Pop Cards & Art Quotes

It looks like "I Love Lucy" is making another appearance on my postcards. I like using images of people from the 1940s or 50s and it's fun for me when they happen to be recognizable icons.

Coincidental to creating this card I found a quote by the British writer, Lawrence Alloway, referring to what was then a new phenomenom, "Pop Art". Alloway said, “When an artist uses a pop art image its significance is doubled: its original meaning is there, but the artist has also added new meanings….” And so a soup can by Warhol becomes something entirely different. You may not see what I see in my composite, but I hope it gives your eyes at least a little something to chew on.

Serious Side Effects

Love and Danger

In the 1860s a French critic castigated Edouard Manet's impressionistic creations for their lack of "intelligible characters." It was the critic's opinion there should be “Nothing arbitrary, and nothing superfluous, that is the law of every artistic composition.” Most of my own compositions are fairly arbitrary and probably superfluous as well, so I guess I'm in good company.

Both these quotes came from "The Pop Revolution," by Alice Goldfarb Marquis, a slim but well written volume describing many of the upheavals that occurred in the art world of the late 1950s and early 60s. I was already familiar with most of the major players, and I liked Marquis' perspective on their roles in the drama.

Wallpaper Bits

The last house I lived in was a circa 1890 Texas farmhouse. It was owned for more than 50 years by a family whose breadwinner was an old-time wallpaper hanger. The kitchen was in desperate need of remodeling when I purchased the place and during demolition of the plaster walls we found many layers of different kinds of wallpaper. Over at Retro Renovation today they're featuring some fabulous wallpaper from 1928, and while my examples aren't exactly fabulous, they're from about the same era, so I thought I'd throw them into the mix. The wallpaper was variously underlaid with muslin, newspapers from Dallas, and burlap sacks from an Oklahoma flour mill. Little could be salvaged because of water damage and almost everything was literally falling apart. The silverfish were having a feast! I photographed and scanned what I could before it all went to the landfill.

Two inseperable wallpapers

Probably the most colorful piece in the bunch. Interesting geometric forms scattered about.

I really liked the green dots on the grid. It's stuck to two layers of muslin.

Bits of two comic strips from The Dallas Journal, whose name was changed in 1938. Some of the newspapers were dated 1928, but Broncho Bill ran from 1932-1950 and Sky Roads from 1929-1942, so this particular part of the wall was probably laid between 1932 and 1938.

more from The Bird Exhibit

A few more cards with bird-related themes.
Can you guess which one is my favorite? 

Bird Song

Oriole Park

Lolita

Bird Exhibit

How I Make Postcards

My creative process is pretty haphazard.  I start by making a base for the postcards. I use cereal boxes or whatever kind of cardboard is handy. Then I get out my boxes of clippings. I've been saving scraps of paper for about 10 or 12 years. The collection just keeps expanding. For the last month or so I've been paring things away, and I hope to keep my papers contained in four old 10x10 Kodak boxes.

Sometimes I work on the dining table, but often I just spread my stuff out on the floor so I can see a lot of things at once.


I'll dump a box on the floor and pick out anything that catches my eye for a background.  As I continue to paw through my stash, I'll pick out faces or pieces of color that I think will look good on the backgrounds I've chosen. Often I'll see a story forming, so I'll be on the lookout for clippings that add to it. I have a smaller box of "snide remarks", a collection of words or phrases that I might go to for a caption, or maybe I'll look at the daily newspaper for odd headlines. I recently sorted my clippings, putting people in one box, backgrounds in a second box, etc. I think I will go back and mix them all up again, as I get more interesting combinations that way.

Sometimes I paint my cardboard bases with acrylic paint. Lately I've been using a lot of Pyrrole Red. Most times my background papers will cover most of the card, but having a colored background is nice for when the clippings don't quite cover the whole card. Besides, I love playing with paint.

I was trying to replicate some of the colors in this desert scene. Fun fun fun!

And here are four potential postcards gleaned from my sorting process. There seemed to be a sort of "space age" thing going on, so I picked out a few rockets & space helmets, and then a cactus & a cowboy for the desert landscape. All I need now is to fine tune the layouts, maybe find a caption, and stick everything down with a glue stick. Sometimes I use acrylic matte gel to attach my papers. It's messy, but it sticks things down really well. Sometimes I'll use the glue stick for everything, and at the end just go over the finished card with the matte gel to make sure pieces don't get torn off by the postal machinery.

          * Postcards that came from this particular mess
          * 2015 DIY Postcards - Birds set
          * 2015 DIY Postcards - Pop Art & Quotes
          * 2015 DIY Postcards - More Birds

Connect and share online --
Check out the art and processes of other Postcard Swap participants HERE!

unexpected pinkness

Last fall I planted a packet of wildflower seeds. I was hoping for bluebonnets and paintbrush, but so far what has been most plentiful are the non-native flowers, including these corn poppies. On this cool rainy day they look like luscious lollipops out in the back yard.

The Bird Exhibit

I don't usually have a theme in mind when I make a series of postcards; my process is too haphazard for that.  Recently though I clipped a lot of bird images, and some of them ended up on these cards, so I'm calling this series "The Bird Exhibit".

Stir It Up

Baby Birds

Bird Poem

Time for Happy Mail

I've been waiting for the lovely Hanna to announce one of her annual postcard swaps, and She Just Did! If you like getting pretty and/or unusual postcards from other creative souls, this international swap is a great opportunity for you. The only catch is you have to make ten postcards of your own to send. Head on over to Hanna's blog and sign up now!

I'll be posting my creations soon, as well as showing a bit of my creative process. Stay tuned!