wearing a scarf. So my last Iron Craft photo will be me modeling my scarf.

Thank you Kat and Susi for a wonderful platform to share our art (and crafts). I am forever blessed to have met such a supportive group of fellow artisans and crafters. Sending you love and well wishes for  all of your future endeavors and a art/craft-filled 2017.

Iron Craft 2016 Challenge #25--Leftovers Wreath

For Challenge #25, we were asked to use our stashes to complete the challenge--no new supplies. After making wreaths for the theater and other people, I still had one wreath remaining from a client that had to cancel her order.

I decided to decorate a wreath for the front door of my apartment. So digging through my stash, I decided to use leftover bits and pieces from other projects and threw them together for my wreath. This really is a jumble of ideas, colors and bits and bobs. So, anything that I had left over was free game. After it was said and done, I really like the way it turned out. It reminds me of an old fashioned Christmas tree with years of memories and ornaments all thrown together.

As a matter of point, I usually don't decorate my apartment for the holidays. Because I am so busy decorating for the theater and for clients, I am usually so exhausted by the time it comes to decorating my apartment that I have no energy or desire left.

This year, I decided to be a little selfish and say no to a couple of clients, for whom I didn't enjoy working, and decided to decorate a small area in my apartment. I also had a trip to Tokyo that took me away for 10 days so it was a little easier to say that I was too busy for clients.

This is a small table in the foyer that I decided to decorate. I covered the wall in a holiday table cloth as a backdrop. I had a Christmas Tree Vintage Ornament set that I brought out (right front). I also decided to use my vintage silver tinsel tree (right back) that I decorated with battery operated lights and faceted metal ornaments from Target, I also used a pink bottle brush tree (left back) that was left over from a previous project. The miniature artificial tree (left front) is from Michaels and is draped with ribbon and vintage mercury ornaments and miniature wood ornaments from Mexico. The wreath is a natural wreath from Target. The stockings are from my collection of stockings that I use for decorating. Each year, I limit my purchases to two new stockings. Mainly, I use them to decorate for clients so they become useful each year. At last count, I had 117 different stockings and will use about 75 stockings each year. The wooden bowl is a handmade bowl that a friend made and gave to me this year as a gift. I decided to make it the centerpiece of the tableau.

I wish the best for you and yours during this holiday season. May the season bring you  light, happiness and joy and I hope you have a spectacular 2017.

Iron Craft 2016 Challenge #24--Lights, Lights, Lights

For Challenge #24, we were asked to create with lights. Being in the middle of my decorating season, I decided to share some of my ideas using lights. These were all designed during this two week period.

Project #1--The Octopus Wreath
This is a throwback to a project that I used to do with younger kids. Originally, we would use a piece of cardboard, wrap it in ribbon and the use tubed icing to put candies on the wreath form. I would always use Lifesavers (either mint or the colorful regular candies). Here is a grown up version that I have used in offices before. This is a Styrofoam form with a flat back (you can also use an extruded Styrofoam form). The first step was to wrap the form with battery operated lights. The second step was to wrap the form and lights in the ribbon of your choice. This isn't totally necessary but I don't like the Styrofoam peeking through the candies. Rather than gluing the candies, I secure the candies with large ball topped quilter's pins. I hang it in a public place so that people can unpin a piece of candy and eat it. I have done a similar wreath at Halloween and used snack sized candy bars.

When in the mood, just flip the switch on the back of the wreath and it lights up. These are red lights under a plaid ribbon.

Project #2--A Vase of Ornaments

This is such an easy idea and is loosely based on Kat's photo/project that accompanied this challenge. Rather than make a wreath of ornaments, I simply took a tall vase and filled it with various sizes of ornaments. This is winter tableau so I used blues, whites, silvers and clear ornaments. I placed some of the smaller ornaments in the bottom and then alternated threading the lights and larger ornaments until the vase was full. The ribbon the top of the vase is decorative but also holds the battery pack in place on the back on the vase.

When you are read, just flip the switch. These are actually twinkling lights which really reflect off the mirrored ornaments.

Project #3--Lighted Packages

View 1 (from the right)

This is another easy project to fill that space that just needs a bit of color or light. I like to use this technique on high shelves or book cases to draw the eye up high or around to specific areas of the room. This is a high shelf that is about 8 feet off the ground. This is a huge room so I wanted to carry the eyes all around. The colors are duplicate from other parts of the room. I simply wrapped empty boxes with reflective paper and decorated the boxes with repeated ornaments and different ribbons. Since there is such little ribbon needed and a basic style wrapping paper, you can use big colors as shown here.

Once the boxes are in place, drape lights above, around and through the boxes to create interest. This is string of lights that is plugged in. The cord is tape down on the back side of the shelf so that it doesn't show.

View 2 (from the front)

When you are ready, just plug in the lights.

View 3 (with lights)