May PTEX - Bridget, Jolene, Robert and Maureen

There is no rhyme or reason to the order of the envelopes. When I have more than 20 to do in a month, I sometimes peak early and the last few are dogs. That happened in May. Of course the first 3 or 4 are dogs, too.

I forgot to do a green envelope for Bridget and all the green markers were put away. I had three more and some grayish stamps. They were pinkish gray - so the cool gray markers really bug me.

I liked the border idea which was appropriated from Barbara Calzolari's IG. Her border was very precise and more delicate. It would have been easy to duplicate - but I was going for something chunkier. There is such a fine line between loose and wild.

There is a close up at the end showing how I did some additional lines with a G-Tec and that helped a bit.

I liked the idea on Maureen's - and after I took the photo, I added fine gray G-Tec. It helped - but was not WOW enough to re-photograph. If I had it to do over - I would have done her name all the way to the bottom and put the address in tiny letters flush right under the stamps.

I liked the big lettering on Robert's and Jolene's. After photographing, I added some details. There is a photo of the details below. But, they were both a little ho-hum. This was the month where I really hit a wall, creatively speaking.

As previously mentioned, I am taking a break from exchanging even though I am still running the exchanges. Hopefully, my batteries are recharging. I've thought about trying to make the envelopes ugly -- and then they'd turn out great. I think there is a style of art called Art Brut - that tried to be *ugly.*

Maybe I'll research and report back.

I love Google. One click and we can have a mini-art lesson.

Here is a link to the site where I appropriated the following words:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/art-brut

Art brut is a French term that translates as 'raw art', invented by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art such as graffiti or naïve art which is made outside the academic tradition of fine art

Jean Dubuffet saw fine art as dominated by academic training, which he referred to as ‘art culturel’ or cultural art. For Dubuffet, art brut − which included graffiti, and the work of the insane, prisoners, children, and primitive artists was the raw expression of a vision or emotions, untramelled by convention. He attempted to incorporate these qualities into his own art, to which the term art brut is also sometimes applied.

Dubuffet made a large collection of art brut, and in 1948 founded the Compagnie de l’Art Brut to promote its study. His collection is now housed in a museum, La Collection de l’Art Brut in the Swiss city of Lausanne. Another major collection, using the term outsider art, is the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, now on loan to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.

Back to me, Jean, writing.
I remember when the Des Moines Art Center bought a Dubuffet and word got out about how much they paid for it and people were outraged. I think it caused them to be very careful about ever divulging acquisition costs.

You can hear the director of the Des Moines Art Center talking about it and see it here:

https://soundcloud.com/des-moines-art-center/dubuffet