Tag Archives: mail art

Stencil letters and postcards

You might remember that a while back I stenciled these about to be discarded T-shirts with these super-deep messages?

As an update, they are doing fine and they seem to be enjoying their new lives as cultural icons. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about, really.

What I meant to say was something simpler. I had some cut out cardboard postcards on my work table as I was painting and I smeared them with leftover paint, as is my habit. There they languished until the stencils came along. I took the opportunity to use them on the painted backgrounds, no meaning, no rhyme or reason, just letter shapes. Here are a couple of the resulting postcards.

Tiny Lion

I made this postcard in April, 2022, for my granddaughter. Her name is Leona, and that means “lion”, and a cat is a tiny lion, right? Just like her.

I think the cat and mouse in this picture are just meeting, and they will become friends.

I did this image in India ink, and acrylic markers, and a little bit of pen, I think – on a watercolor postcard.

Etegami (sort of) Three

I made a few postcards in April, 2022, inspired by a class I was taking at the time that compared Eastern and Western art. I was thinking of the scrolls I had seen in class that contained poetry and artwork.

I drew on the tradition of etegami to guide me, doing a loose interpretation by illustrating a haiku (written by me) rather than including a simple phrase, but I stuck with the idea of mail art, spontaneous art work, and something pleasant that a person would like to receive in the mail.

This is the third and last postcard I made in this small series.

I used India ink and a bamboo brush, and I painted the colors with gouache. It’s done on a watercolor paper postcard.

Etegami (sort of) Two

I made a few postcards in April, 2022, inspired by a class I was taking at the time that compared Eastern and Western art. I was thinking of the scrolls I had seen in class that contained poetry and artwork.

I drew on the tradition of etegami to guide me, doing a loose interpretation by illustrating a haiku (written by me) rather than including a simple phrase, but I stuck with the idea of mail art, spontaneous art work, and something pleasant that a person would like to receive in the mail.

This is the second postcard I made.

I used India ink and a bamboo brush, and I painted the colors with gouache. It’s done on a watercolor paper postcard.

Etegami (sort of) One

I made this postcard in April, 2022, inspired by a class I was taking at the time that compared Eastern and Western art. I was thinking of the scrolls I had seen in class that contained poetry and artwork.

I decided to draw on the tradition of etegami to guide me. I’ve done a somewhat loose interpretation, by illustrating a haiku (written by me) rather than including a simple phrase, but I stuck with the idea of mail art, spontaneous art work, and something pleasant that a person would like to receive in the mail.

Here is the first one:

I used India ink and a bamboo brush, and I painted the colors with gouache. It’s done on a watercolor paper postcard.