Date: 2009-11-16 12:18 Subject: 3rd Batch of Stationary Public Mood: busy Tags: art, homemade stationary, watercolor

Here are the last two watercolor-on-Crane-paper that I did: Another peacock, and...an owl!





It finally occurred to me how to photograph these to try and capture the sparkliness....hehe. I like how the two-tone gold circles on the tail feathers came out...I'll have to do that trick again.

Here's the owl:





The eyes glitter, as do feathers on the top of the owl's head (a little) and a teensy bit on the tufts on either side of its head:





Too bad it didn't capture how the lines on its tummy glitter. It's kinda subtle but looks nice, IMO.

Finally, here's a simple "sunburst" design I did with my new markers (yay!). High quality art markers they ain't, but they work well enough, AND have a brush tip on one end and fine tip on the other :D Whoo!

Date: 2009-11-09 22:05 Subject: Watercolor on Crane Paper II Public Mood: creative Tags: art, homemade stationary, watercolor

Here are more of the stationary decorations I've done using Winsor & Newton Cotman Water Colours and a Sakura Brush Pen on Crane & Co. Ecruwhite Letter Sheets (reviewed here):



The blue night sky on top is darker IRL (and actually looks like a night sky, heh), and has gold glittery dots that are supposed to be stars, which the camera failed to pick up. Alas.
Detail shot of the peacock on bottom; the spots on the feathers were embellished with a yellow-gold glitter gel pen so that they would shimmer and stand out--




I also did....betta fish!

Betta fish, I've found, lend themselves wonderfully to watercolor. They really do have vivd coloring that softly blends together, and it's a lot of fun to put different combinations of colors together and see how it ends up looking. No glitter here though:



And a close-up of the fishies:





My sister was making fun of these; she said the fish had really vapid looks on their faces. My response to that is, Well duh -- they're fish! What, you expect them to start quoting Shakespeare at you?

And, finally we have a panda bear rounding out the set. He is happily munching on some bamboo:



I did have two other ones I did -- an owl (which I really like) and another peacock, but my digital camera is currently elsewhere; I will photograph and post them later.

What other animals should I do? Any suggestions?

Date: 2009-11-07 22:11 Subject: Watercolor on Crane Paper Public Mood: sleepy Tags: art, homemade stationary, watercolor

Remember yesterday's post where I reviewed Crane & Co. stationary, and mentioned that the thick cotton paper took watercolor extremely well?

The sheets of Crane paper are blank, and although the paper is nice, I decided to spruce it up a bit using my Sakura Brush Pen -- I was going for a Far Eastern brush drawing sort of look.

Well, that ended up going out the window; I only have one brush pen, and I'm not very good with it (Inkophile is much better -- though, granted, she does have an actual brush pen with bristles, unlike mine which has a felt tip...lame). But I could control the line variation a little bit, and liked the look of the image that came from using a brush pen.
But it was still a bit too dull, just black ink against an ivory-cream background. I decided that adding watercolors would fix that, and make it more interesting. And, what do you know -- it did :^)


Done with Sakura Brush Pen and Winsor & Newton Cotman Water Colours

After the watercolors had dried, I used a gold glittery gel pen to highlight the tail feathers; if you look closely, you might be able to tell that it's glittery.



I really like how it came out, especially the contrasting effect of yellow-gold tail feathers glittering against the flat watercolor image when you hold it at an angle. Plus, I had a ton of fun doing it. It was quick and easy and I wasn't going for detailed perfection -- casual coloring looked good for this image, I thought. It looked even better after adding in the glitter pen embellishments.

Which is why I proceeded to do about 5 more, all with different designs.

More to come!

Date: 2009-07-23 01:48 Subject: The Final Batch Public Mood: very tired Tags: announcements, art, homemade stationary, snail mail

Here's the latest and final of this talented correspondent's letters.

( She's really outdone herself...click to view )

Seeing as how I'll be in the Caribbean till August 1st, don't expect any new postings till then. This recent bonanza of pretty stationary art postings was me attempting to make up for that :^) I'm tentatively considering having a Snail Mail Appreciation Week when I return. It'll include such goodies as a plethora of pretty handmade envelopes, sealing wax review, quirky Japanese stationary, and some wonderful unexpected surprises that showed up in my mailbox.

Till then, take care, all!

Date: 2009-07-22 11:11 Subject: Pretty Page Numbers On Parade Public Mood: busy Tags: art, homemade stationary, snail mail

This woman's lovely page number illustrations know no bounds. Not to mention the gorgeous stationary she sent over. Click the link to continue.

( Seriously photo-heavy. You don't want to miss this! )

Also: I realize now that in the last post, my scans of her decorated page numbers did not do them justice. So, here they are again, full size:

Date: 2009-06-28 22:33 Subject: Lighthouse At Night Public Mood: *kerFLOP* Tags: homemade stationary, snail mail

That was the theme of this letter, anyway. Hello! Man, it's good to be back home.

I forgot to scan in the stationary I used (d'oh...), but it was lighthouse themed, and so I decorated the envelope as such. I've never decorated an envelope so much before, and really like how it came out.






A close-up of the address label -- a baby sea turtle pokes its little head out of the shell. Aww!

I cut out a square(ish) piece of paper, drew an anchor on it (no, I didn't use any references. Don't laugh at my anchor!) and used it to sort of "seal" the envelope shut. It just looked too plain, somehow, even with the waves/whale tail at the bottom and the sea turtle address label.

