Rain or shine, the mail is delivered

This exchange envelope from Kathy S came in the rain...

...and sadly with the dreaded sharpie cancel on this fantastic stamp.

Paper bags

Every now and again I turn a paper bag into an envelope.

This year Eric has a mail art call to recycle paper bags into mail art.

You can see the ones he has sent and received on his blog.

Here are two more that I sent him recently.

And here are two very nice ones from him in return for ones I have previously sent. The one from the Body Shop has a wonderful stamp on it, and the one with the space-themed washi tape has a great personalized stamp Eric designed.

What's the strangest thing you've turned into an envelope?

Do you have paper bags that you think would make good envelopes?

Envelope 84 - art

This is the last of the art for sale envelopes that I made in the 1990s.

Stamped

Addressed

And the back

Envelope 424

One of Picasso's women.

With Duchamp's Nude descending a staircase, No. 2.

Sent to Jean.

There was an another woman in the 'liner'.

Envelope exchange 2014: #278 to Elena

Rothko

Marin and Elena on Rothko

The back

Guess the stamp game - the final answer. (And bonus links)

The answer to last week's envelope in question is...

... Joseph Stella's 'Brooklyn Bridge' from the Modern Art in America 1913-1931 stamp sheet.

Thanks so much to Hester and Jean for playing along, it was a lot of fun to see what guesses you would make. All the ones from last week would have been fun - I didn't even consider any of those as options.

___________________________________

Bonus links today. If you haven't checked out some of Cara G's blog posts lately, you're really missing out.

She runs an anthropomorphic mail art project that is a lot of fun, and recently has had some incredible mail art from Philippe Charron.

The anthropomorphic mail art project

One of the most creative pieces of mail art I've seen - giraffe by Philippe Charron.

His home improvement monkey.

A cooking dog, with an amazing use of a postage stamp.

And his fantastic bears, made all the more beautiful by the cool French bear stamps.

There's also a jaguar general.

You can see all the entries for Cara's project by clicking here.

Mail Monday II part 2

More from Mail Monday II.

This is a fantastic envelope made from an old calendar page that Jan H sent me. I think the stamp is a great match here. I have been eyeing my own old calendars that are lying around gathering dust, so maybe I'll make some bigger envelopes from them. Watch this space.

Envelope 85

In the envelope exchange, Cathy O was the only one I didn't send one of the envelopes to. I decided it was time to fix that.

Don't be shocked by the non-diagonal format, regular viewers. I love the blue horse in the lower left painting.

The modern art in America stamps are perfect for these vintage envelopes.

I mimicked the painting captions for the address.

And the back. 

Envelopes 79 & 93 : Exchange 13

I still have a couple of envelope exchange entries to go.

My first response to Betty R was envelope 79. The front: the lady at the very top of the flap is my favorite.

Stamped: I like the contrast of the sharp-eyed poet with the deckchair sleepers.

Addressed:

And the back:

When I was finished, I wasn't 100% happy with it, so I sent a second envelope. I'm not quite sure what I didn't like so much, maybe the address should have been horizontal. I like it better on the blog, I think - maybe I was just being nitpick.

This envelope also had a woman's face on the 'liner', and in this case I have no idea who she is, an actress most likely.

The front of number 93: this is one of the glossy magazine envelopes. 

Stamped: there really was no other choice here.

Addressed: I emulated the stamp lettering. Perhaps this could have worked better if it was lower down, but I liked the overall effect.

And the back.

Smash art

Smash admired the '3-D lettered' envelope I sent to Jean, so I sent her one.

In return, she sent me this piece of art. I think the cleverest part is the red stars that reference the pane of art on the stamp. Even the red hand-cancel fits well with the red tones on the envelope. Genius.

Thanks, Smash!

I think Smash laments the fact that the sorting machine usually apply barcodes, and this one did not escape. I have never noticed the barcode include the full zipcode before, although maybe I haven't been looking closely.

Finnbadger 3

Jean sent me one of her grid envelopes with one of the stunning modern art stamps. I'm a fan of geometric shapes, and modern art, so the combination was very pleasing.

Just a pity the post office worker scrawled in pink marker on the stamp to cancel it - I wish they all had nice franks with which to cancel stamps that make it through the sorting process unscathed. Makes me want to scan a clean version of the stamp and photoshop the image.

I like the clever way Jean wrote the address, although she felt it was a little forced in places.

Finnbadger 2

Another fantastic envelope from Jean. Here's a section of it.

I love the way the energy of the figures & shapes on the stamp and envelope work together, as well as the colors.

Great stuff as always.

Envelope 83

In my note to Jean I did say that I thought this one was made an easy choice by the incredible fine art stamps issued in March.

The stamps are relatively large, so the great thing about the article this envelope was made from is the large amount of white space (now well-aged off-white) to accommodate it. I also love the running hare painting by Colin Finn (no relation to FinnBadger, sadly).

Here is the sealed envelope with the stamp:



I attempted to mimic the captions on the paintings for the address. 

In hindsight the stamp should have been lower down with the address above it, like painting 14. I was thrown off by painting 15, and I think I am still too fixated on having the address too central. Must use other part of brain more. I also opted for clear labels. They aren't 100% transparent, but better than bright white for my purposes.

I might need to find an envelope that doesn't require a slanted address next time - Jean is going to think I'm a one-trick pony.



I didn't add additional postage, so I hope there wasn't too much delay in delivery.

Edit: it arrived unscathed. See Jean's response.