Archive for the ‘Postcards’ Category

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Postcrossing Update

Saturday, April 26th, 2025

Through Postcrossing, I’ve now sent 1624 postcards and received 1604. These are increases of about 200 cards since my last update five months ago, which means my average of 40 cards a month remains unchanged.

As far as countries, there have been no changes since the last update, with the top ranks (sent and received from) the same and no new countries added. About a third of my cards are sent to and received from Germany.

It’s always fun to remove the cards from my P.O. Box, since I never know what to expect. Unlike some users, I don’t have a large list of preferred types – and no restricted cards – so what I receive tends to run the gamut.

I do mention that I like vintage tourist cards, so I get a decent amount of them. A lot of Postcrossers don’t like such cards, so I hope users are happy to find someone that does!

If you’re wondering, other card types that people usually say they don’t like are ad cards, homemade cards, animal cards and religious cards.

I seem to have gotten a lot of celebrity cards these past five months, and I’m actually considering adding a line to my bio asking for postcards of very obscure or forgotten celebrities just to see who I get!

I have added ‘fantasy’ to my short preferred list, but so far very few in that category have arrived. I tell people if they have any particularly strange or unusual card to send it my way, but so far I’ve not seen anything that has greatly surprised me 🙂

Three of the cards I received since the last update are ‘maxicards’. These are postcards featuring a stamp affixed to the art side that is identical or thematically similar to the card art. These are usually sold by postal services, although independently produced versions exist. I’ve got a lot of these from Postcrossers over the years, and maybe I’ll do a post on them one day.

Maxicards have been produced by Australia post for decades, and Adam seems to have gotten his hands on a bunch of older ones which he has been sending me periodically. I wonder where he got them from?

I continue to get a lot of unusually shaped stamps, and the one from Finland at top right is particular interesting. The ‘missing’ part of the stamp is also a stamp, and I’d actually received it from a different sender some time ago. The USA should do a stamp set where each state is its own stamp!

Most postal services are struggling with a drop in people sending mail, and one popular method to raise revenue continues to be issuing licensed stamps. Very often these are sold as collectibles and therefore people rarely use them for postage, but when I travel I always try to buy and use such stamps.

The UK issues a lot of these sorts of stamps, and I seem to be getting more and more on recent cards (possibly since the QR codes on the ‘normal’ stamps are ugly). The podracing stamp above is quite large and one of my favourite stamps I’ve received so far!

I received two very special things these past five months. The first was the above acrylic painting of a cute duck! This is my second piece of original painted art received through Postcrossing, and as you can see it’s incredibly good. I messaged the artist and she said she painted it and liked it so much she and hung on her wall for a year before she mailed it. She was nervous the recipient wouldn’t appreciate it but I assured her we did. Now we’ll frame this and hang it on our wall.

The second amazing delivery came from a Japanese user. When I read her bio she mentioned she really loved stamps, so I used a large card and filled it with about 20 different stamps. This made her super happy, and she messaged me saying she wanted to send me something in return. I agreed, and a month or so later found an envelope in my PO Box that contained a packet of older Japanese stamps! She mentioned I can use this on my next trip to Japan, which I absolutely will.

But that wasn’t all she sent: the envelope also contained eight Ultraseven postcards! These are beautiful, featuring classic art from one of the most important Ultra series of all time. I’ll be sending these all to myself from Japan over the years. I was so happy with what she sent me I will be sending her another card loaded with stamps, this time from Australia 🙂

Right now I can send 41 cards at a time, and usually ‘do postcards’ weekly so I’ve always got the maximum amount in transit to users around the world. I send/receive about 10 a week, which is a lot but not too many, and I’m happy to continue at this rate for the time being.

Posted in Blog, Postcards | Comments Closed

Food Contest: AI Results

Tuesday, April 15th, 2025

Once again Bernard had an AI judge the food postcards alongside the real judges, and here’s a photo of the judging in process:

The AI considered each pair of images several times (for an average score), and the following are some comments it produced for each food category.

