Kat Eye Studio

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For the Love of Postage

Oh, how I love stamps! I forget this until the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap envelopes come rolling in, and I get to see these awesome postage stamps from all over the world. They are an art unto them selves. Like last year, I will soak them off and save them for future use. I have no idea what use, but I will come up with something!

After a week away, I received a big stack of envelopes for the swap when I picked up my mail yesterday. So much fun! So many stamps!! Right now there are 273 artists signed up for the swap, so there will be many more envelopes coming in over the next few weeks. So much art to be liberated into the world! Awesome!!! Sign up is open until July 15, so there is still time to join in or to share the swap with your artist friends. It’s been great to see the chatter in the Facebook group about people ordering, receiving and sending their postcards. Join us there too!

I’m also surprised when I receive little notes of encouragement and fun for me along with the envelopes. I don’t expect that! I receive two postcards addressed to me along with the stack of envelopes. Thanks Katie and Linda!

And today’s mail art comes from Nora Clemens-Gallo. I didn’t want to ruin this envelope by opening it! Thanks Nora, for the extra art liberated!

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Lettere

Sometimes I marvel how the human brain works. I wanted a mail-related photo for today’s Liberate Your Art Swap update post and I thought of this photo. I remembered taking this picture in Venice, although I had never done any editing on it. I thought I took it when we were there with my husband’s parents. So, with nothing other than that to go on, I went into Lightroom and went directly to the November 2010 folder, the month we visited with his parents. Yep, there it was! Pretty darn cool the way the brain works, isn’t it? And the way Lightroom works too. Even though my photos are still not keyworded (although getting better – this folder now has keywords for Venice!), I can find things relatively quickly.

So with that… on to the update! As of this morning, there are 255 artists signed up for the swap! Yeah! If the participation rate is the same or better as last year, I should meet my goal for increasing participation this year. And, there are still a couple more weeks to sign up! I’m going to keep sign up open through July 15. After that, I figure it’s getting to late to get everything together with creating and mailing postcards. Thanks to everyone who has been sharing about the swap – there is still time to share!

A few more envelopes trickled in this week, doubling my total of envelopes to 8. I’m also keep track of where they are coming from, so that will be fun to give an update on as I receive more. From the comments in the Facebook event, lots of people are getting ready to send their postcards in, so the rush is on it’s way. How fun!!

If you haven’t ordered your postcards yet, I received a code from Moo this week: Enter the code POSTSTICK at checkout by midnight PST 4th July 2012 and you will receive free shipping (cheapest shipping option only). Order must include at least one pack of Postcards and/or Stickers. I don’t know if that will work in conjunction with my link that gives 10% off for new customers, but it’s worth a try if you haven’t ordered yet and were planning to use Moo.

One more reminder: Photo-Heart Connection link up for June opens this Sunday, July 1! I can’t wait to see what’s connecting with you this month. See you then!

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And it begins…

It starts with a trickle, and will end in a flood. Not water, but mail! The Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap becomes official for me when the first postcards arrive. I’ve received four envelopes so far, one from our first international participant, yay! There are 210 artists signed up so far for the swap, but there is plenty of room for more. Please continue to share with your artist friends! Send them to the Liberate Your Art page on my site or share the Facebook Event. So exciting!

One great thing about a swap with artists is that they sometimes like to decorate envelopes! As they come in, I’ll share a few here on the blog. Today’s beautiful mail art is from Marie Johanson. I love the bright colors and the glittery symbol for beauty. Thanks Marie, for this little bit of happy mail!

And it’s time to share some of my own painted art, for Paint Party Friday. I continue to work on both paintings I started two weeks ago. One of them I love how it’s going, I’m sharing the progress on that one here. It’s not done yet, but I feel like it’s getting close. I know what to do next.

The other, well, I’m really not happy with it right now so I’m not going to share until I push past this point. I just want to stab my brushes through the canvas I so dislike it at the moment. Maybe that’s what I should do! Any advice from you regular painters, on how to move forward on a piece you do not like?

PS – And would you like to help me win a Vespa? Read more here.