Mailart 365 has moved

We sold 6 sharpies over the weekend and I was out at Carnival so on Tuesday morning I had to cut some corners so I dashed this one out and coloured it in about 4 minutes.

Not so blind because I actually had my contact lenses in by the time I drew today. I pilfered the scrabble letters from Mink Ranger's photo of circles on his blog: http://minxuslynxus2.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/spreading-the-difference-shameless-minxus-selfpromotion-2/  I think I do believe quite vehemently that even in the heart of Suffolk, the ideas of minxus are alive, if a bit conventional, in this case...

You might notice that I am posting more than card at the moment... I began my 365 on the 28th of September and have pretty much been making one per day.  There have been a few times when it was just impossible.  I also think I forgot to post some stuff before I mailed it so suspect that missing mail may be just extra mail...  I have kept track, but sometimes it has just been too hectic. Anyway, I realise that I have have a few outstanding cards so am trying to 'catch up'.

In most important business, I want to send Mim's wonderful, treasured, mailart 365 stamp on to another lucky mail artist.  Please let me know if you want to have it.  I will pick a name out of a hat or somesuch on the September 28th and may send it on to you! message me on IUOMA http://iuoma-network.ning.com/profile/RebeccaGuyver if you are interested!

Every summer we designate 'the summer of...'  This year we named our Cranberry summer: the summer of the squid. We have all been on the lookout for proof that we made the right choice. Versacci  has a squid design.   There is a wine with a squid label. Today  ir received an article about the 'Inky invasion.'  It turns out it wasn't just the summer of the squid for us but for all along the East coast of Maine.

I loved making this piece. The initial pencil work had no life at all, but as I added colours, with subtle changes in yellow for the beak and toes and a hint of red for the tongue the bird came to life. I added the blue sky in promarker flex at the end, and the colour seemed to breathe life into the piece. At that point you could really feel the movement. I didn't think colour was that powerful a tool until now

Depending on which comics I'm reading I do sometimes spend weeks and months dreaming of being a particular artist or writer. This week, I'm reading the 4th instalment of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's "Locke and Key" and I'm torn between wishing I could write like Joe Hill or wishing I could draw like Gabriel Rodriguez.

Up until book 2, I was definitely dreaming of being Joe Hill, despite Rodriguez's art being so amazing, but now on the 4th instalment "Keys to the Kingdom" Rodriguez has slightly pipped into the lead. In the opening story of the book, "Sparrows" he adopts a drawing style similar to Charles M. Schulz (of Peanuts/Snoopy), but plays with panel layouts so fluently I can't help but drip with jealousy. His foreground artwork in the childlike style of Peanuts makes you think for just one brief moment that you may be able to draw like that, until you realise that in the background he's drawing like Gabriel Rodriguez and it's just out of your reach again!

So I picked up a foreground panel of sparrows in attack formation and put my pens to work. If I start with a little Rodriguez, and work my way from there, who knows, maybe one day...

got some new buttons today from Skybridge studio and wanted to show them off.  Wa thining about the Lynx, then the badger and realised I had a fun play on words.

Thinking of Maine and trying out my inks again.

Found some cardboard int he recycling and did a bit of pasting before we set off for the pub.

postcard to Tania Pagliara

If all vampires were this cute we'd be in trouble when we bent down to pick em up. It's the cute ones you have to watch out for if you ask me

It's been a crazy Bank Holiday weekend. The August bank holiday, which always falls on the last weekend of August is my favourite weekend of the year, being carnival weekend, so everything else takes a back seat as I hit the streets of London and party in costume to the sounds of the Caribbean. This year, over carnival weekend, we sold 6 packs of Sharpies, so I had to take some shortcuts, so out came the flower again, this time with different colours and border

I find raw anatomy so hard to draw. There's all sorts of subtle perspective that I just can't get my head around. This is a little homage to my favourite childhood arcade game

This was cropped twice by the printer, once in printing - my printer loses its signal all the time GROWL and will only print part.  I Liked the way it cropped things this time.  Then when I scanned it it cropped it again, not so nice and wonky besides. I mounted the print on a bit of recycled chocolate box and then label closed it.  It is an irregular size so we'll see what the postlady says...

Found the magazine scrap in a 1930 magazine.  Love the line! another thank you/goodbye.

Some of the series of thank you notes/ goodbyes to colleagues at the charity I have been working with for the past six years. Fell in love with the fuscia CD I got for a project funded by the Big Lottery and saved it.  Glad I did!

I wrote a little blog post about Cheryl Penn's supposed to be automatic writing.  The expressive drawing book talks about automatic painting and drawing.  Taking all that together I played, throwing in a bit of what I imagine holism is.

"Invasion of Postage Stamps"

This time I did a blind drawing and added something imaginary to it and then used less naturalistic colour which I heightened in photoshop.

Tiny Skulls - 70 project