Fruit: “B’s composition is simple and not as visually engaging as the intricate mosaic pattern. While both fit the fruit theme well, R’s image excels with its detailed portrayal of grapes in a compelling composition.” (R win)

Pasta: “R’s composition is creative but chaotic; B’s is more coherent. Overall, B’s piece fits the theme better.” (B win)

Hamburger: “R’s is slightly chaotic, focusing on a character more than the hamburger theme, whereas B’s is well-balanced and centered on the burger itself.” (B win)

Ramen: “While both fit the theme of ‘ramen’ well, B’s has a stronger thematic expression due to its appetizing depth.” (B win)

Cereal: “R’s uses vivid colors and a dynamic composition, creatively incorporating surreal elements like the floating cereal box.” (R win)

Salad: “In terms of detail and fitting the ‘salad’ theme, B’s conveys the variety and freshness associated with salads better than the other.” (B win)

Donuts: “B’s entry impresses with a vibrant color palette and detailed rendering of multiple donuts. However, the composition feels slightly crowded. R’s offers bold colors with cleaner presentation but lacks the complexity of details seen in the other.” (B win)

Pizza: “Both pieces fit the theme well, but R’s excels with its creative energy and expressive style.” (R win)

Sushi: “Both pieces adhere to the theme well, but B’s entry showcases a broader range of details, such as the soy sauce bowl.” (B win)

Cake: “R’s image uses a pleasing pastel palette that captures the essence of cake; however, the composition is somewhat static, losing dynamic appeal. B’s image, while vibrant, has a less cohesive color scheme, and the layering appears haphazard, ” (R win)

According to the AI, Bernard won 6 to 4, which runs contrary to the human decision.

Who was correct: man or machine? I’ll let you decide…

Posted in Art, Food, Postcards | 1 Comment »

Food Contest: Results

Sunday, April 13th, 2025

All the drawings are complete and the judges have spoken: it’s time for the results of this year’s postcard contest! As of the halfway point the score was 2.5 each (due to the tie) so neither of us had an advantage as we went into the second half…

Salad

Bernard is left, and me right. The less said about this week the better. Mine is a disaster; a completely failed attempt at a painted style. I was positive Bernard could scribble anything and win but I still felt his – while undoubtedly the better – a bit weak and looking back I believe this was the worst week of the entire contest.

Incidentally one element had become clear by this point: the small images I was sending the judges obscured errors and hid fine detail, which tended to favour cartoony or dramatic art over anything ‘realistic’. This may have been irrelevant since it seemed judges were voting based on initial impressions or gut feelings, but it tempered my enthusiasm to experiment with more unusual approaches going forward.

Of course Bernard won handily – 9.95 to my 5.05 – and from their comments it seemed judges didn’t share my feelings of the weaknesses of both:

“Left is crisp and delicious. There is just enough detail and interest to capture the imagination. The onion rings are a lively focal point and the detail of the bowl although a bit wonky is well done. The tomatoes right are particularly well done but overall the salad is a bit limp and unappealing.”
“Left just looks like a crisper tastier salad, if such a thing exists. Although I do agree the addition of hard boiled eggs is a good one for right.”

Donuts

Mine is left and Bernard’s right. If you’re wondering why mine is ‘realistic’ again it’s because I drew it before the previous one was voted on. The shading on mine took forever, and since we only had two shades of brown marker I had to use other colors to add the shadows. The plate isn’t great, but I thought the donuts looked weird just floating (a thought which caused a chuckle when I saw Bernard’s).

Aside from the tie, this was the closest week, but I ultimately won 7.65 to Bernard’s 7.35. Here’s what the judges said:

“I prefer the lefthand pic. I would like to eat that plate of three donuts! The righthand pic is technically good, it just doesn’t appeal to my particular tastes as much.”
“Both of these pictures make me hungry. Left has three lovely donuts waiting on a pretty plate with generous sugary icing and sprinkles. I love the combination of colours and the subtle shadowing. Right has lovely colours and definition with appealing variety but the donuts are strangely misshapen and appear to be levitating.”
“Right looks nice and poppy with the black outline and motif; true doughnuts are “active” lol, but left look more like doughnuts I would actually want to eat.”

Pizza

Bernard is left and mine right. I spent much more time on this than any other week. The pizza slice was drawn first (and yes it was intentionally large) and I used many different coloured markers to shade the pepperoni! I was happy with it once done, but as always it felt unfinished with no background. The perspective made a plate difficult so I added the neon burst (which used five colours), which took more time than the donut itself. All told I spent about two hours on it, compared to about 15 minutes on every other week.

The extra time paid off, with me winning 8.5 to 6.5. I thought my victory should have been greater because I question whether my opponent even drew a pizza, but the judges word is law so I’ll be happy with my win. Here’s their sage opinions:

“Two impressive artworks. One very cleverly uses white space, the other somehow makes pizza dynamic and even explosive.”
“Left is cute! Right is a pizza explosion. In the beginning there was darkness and then God created pizza!!!!”
“Right reminds me of a pizza I would see on the animated teenage mutant ninja turtles show in the nineties, but it looks like a good slice.”