Date: 2009-06-25 23:57 Subject: Customized Mushroom Stationary Public Mood: blah Tags: homemade stationary

I was going to post the Rhodia review today, but didn't get a chance to finish uploading/editing the photos I took, so instead you all get to look at juicy, fungi-related...stuff. Heh. I'll wrap up and post the Rhodia review tomorrow. Tons of pics :D

I saw some mushroom themed stationary online which I liked immediately (I love mushrooms), and was thus inspired to make my own! Customized, no less. That's me out mushroom-picking in the woods*, surrounded by a dream haven of glorious, colorful mushrooms in all shapes and sizes (including, ok, fly agaric).



And a close up:



I like the bunny, hehe. I was inspired to put a rabbit in the picture when I saw one on my way to martial arts class. Then I saw it again on my way back home -- in the same exact spot, almost 2 hours later! For some reason this amused me to no end. So, this is my homage to you, Rabbit That Would Not Move.

Anyway, moving on...I liked the way this came out so much that I decided to make color copies of it to use as stationary for other snail mail correspondents. Which gave me the brilliant idea of creating several different stationary designs and making copies, so I wouldn't have to hand draw each letter I send out.

Here is the original (top) compared to the copies (below):



Hey, not bad. The colors stayed true to the original, for the most part.

Now, what should my next theme be?


EDIT: Forgot to add, that this was done using O'bon colored pencils...which are slated to be reviewed in the near future ;)


*I have indeed been mushroom/toadstool picking before -- my friend and I wanted to dry them to make colorful mushroom potpourri. Sadly, after leaving them out to dry it rained and our beautiful harvest was destroyed (read: gross and slimy) and had to be thrown. Boo.

Date: 2009-06-22 23:10 Subject: Going Slightly Batty Public Mood: sleepy Tags: bats, goth, homemade stationary, horseshoe crabs, snail mail

Since I'm far too cheap to spend money buying pretty stationary (I know, I know, I'm a total immigrant) I usually decorate the paper by hand before sending it off. Like this one, which was made for The Missive Maven, whom I know likes bats:



Yay bats!

The first page was decorated with bats; the second one was mostly blank (hey, I only have so much energy) with the odd doodle of a horseshoe crab here and there. When you work at a beach educating kids about the endangered horseshoe crab, and handle the creatures on a regular basis, they start to endear themselves to you. No, seriously. It's reached the point where I think that they are quite adorable. Like this one here:


Awww. See? Cute!



Oooh, and this is neat: The pirate-themed stationary which I made a while back was featured on The Missive Maven in this entry. Sweet!

Date: 2009-06-06 15:10 Subject: Creative Snail Mailing Public Mood: creative Tags: art, goth, homemade stationary, snail mail, stationary

This is a post that is grossly overdue. Remember the sailor stationary that one of my most creative snail mail correspondents sent? Here's what she sent me in response to the Indian stationary I sent her:

FRONT

More gothic goodness ^__^

BACK


"Black Mail"...how clever is that? Extremely clever (I'm a big fan of wordplay). I love it! The [reflective] skull sticker that held the top flap of the letter closed tickled me.

Interestingly enough, this was a letter and envelope in one. Once I undid the stickers, the flaps opened to reveal the inside of the "envelope" -- a letter!



Isn't that cool?

Now, after receiving her sailor stationary, I had seafaring on the brain, so I'd already started the stationary for her next letter...and it was pirate-themed.
The envelope:



Open the envelope to find two neatly folded notes inside:

and

I really, really like how the first note came out :D Open it up....



I stained normal blank paper with used coffee grounds/paper filters, and crumpled it up after writing on it and decorating it to give it that old-treasure-map-looking effect. The "anachronistic" (ish) spellings was me attempting to be clever. I'll let you judge how successful I was on that ;P
The second note was just regular Red n' Black (I think....or was it Clairefontaine?) notebook paper, with a fancy shmancy message-in-a-bottle design on the outside to make up for it. Hehe. Apparently Ilona liked it lots, which made me happy. I was pretty late in responding (or so I thought), so I did my best to make it worth the wait for her.

Another snail mail correspondent, who is very much into Eastern mysticism, got this design on his envelope:



He liked it, too :^) Hooray!

Upcoming:
Ilona's response (and man, is it awesome)
Lamali Lokta
Rhodia pad
Rhodia pencil
Diamine ink series (5)

Date: 2009-04-27 00:08 Subject: Coming Soon... Public Music: The tick-tock of my wall clock. The tiny *plop* of my betta coming up for air. Tags: goth, homemade stationary, snail mail

Upcoming posts:

1. The latest pen & ink I'm working on. More gothy goodness, with a few subtle splashes of color. Oooh.

2. Photo dump of snazzy snail mail :-) I love having snail mail friends!! (Come on, you know you love anticipating, and then receiving, letters/packages in the mail. If you don't, you're clearly not human :P)

Till then, here is some creative SM I sent out a while ago. You've heard of Pony Express....this is the Snail Mail Express! I decorated this gentleman's envelope with my little SM mascot. What should we call him?


Here's a letter I sent to that wonderful woman with the awesome goth stationary. Feeling grossly inadequate, I did my best to compensate for my own lack of awesometastic stationary. She liked it :)


A close-up of our goth char. I made up her dress from my imagination, and like it lots ^^ I wonder what an Indian goth would wear...?


I never knew snail mailing could be so much fun. I mean, I'm the sort who thinks that writing letters with fountain pens on parchment and then sealing them with wax is high times; but this goes above and beyond that threefold. Hooray!