Mailart 365 has moved

For years I've wanted to use chalkboard paint in my home. Now that we are home owners it's finally going to happen. We have some ideas, but they haven't been executed yet. In the meantime, while I've been on my mailart break I've been wanting to do lots of nonsense sketches in my sketchbook. It occurred to me to make some chalkboard painted postcards so I could do nonsense sketches as mailart, but still make the pieces interesting. The cards have all been spray fixed so they won't smudge in the mail.



-Robyn (robayre)

If you are not familiar familiar with embossing, it's a method in which you get a raised type. Above are some thumbnails at an angle so you can see how it looks. I also encourage you to click on the link at the top and see a picture tutorial. But basically an image is printed with embossing fluid on paper and then the embossing powder sprinkled over it. The powder adheres to where the fluid was and the excess is removed. Then the powder is heated and the powder melts and sticks together and looks more like a raised liquid on the paper.


I started out by carving a few small little triangle stamps to make some banners and test out the embossing process.


When I think of banner messages, I think of sayings like "SURPRISE" or "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" so I though it would be funny to make some banners that were a little less exciting, like "it's your birthday... or not!" and "I don't want to go to work!" Wouldn't that be funny to walk into a party and that was the banner hanging there?


At first I only bought black and green, so the next day I went back to see if there were any other colors I'd like. I decided to play with some other carved stamps I made.


This is when I started experimenting with painting with the embossing fluid in the bottle.


This is when I got the idea to thin out the fluid and put it in my Kempar Drawing Pen that Rosa gave me eons ago. That pen comes in handy so often!


I was able to get multiple colors by drawing out one part, sprinkling the powder and then drawing another and repeating. I learned if I heated each color between each color by the end the original colors would start to flatten out and get absorbed into the paper.



Lastly, I went over many of the finished cards with light, wet layers of watercolor. I had a lot of fun making these, and I know this will not be the last time I have embossed things to share... I'm thinking maybe some paper products for the etsy shop!
-Robyn (robayre)

I purchased a bag of vintage photographs from the flea market and decided to use some of them for the mailart 365 project.

I started out with the idea to create outfits using my paper collection.

Then I had the idea to do more of the environment in paper. This piece is a very "Robayre" piece, obviously, with all the individual pieces of grass. It was time consuming, but I love how it came out.


Here is another detail

Another environment piece

Another wardrobe piece.

While I was working I suddenly thought of the artist Alyn Carlson and her lovely paper hats. I love her hats and immediately I knew some of my vintage folks needed to wear some fancy hats! I love how they came out and it was so much fun to create their hats.

and another close up

Here's a bathing beauty and her showy hat

and last but not least, a lovely pair and their extraordinary hats.
-Robyn (robayre)

Hi everyone! It's been a loooooong time since I've shared my contributions. A lot has happened this year, including most recently buying a house and moving. I'm back on track again, but although I was sharing my mailart on my personal blog and on flickr, I forgot to post over here for a bunch of weeks. I'm going to try and catch up and post a few every day, so as not to swamp the site. I'm behind 7 weeks on my own blog as well, so hopefully I'll get on top of this (here and there) over the next week or two.

This week's postcards (118-124) were based on photos I took of my friends' Tom and Nikki's dog. This was the puppy that my friend Nikki (29y/o) wanted for years and years. She finally got him just a few months before she passed away (from cancer earlier this year). We were dog sitting earlier this summer so I snapped these pictures. You can read more about the process and about Nikki on my original blog post here.

My sister brought to my attention that I am officially one third of the way through this mailart 365 project :)

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Another Mailart 365 update.


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-Robyn

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-Robyn