Sushi

I’m on the left, Bernard on the right. Once again the judges had a choice between comic art and something (slightly) more realistic. Mine took a while because of the salmon and especially the rice, and I was happy with the way I managed to depict it. But once again I feel the judges didn’t even notice, or perhaps overlooked my rice detail entirely!

I won 8.05 to Bernard’s 6.95, and here’s what the judges said:

“They are both lovely but I especially like the salmon nigiri.”
“Left is a better depiction. But I do like the cartoon shrimp and UA pride chopsticks. Right sushi looks like gumdrops.”
“Right has the wrong colors and you don’t need soy sauce for sushi Although left has too much rice it’s much better!!”
“Never been a fan of the egg ones. Do like some soy sauce for dipping. But where’s the pickled ginger?”
“The presentation on the stone or board in left is really nice and I like the detailed complexity of the sushi ingredients. Right has a nice serving size and it has soy sauce!”

Cake

Bernard is left and me right. I wasn’t happy with mine at all; it didn’t match my mental image and the details were lost amidst the abundance of pastel. I had originally planned a straightforward birthday cake with lit candles and knew if Bernard did that he’d be difficult to beat. But he did a strawberry cake as well!

The judges handed me an easy win: 9.7 to 5.3. This didn’t surprise us – Bernard saw mine before I saw his and even he predicted he’d lose. The judges final thoughts:

“Left is a blob. Right is a strawberry short cake delight. Beautiful pastel colour choices and clearly defined cream and strawberry centre that makes me drool.”
“These are both really good but I give a slight edge to the left one for showing multiple layers.”
“Right is a better rendition of a cake. Although I do like the vibrant contrast of the left.”

And so we reach the final scores, and the winner was me with 6.5 wins to Bernard’s 3.5. This is now my fourth victory in four years, but I’ll say this was the hardest-won since two weeks were extremely close and because I found drawing food very difficult!

In retrospect I also felt my victory was due to my trying a variety of styles. If you look back through Bernard’s drawings you’ll notice he settled on a style early on and rarely (if ever) moved away from it. If he had experimented more I think the results would have been quite different.

Next year’s topic and media have already been decided and it’s going to mix things up quite a bit. Come back in about 11 months to see what I mean 🙂

Posted in Art, Food, Postcards | 2 Comments »

From The Past

Thursday, March 13th, 2025

We spent a few hours at the antique postcard shop last weekend and amongst a haul of ~200 cards I bought this one:

It’s a lovely bird card, probably 40+ years old, and it would have gone into my ‘generic animal’ stash for future Postcrossing use. While I make a concerted effort to not buy used cards, this time I missed this one. Here’s what is written on the back:

A message from Elfriede to Ruth, written July 27 1989. It’s typed and not stamped, and this with the lack of address shows it must have been mailed in an envelope. It’s a nice message, if a little terse, but reading between the lines we see these women were very familiar.

I love the last line, an evocative glimpse of life in Berlin in those days: In Berlin is all the same with the wall and I think so long I live it will not be other.

Only 105 days later, The Wall was torn down. I wonder what Elfriede thought on that day, and whether she wrote a followup to Ruth?

And as for the postscript on the side, a Grünfinken is a greenfinch. Not exactly a canary, but not dissimilar, which explains her choice of card 🙂

Posted in Animals, Postcards, Time | Comments Closed

Food Contest: Halftime

Thursday, March 6th, 2025

For the fifth consecutive year, Bernard and I are competing in a postcard contest. With the same five judges as last year the category this time is food.

This year we’re using markers only – no pencil sketches! – and I printed cards featuring lovely AI art of girls eating. While the ten subjects – most chosen by judges – are all types of food, there is no requirement to literally depict the subject: images evocative of or inspired by are acceptable ok. At least that was the theory…

Fruit

Mine is on the left, and Bernard’s on the right. Immediately we both learned how shockingly poor quality the markers were! The colour distribution is strange, they bleed a bit onto the postcard, and they change colour as they dry. I suppose I shouldn’t have simply purchased the cheapest option, but $8 for 40 markers was a deal only a fool would have ignored!

