Mailart 365 has moved

As a postcard fanatic, I own far too many postcards that I'm "supposed to send" and often buy bundles of cards which often contain stuff that's just rubbish.

One aim of this project was to get through some of these and inject some life into these cards which nobody really wants to get.



This is one example of the sort of thing I mean. This card was part of a bundle and was from the now-defunct Athena chain. It's titled "Tracy Mills II", so I tried to google for who the person is, but could find nothing.

So obviously, this card would probably appeal to a grand total of nobody in the world. Hopefully, now with a little watercolour and fineliner enhancement, I hope that the new lease of life will make it a little more appealing to the 2 new recipients.

Another piece inspired by the news. This time it's about Camilla Batmanghelidjh, the former CeO of Kids Company, who apparently didn't do anything dodgy to get the £3 million grant from the government before her business went bankrupt. Honest.

Watercolour and fineliner version of the front page of the Evening Standard from the day of the London Mayoral Election result

Thank you note for an eBay for some Olympics 2012 stamps.

I am really getting into this series. Still can't believe that we've sold so many of these stamps from the 2012 Olympics, but sales seem to be picking up. This one is of Charlotte Dujardin.

Earlier this week, we sent out 5 sets of stamps with a Thank You note and received the most wonderful feedback on our Postcards from us site, which made it all worthwhile.

I'm probably going to make some more of these biro, watercolour and collage pieces for myself. I rather like the medium

Kerching! Kerching! Kerching!

The sound of the eBay app when a sale comes through is one of the greatest pleasures of modern life I think and today,  as Elena and I sat reading after lunch we heard the app going. 

No sooner had Elena said "You'd better get the paintbrush out", the sound of another sale came through, then another, then another and another! I had no idea how I was going to draw 5 thank you notes, so I decided to condense all 5 images into one and here we are with a medley of Olympians. It was an olympian feat trying to fit all these onto the page I can tell you!

Sold another Olympic  stamp set on eBay, this time featuring Jade Jones, Taekwondo gold medallist. As usual, I hand-illustrated a thank you note of the stamp and enclosed it  in the envelope, hence why I don't give it a number of it's own.


I'm really pleased with the way that this sub-series is shaping up. I like mixing up the media and the general effect of the pieces. I have to admit though, the best bit is getting surprised feedback from eBay customers, who weren't expecting illustrated notes or envelopes. Sending to mailartists is all fine and stuff, but when you get feedback like

Great seller - stamps perfect & included very sweet little note with order! A+++

and

Absolutely first class seller, brilliant packaging and thank you card. Loved it

It makes sending to total strangers that little bit more rewarding :-)

Quite out of the blue today Elena and I sold a set of Andy Murray Olympic stamps on eBay. Whenever we sell anything online, we always pimp up the envelope of add an additional illustrated insert. This was an insert, watercoloured and collaged. I didn't want to waste me time drawing faces, so thought I'd put in a random face as I did before with the Olympic rowers. I rather like this as a stylistic device, so will do the whole series like this.

I'm not counting this towards the numbering as it's not external art


The original stamp set looked like this

I couldn't bring myself to count this as part of my 365 as it's not an envelope and not going to be viewable as it travels the postal system. I've just sold a set of Olympic rowers stamps on eBay and done this little watercolour and biro Thank You note which is going inside. Just wanted to share a little more art with the mail and with you


The original stamps looked like this


but as I can't be bothered to draw faces, I decided to put Liam Neeson and Denzel Washington in instead.

If you want a set of stamps yourself, get yourself over to the little site that Elena and I run at Postcardsfrom.us and we promise to send illustrations along for free :-)

I'm quite pleased with this postcard. I played with this technique at making trees and this is the the best of the lot. I added a virtual frame for a better display.