Category: Art

More Masterpieces

May 13, 2018

Most of you have received cards or postcards from me that feature my ‘unique’ art skills. Some of you have even responded in-kind, and it’s always a treat to see your talents on display. But I never expected I’d receive anything like these cards my friend JK has sent me these past six months:

That’s a pencil sketch! Santa Claus with my drink of choice (Mt Dew!) done in a classic style. Talent beyond my dreams.

This is a flabbergasting pen sketch of Yossie, based on this photo I had tweeted:

And then recently came this one:

Believe it or not this is a watercolour! A masterpiece created using $2 paints from Walmart and children’s brushes! I had actually bought the paints myself to try painting myself but my scribblings were as nothing compared to this!

Jessica thought I could do better though and I decided to try! I bought new paints ($4 this time) and a new brush ($2) and with a special piece of thick stock paper she provided set out to reproduce this classic:

It took a while, and pushed my abilities to their very limits, but I think I mostly succeeded:

Don’t you?

Jokes aside isn’t Jessica’s talent astonishing? I could only dream of the postcards you’d all be receiving if I even had a tenth of her skills 🙂

The Stamp Collector (Final Part)

December 23, 2017

This series turned out longer and more work than anticipated but as we all know, all good things must come to an end.

The largest portion of my stamp ‘collection’ is still affixed to the hundreds of postcards I have stored together in a box. From all over the world and spanning over twenty years, these contain a fascinating selection of stamps and cancellations.

The New Zealand stamps on the postcards sent by Bernard were quite special and varied, but I also like the mini airmail stamp attached to the Swiss stamp and the (very unique!) Death Valley cancellation.

There’s those Star Wars stamps attached to a postcard I sent from Hawaii a decade ago. There’s the only postcard I ever received from Italy (and boring at that) followed by an example of my creative stamping from England.

Those were both from Oz last year, and you may have seen these on your cards? Australia seems to have doubled down on large and lavish animal stamps these past years, and I always seek them out to include them on postcards.

In fact I’ve got no problem whatsoever eating up large portions of the back of a postcard with lovely stamps…. like this:

Which is another specimen I sent KLS last year. I’ve done the above several times over the years, but this one may be my masterpiece!

One thing I’ve learned doing research for this series is that while collectors prefer stamps to be as pristine as possible, there are certain stamps that are more collectible if they had been used for postage. This is why I particularly like the ones attached to my postcards, since they were used to mail stuff to me!

In a few days I’m off to Australia again. This time, when you get your postcards, spare a moment to appreciate the stamps. It’s likely I put as much thought into them as I did the card itself or even what I wrote on it.

I hope you found this series interesting. I ended up much farther down the rabbit hole than I ever expected, and at times even I couldn’t see light, but I’m glad I’m out now and can move on with the usual topics 🙂

Let’s Make A Jigsaw!

October 19, 2017

Kls received this for her birthday:

What’s this? A ‘gyutto size series’ puzzle? Here’s what was inside the box:

The pieces are small and plastic! They’re also transparent:

It’s a stained-glass puzzle! She waited no time before making it, starting (as everyone does) with the border:

Hmmm, a transparent puzzle in poor light against a black background? That made it more difficult! But she soldiered on:

And on…

Until a few hours later (over two days) it was done:

Well… nearly finished! Can you spot the missing piece?

Anyway we found the one that had got away and put it in place. It’s a pretty image, and here it is backlit:

If we were going to display it I suppose we’d want to do so with a light behind it. But for now, back into the box it goes, to be assembled again some day in the future 🙂

Robot Claw