As for the art, I wish I’d done a sunset background instead of blue (which dried darker than it looked when drawing), and Bernard’s leaves I think also suffered from colour changing.

To our surprise this first category was a tie: we each scored 7.5 points (each judge divides 3 points between the two pics)! Individual judges had preferences, but in the end the scores were even. Here’s some of their comments:

“Both good but flawed. Left pic is wallpaper-like or even stained-glass window-like, except the fruit isn’t uniform. Right pic is more striking, while having size problems and missing a shadow.”
“Love the stained-glass motif but left seemed less fruit centric. Love the blue.”
“I like the stained-glass window effect of the first picture with the checkerboard style contrasting. The structure and balance of form and colour are very well done. The second picture is pleasing in its simplicity with clever use of negative space and a modernised with the black outlines and stylised shadowing.”

Pasta

Mine is left and Bernard’s right. I hated mine. The spaghetti was extremely difficult to render with the markers, and none of the colours were quite right. I added an ‘Italian’ background but the green dried lighter and it looks silly. I was positive I’d lose… but then I got Bernard’s in the mail and suddenly wasn’t so sure!

The judges preferred mine, and I won 8.1 to 6.9. The comments suggested they liked our efforts better than we did! Here’s what they said:

“I marvel at the technical artistry in the left picture. The fork full of fettuccine is so well executed I feel like I could lean in and take a bite from the plate. Right ois a visual magnet. The combination of colours and forms is so attractive it should be gracing the front of an Italian postcard or advertising your favourite Italian restaurant.”
“Left is good but it’s a bit bland and boring.”
“Both pictures were made with longing. Made by a person really longed to see a pasta.”

Hamburger

Bernard is left and me right. I was keenly aware mine was a risk, but I felt Hamburglar was as iconic to ‘hamburger’ as a simple depiction. I was even going to draw him without any burgers, and in retrospect wish I had. I was very proud at the likeness, and was happy had the correct colours as well.

The judges were confused, and I got a couple of questions asking if mine was even allowed! Even after explaining this wasn’t supposed to be a simple ‘drawings of food’ contest they greatly preferred Bernard’s (unquestionably well rendered) literal depiction, and he won 10.3 to 4.7 in the contests first blowout!

“The left hamburger looks delicious. Two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickled onions on a sesame seed bun!!!!! I will remember that phrase till the day I die I think. Right is disappointing. I don’t want to eat those hamburgers!!”
“The Hamburglar pic is cute, but there’s so much more burger to the other one.”
“What’s the green stripe in left?”

Ramen

Mine is right, Bernard left. I went with a pop-arty approach, and traced around inverted glasses to get perfect circles. I half based mine on a reference photo but felt noodles were essential and added many more, as well as two naruto. I was happy with it, and personally felt Bernard’s – while well drawn – was lacking in actual ramen!

He scored a narrow victory with 7.3 to my 6.7. The judges were torn with two ties and it came down to one of them to cast the decider. Their comments:

“Both are great and could be T-shirt designs or something. If I had to pick a fault, the bowl on the right is maybe a tad too stylised.”
“While left is more traditional the modern twist of right is superb.”
“Left just had more… soul? Also broth, key ingredient to ramen. Kudos to the spiral fish cakes though on right.”
“I like the egg yolk on the left but it looks quite rushed. The meat color for the right is too pink and it looks too flat and lacks toppings, but I like the cartoon approach.”

Cereal

Mine is left, Bernard is right. I’m proud that I didn’t use any reference photo. I held a box of Raisin Bran as a model, and labored over the transparency of the bag which was a big challenge due to the markers. When I received Bernard’s I was impressed, but I felt it was a bit ‘safe’ and had a feeling by this point risks would be noticed by the judges. The fact we both used fruit loops was a coincidence.

The judges overwhelmingly preferred mine, and I won 10.45 to 4.55. Some comments:

“So much detail in left. I love the colours and perspective and the splashing of the milk. While right is nice it just pales besides the obvious effort taken in left.”
“I like the dynamic splash of the milk on the left, although right has something of a seriousness/still life quality to it. Did you guys align on fruit loops before starting?”
“Funny that the actual cereals are so similar. Left pic is very dynamic, and I have to award it more points.”

With one tie and two wins each we’re now tied at the halfway point! This is a challenging contest – food is much more difficult to draw than previous categories – and it’s absolutely anyone’s game at this point.

Come back in six weeks or so to see who wins!

Posted in Art, Food, Miscellaneous, Postcards | Comments Closed

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