Giant postcards!!

Sometimes I sign up to do fun things that have nothing to do with my own art journals, just for a challenge and because they're usually a lot of fun. Plus they always result in getting awesome mail in return.

This one was through http://www.swap-bot.com/, and the assignment was to make a giant postcard for your partner.  In the US they can send something up to approximately 6" x 11" (or is it 11" x 6"?) for FORTY-FOUR CENTS!!!  Wow.  If we had that rate on postage I'd be sending out massive postcards all the time.  Oh, plus they can be up to 1/4" thick!!  Just think of the possibilities!

Canada Post unfortunately does not have a separate rate for postcards, so I was going to have to pay the "oversize letter" rate. Which to the US is $2.06, as long as it's not over 100g. I figured I'd better get my money's worth. I made a "postcard" out of a cardboard file marker that measured 9 1/2" x 15". Since it was pretty huge and kind of intimidating, I started off by basecoating it with gesso. If I don't have any ideas for something, I'll often start by throwing down a coat of gesso or paint, just so I'm at least doing something, not sitting there stalled. And more often than not, the ideas do come.  Unfortunately I ended up covering up every bit of the card with collage material afterward, so the gesso turned out to be completely unnecessary.  That's okay though, it got me moving at least.


I started gluing stuff onto the card.

Doesn't that look amazing so far?!   Sometimes my genius is almost blinding.

I collaged a whole bunch of bits and pieces to my postcard: a parking pass, some EKG paper, tissue paper, old receipts, a calendar page, some fabric tape, washi tape, rub-ons, a computer punch card, patterned cardstock, part of a flash card, a photo, labels, magazine bits, a piece from a lottery ticket number picker - really anything that was within reach that was fairly neutrally-coloured.  Then I started stamping - I used a dotted-line roller, a date stamp, a script stamp, and some number stamps.  Oh, also the "UTILITY" stamp that I got at Value Village.  I have no idea what it was originally used for, but it's one of my current favourites!

After that I covered the whole thing in a wash of titan buff paint, to blend everything together.

Starting to look like something, right?  After that I stopped taking progress pictures, because I kind of got into it.  My victim - I mean SWAP PARTNER - likes the number 8, the ampersand symbol, and the colour blue.  So my postcard wasn't entirely made up of random elements.  I tried to make something she would really like.

 The ampersand is actually a thin chipboard cutout, covered in patterned paper and then trimmed and the edges sanded.  I did the lettering by hand, which is why it's not always straight.  But I do really like how it turned out around the ampersand!  It reminds me of an ad for a circus or something. 

It's going out in today's mail.  Hopefully it arrives quickly; mail from here to the eastern seaboard seems to take about two weeks, for some reason.  I sure hope it fits in her mailbox!

Have a fantastic day, you guys.

Love Shelley!