Aug from Sharen

Many pretty layers of mixed media - coordinates nicely with the stamp.

She included this:

Sharen, a newer exchanger, likes to fill her envelope with fun stuff. Above is a nice perspective on mail-art. When people send fun stuff or notes in the exchange envelopes, I always feel like I should make a bigger effort to put stuff in the envelopes that I send - but I always send at least 20 envelopes - and I hope everyone understands that I have a finite amount of time to do the mailings and also post on the blog. So, I'm going to just let it go - and not worry about reciprocating.

Other items in Sharen's envelope included:

Scrambling to fill the posts --- sign-up for October is tomorrow.....

 

Aug from Kate - Susy Ratto

Kate did her version of Susy Ratto lettering - or at least that is what it looks like to me. I was amazed that I could pull the name Susy Ratto out of the cobwebby parts of my memory. I took a minute to see what she's up to and other than her books, I did not find any references to anything current. If anyone knows what happened to Susy - I'd love to know. Her books were coming out around the time I discovered brush lettering. At the time, I was submitting designs to Better Homes & Gardens so I never tried any of Susy's styles. As much as I love to copy, I needed to come up with things that were different. Now that I am retired, I could delve into Susy's designs - but all my ZIG brush markers are pretty dried up. I wonder where Susy lived/lives. I wonder if Kate ever took a class with her. This style goes very nicely with the skateboards. 

 

Aug from Patty - worm + museum video

 Patty pulled out her watercolors - I wonder if she has signed up for more classes. I'll have to ask her. As previously mentioned, I met Patty when I was teaching at the art museum in my back yard. In a recent email from the museum there was a link to a video which I am attaching along with another video of a worm - also in my back yard. 

Actually, there are two worms. I found the large one and scooped it into the trowel and took it over to a place where I would not be digging. Then I found the smaller one and thought it might be a parent child situation so I brought the large one back and left them alone while they burrowed back into the ground. So worms burrow? Or is there a better word.

Well - the video does not seem to be working. So I deleted it.

Here is the  LINK to museum video. It is 2 minutes. 

Yes, this is an odd juxtaposition - I'm doing research on attaching videos to my posts and the worms seemed a little odd - so the museum link is supposed to balance out the oddity.

Aug from Mia - sewing machine

This is very pretty and made it through two postal systems. I'm a little sad about the angry slash. 

I'm only 10 days ahead on getting these blog posts scheduled. We might have to put up with some really short posts. 

***

Quick add-on - for the people who have sewing machines and always wondered how the thread on the bobbin crossed over with the thread on the top.

Here are some people who are acting out how it works. I did not have time to delve into who these people are or if they have other things to see.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_ELeY-PP3p/

and here is the same thing - in an illustrated video that probably makes more sense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2681yeSrsM0

 

Aug from Mary - Jane Brocket on dots

Mary had fun with Popeye and Olive Oyl. I remember reading Popeye comics as a kid and I thought Olive was lovely. The whole thing with Bludo/Brutus really bothered me. I just allowed myself 5 minutes of research and Oh.My.Gosh - that was too much information. My child-like gut-instinct that a big thug was not entertaining was an appropriate insight. 

***

Cathy sent me this w.o.n.d.e.r.f.u.l. blog post from Jane Brocket that is right up my alley - Jane loves dots - and there are many wonderful examples. She does a good job of embracing all the different ways of experiencing dots - with the exception of Damien Hirst's dots - which makes no sense to me. I love his dot paintings - 

She said: All these marks are so very different to the famous but lifeless, sterile spot paintings by Damien Hirst

I like his work for precisely the reason she doesn't like them - they would be easy to replicate. To her, that is lifeless and sterile - but to me - anyone who makes art that I can duplicate is being wildly generous. I don't mind that he is making big bucks - that's the path he is on. I love that I learned how to make Sol LeWitt paintings - his whole *thing* was coming up with the concept - and letting other people execute it. 

Thank you SO MUCH Cathy for sending this

LINK to Jane Brocket blog

This is just the first image - there are a lot more that are even more to my liking.

 

Aug from Leslie

This hot envelope arrived from Leslie. The style of lettering d-a-n-c-e-s across the envelope.

Once again, she had a clever way to arrange all three names.

Grrrrr at the postal worker who added the entirely unnecessary Sharpie slash. The stamp is clearly canceled - and it looks nice to have it centered.

I ran this envelope a couple weeks ago and said I would run it again and include the goodies that were inside. First goodie is the card with the colors that were peeking through the cut out shapes.

