a while back, there were a couple letters from jackie with the abstract expressionist stamps. they were pretty tame. basically, they just had the address in a pleasant wavy line. happily, jackie has channeled her inner abstract expressionist and this one is way splashier and exciting. i refuse to call this scribbling. it's way better than scribbles. but, she probably spends more than 30 seconds on an envelope like this. hopefully she will post a comment and let us know how long one of these takes. and, i hope i can figure out how to send an emailed image of a download. she did a splashy entry for the graceful envelope and i predict it will be the winner.
Thank you for posting my artwork! It's so fun to see what kinds of marks the post office adds, and I am especially happy with the addition of the wavy lines on the stamp. This envelope was done in three stages. Stage one I stuck the stamp on the envelope, which I usually never do until last. This stage caused me to feel completely immobilized for about a month, and I honestly cannot remember what possessed me to do such a foolish thing. Stage two, I did the red with a couple of different ruling pens. That took about an hour, with breaks to go away and come back for a fresh look. Stage three, next day, I did the black with an automatic pen. That only took a few minutes. Then I added the address with a Mitchell pen which also took just a few minutes. The thing that takes the longest amount of time is waiting for the gouache to dry, and of course, if you put the stamp on first, it takes a while to find the courage to make the first mark.
ReplyDeletewow. that's quite a process. i'm glad i asked. as for putting the stamp on first...LOL ROF. i guess you didn't know that you can peel the stamps off. if you burnish them down, you can't. but if you just place them and don't press, they will come off pretty easily. thanks for telling us about your process.
ReplyDeleteNow I remember why I put the stamp on the envelope! I had already peeled it off once; I'd put it on an ordinary envelope for a bill or something, and decided the stamp was too nice for it! Once peeled, that stamp didn't want to go back on the postal sheet with the other abstract expressionists, so I grabbed the nearest envelope and quickly stuck it on. Then I paused and said to myself, "Oh boy. Now what do I do?"
ReplyDeleteok...that makes a lot more sense than.....just putting a stamp on an envelope first....that's like those guys who jump off cliffs in the suits that look like flying squirrels. but, obviously, taking the leap inspired a really nice envelope, so maybe you need to do it again. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe thought had occurred to me to do an entire series stamp first. Fairly stressful craft method, though it did get me to plan my mail art around the stamp, which, as you know, I usually neglect to do. Sitting around waiting for the post office to design a stamp that works with something I've already made is even more inefficient than waiting a whole month to mess up a pre-stamped envelope.
ReplyDeleteUpon further reflection, I think my painting process did not occur over the course of two days, because I can see some wet-in-wet results. This happens when I am too impatient for the gouache to dry - with not entirely undesirable results. I am also pretty sure that I did some fine lines in black with a ruling pen. In all honesty, I'm not always thinking step-by-step when I do this kind of artwork. The stamp scenario, I assure you, was absolute truth.
ReplyDeletewhen we get out joint mcarthur genius grant, we can hire someone to document our process(s) and hire someone to edit these posts because i do not know the plural of process and heaven knows we have more than one
ReplyDeleteLOL. Yes, please, would someone teach us how to edit the comments? This is the realm where a hasty comment a) lasts forever, or b) leaves a flag that makes people wonder what stupid thing you said that you wished you hadn't. Plus we're dealing with a word/scribble translation issue here. A person gets into scribble mode and the tongue-brain turns to glue. How are we going to get any grants? This blog is proof that you can't spell and I ramble on and tell fibs.
ReplyDeletewell, if we can't get a genius grant then i think we should get our own reality tv program. although you don't watch tv, so i guess we can just film on this end and i'll read all your posts out loud and do impersonations of you.
ReplyDelete