Second goodie is this adorable little card - seen from the front and then the inside.

And here is is flipped over.

Wait. There's more.

Another cut paper name.

So cool. 

I am having fond memories of my foray into cut alphabets - 

and then I developed tennis elbow from too much cutting

and that was the end of my cut-based art.

 

Aug from Irene - thank you stamps

If you copied down the recipe from JeanR on how to do the leaf prints - change aluminum to alum.

I corrected the post.

 Nice collaboration between USPS and Irene. Although it's not a collaboration. It is what we call an *add and pass* - there is a whole genre of mail art (or traded art that is sent in a plain envelope) where people start something and send it to the next person and that person adds something and then passes it to the next  person. There is no limit to the number of people. I wonder if anyone who exchanges would like to do an add-and-pass. Maybe I will start one and see what happens.

If you are interested in an add-and-pass - send and email - and we can start one with however many people sign up. Email me at ptenvelopes(at)aol(dot)com - and put *add-and-pass* in the subject line.

Irene enjoys zentangles - which would be good starting points for an add-and-pass.

***

I did not see this stamp on all the lists of stamps that were coming out in 2024 - it is not on the fold out chart that was included in the Philatelic magazine that the USPS publishes. 

Maybe someday I will send thank yous to the people who provide healthcare if I end up getting some. If I had time, I could scroll through the blog and give links to the numerous stories about people who received thank yous in artistic envelopes who were wildly excited. 

One favorite story is from someone who signed up for one of my 7 week classes. We covered envelopes early on - and a couple weeks later she arrived at the class and told us that she had been sending thank yous in decorated envelopes - and people were so wowed with their envelopes that they were sending thank yous to her for their thank yous. 

 

Aug from Grace - Haley's envelope ideas

Grace went in a collage direction in August and had some lovely nautical stamps. The lettering is more casual to look more like penmanship rather than formal calligraphy even though it helps a lot if you've worked on your calligraphy to be able to toss off something as fun as that.

One of the exchangers made a comment indicating a wishfulness to be able to draw. I was (am) always looking for ways to show people that drawing is something that can be fun and easy. I ran across Haley Ivers' work and it is a perfect example of how much fun it can be to draw some very simple shapes and *voila* you are drawing. 

Here's a link to her blog:

https://www.haleyivers.com/blog/4-ways-to-address-letters

I'd rearrange the watermelon to leave the top corner open for the stamp

\\

The lemon is my favorite - but I like the vines. Rather than drawing each tiny leaf, I would use a brush marker to tap-tap-tap them.

I would NOT recommend doing the name and address at an angle on a petal - as she did no the one below.

I'd put the center of the flower in the upper left corner  which would leave enough white space for the name and address. Or position the petals so that one of them was horizontal for the scanner.

 

Aug from Juliana - 7 videos

This style that Juliana used for her August envelope looks somewhat familiar. I remember one that I called wrought iron - although they might be different. I'd have to do some digging to compare. I like how it is very legible - to humans. I wonder what the scanner made of it. It arrived promptly, so maybe the scanner liked it.

***

I never know if anyone looks at the links that I post in the add ons. There was a video with yawning a couple weeks ago and if you back tracked on that link, you would have found that the maker of the yawning video had other videos. I watched all of them and then put the link in a folder so I must have liked them well enough to think that they would make a good add-on. Sometimes I include disclaimers if I think there is anything that is a little too far out. I would have to re-watch all of them to see if any of them are far-out, and I don't have time, so you are on your own.

I'm pleased that so far, I have never heard back from anyone that the things I post are too far out. My readers are so polite. Or maybe they are far out. 

https://vimeo.com/danielmercadante

 

July from Juliana - Rob Arnold, beachcomber artist

JeanR sent me a message about how she made the card that appeared yesterday. It is a leaf print done by dying the paper. She stacks paper with leaves in between each sheet. Then she rolls the paper and ties it with a string. Then she cooks it in a big kettle with pieces of iron, alum, vinegar and onion skins. The iron leaves black imprints and the onion leaves provide the yellow. She boils it for about an hour and then leaves it overnight to cool down and then unwraps it in the morning. Thanks, JeanR for the recipe. I'm tempted to try it.....

This is from Juliana. I think she said she used the big PITT marker for the name. That stamp is so perfect. Repetition is one of my favorite design principles. Repeating the name - all the same - or variations is style and color is a lovely way to fill in spaces. She only used the blues and greens off the stamp and I think that was a good choice. I think pink would have been adding too much contrast. Tomorrow's envelope is from Juliana and clearly - is postmarked *Aug* - so I deduced that this was July and it took a long time to arrive - so it ended up in the August stack.

***

A recurring topic on my blog is the collecting of trash and then turning it into art. I spent a lot of time looking at this guy's work and it was hard to choose one example. 

That is not Easter Island -- it is his own Moai made from plastic that he found on the beach.

https://www.instagram.com/rob.arnold.art/

I Google his name and there are several articles about him. 

He's British

Here is just one of the articles - I did not read it before linking to it - might get around to it when this post pops up. Time flies - and I have 9 more posts to write to fill up this month.

https://www.lyfta.com/blog/post/beachcomber-united-kingdom

 

 

Aug from JeanR - fire tower lookout

I love these colors and will label this steal worthy. I even have some envelopes like those. The hard part will be finding the right stamps. I don't think the coffee stamps are available.

And how did she do that note card?

If you are reading this, JeanR, please let me know.

As we all know, the topics on the blog meander. We had that fun topic about how many different careers there were amongst our little tribe. I mentioned forest fire lookout - and I might have mentioned that JeanR was the one who spent time in a lookout tower. I think I even said that I would schedule a meetup with JeanR to find out more about what all was involved.

I wish I had taken notes during our conversation because there were more than these two things - but these are the ones that really stuck in my head. Her first experience was her honeymoon. I think it was 2 months. Doesn't that sound like a fun honeymoon - assuming both people liked the rustic ambiance.

Then, at the other end of the spectrum - I asked her what ages her kids were when the family spent time in the lookout tower. I think she said that one summer she had a 3 yr old and a 5 yr old and she was pregnant. OK - that sounds like way more challenge than the average mom would like. Although, I think the two kids were boys - so the part of me that had 2 boys can picture taking two boys to a forest for a couple months because they could entertain themselves endlessly. I can picture girls who like the forest - but my daughter would not have been a happy camper. She did embrace the wilderness later in life. And to be honest, my family did enough camping when I was a kid that I have never, ever had any inkling to camp.

The forest where Jean and family were stationed was in Idaho and the area was very rocky. I think Jean said that there was little danger of them being caught in any kind of fire. I welcome any corrections or additions that Jean cares to add.

 

Aug from Rachael - Line video

Rachael sent this in August and I immediately started working on one for her using the technique. I had so much fun that I might do lots more. It would be helpful to know how she approaches the lettering. I never use a light table and I recently gave mine away - and of course - I was thinking that a light table would be the best way to letter the name and then just color in all the white space. The other thing I was thinking about was a disappearing pen. I used to have one and am tempted to get another one. They are mostly used in sewing, but I think they work on paper. It probably depends on the paper.

***

I love, love, love this little video on lines. It reminds me that the simplest things are often the most fun and effective. I'm writing this on the day I finished up my Sept exchange envelopes and am tempted to start on October....

LINK to a 2min15sec video of lines

I like all that is written at the link as much as the video.

 

Aug from Jessica - Landsat

This one, from Jessica, reminds me of the sun. I know that Jessica has a son who is elementary school aged. I wonder if he is into NASA stuff. Or maybe just bird's eye views of the earth. I sent the link below to my grandson and am waiting to hear what he thinks. I wrote the blurb below before I added the envelope so it reflects that at first I did not notice that this was a NASA website and veered off into one of my sci-fi daydreams.

 ***

This is a fun way to spell out names or words. You type the letters in and they are magically converted into images taken from Landsat. I would have to spend more time at this website to find out what Landsat is. It appears to be the same as Google Earth - but maybe not. Hopefully it is not a feature on the internet set up by aliens from other planets to infiltrate our lives. Yes, I am still pondering my science fiction book where all things electronic are actually aliens from other galaxies who are behind all this very clever stuff that we keep finding.

https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/apps/YourNameInLandsat-main/index.html

OK - the *sat* part of Landsat is for satellite - that should have been obvious.

OK, I did click back to *Camp Landset* and it looks like a fun place for kids and adults who are curious about things related to NASA.

Aug from C - Big stuff

This envelope is from a new exchanger who goes by C. She lives in New Mexico. And she included a nice double sided card. Welcome to the exchange C. I like that style of lettering - and the way it fills the side panel - and created interesting shapes.

 

***

Facebook offered another topic for an add-on. A friend of mine posted that she had seen an item on CBS Sunday morning in 2017 about Casey, IL - a town that has a lot of fun oversized items. She finally got around to visiting and it looks like it was worth the trip.

World's largest mailbox. 

I should send them the world's largest postcard or envelope.

Then I found the original program on CBS.

There is a brief commercial at the beginning.

I found some other photos - but they are not re-postable.

I wish it was somewhat closer to Des Moines. 

https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/9IVInT0NZo9KNVZu0hElrURDIlTwWaRj/

Aug from Carolyn - Penman mascot

 

I cropped this one from Carolyn to show that it is a good idea that would work on a variety of envelopes. It is probably going to work best with the short first names. I like the white space on the business sized envelope. You can see how it would work with a much longer last name. Of course - the dots are tried and true. 

***

It's mid afternoon on the day I was trying to do 15-20 posts. After chores and baking I did a quick check on Facebook to see if anyone is doing anything. I never post on FB - but find interesting tidbits once in a while. One of MrWilson's cousins (a first cousin, once removed - I like knowing the official terminology of cousins and the use of the word *removed* to indicate a step up or down in generations - one of those useless bits of information - but I digress) MrWilson's first cousin (the mom) posted a photo of the second cousin once removed at his college - Southern New Hampshire University - and she wrote "Go, Penmen!"

One would think that I'd have heard of a university having a penman mascot by now, but one would be mistaken. Here is the blurb on their website:

When SNHU opened its doors in 1932 as the New Hampshire School of Accounting and Commerce, we called ourselves “Penmen.” It was an homage to the accountants and clerks of Colonial New England, who bravely banded together to form a new nation. Alongside merchants, lawyers, farmers and physicians, they proved that the pen is mightier than the sword.

I could not find a good photo showing the full mascot. 

OK, this might be taking it a little too far. 

But, it was 1932 - so, it's a dated perspective.

I guess it's a metaphor and I guess *progress* has been dependent on our ability to write. 

Progress seems like a good idea - until the unintended consequences start popping up.

Maybe we should take a longer view - 

was written language a big turning point?

Aug from Cathy - My co-pilot

 

This stamp was so pretty - I think there was a block of 4 that fit together. I remember using it back at the turn of the century. Cathy had a humorous comment on the back of the envelope. I do not always post the cute things that people add on the backs - but just wanted to let the others know that we're often in the same frame of mind. 

***

I warned you that I was going to be writing 15-20 posts and I have written 7 and I am exhausted. Maybe exhausted isn't the right word. Maybe I feel like writing about something other than the items I found in my folder. 

I've been meaning to mention that I have a blog co-pilot lined up. It might sound strange to be pondering what would happen with the blog and/or the exchange if something catastrophic happened to me. Recently, I was talking to someone who belonged to a group and one of the members died suddenly and unexpectedly. Since none of the members of the group had any contact with the family, they were way out of the loop of information, etc, and it was a difficult situation for them. 

It's been three years since I had my traumatic brain injury. It conveniently occurred at a time that the blog was prescheduled for a month and I was able to update my pen pals and keep things going. I have residual issues with my working memory which are manageable - but it does keep me reminded that one's life can change in an instant and without warning.

Since I value my pen pals, I would not want to leave you hanging, if something happens to me - so I have everything lined up for my co-pilot to be notified by my family to take over. I've always been the type to take steps to cover potential catastrophes - because it seems like taking the time is like an insurance policy that nothing will happen. So, I'll probably be plugging along for a while. And if something does happen, nobody will be left hanging - and wondering what happened.

July from Cathy - Vanilla Frosting font

 Good news regarding yesterday's concern that Amy might be a weed-aficionado. She assured me that she, too, has been fighting the battle. Whew.

Cathy's July envelope snuck in with the August envelopes. I hope I remember to steal this idea. Although the success is a function of letting the stamp inform the colors and then also repeating the sketchy quality of the image on the stamp. Simple can be stunning. There's a nice notecard inside - which reminds us how lovely summer was. Thank you to the USPS for leaving the postmark off.

***

Here is a font that one could use if they needed more ideas to go with the one that we call Mish-Mash. You can type in whatever name or words you want to get some ideas. Or you could buy the font. Or you could type the alphabet into the sample feature and make yourself write each letter and create your own exemplar. Or you could shoot screen shots - but I highly recommend making yourself write what you see because that's good practice.

https://creativemarket.com/Nickylaatz/107845-Vanilla-Frosting-Typeface