mail art and still painting

I received such a bounty of postcards this month - partly thanks to the fun swaps at MMSA and partly just folks staying in touch.

Here's all the mail that's been making me and my mail box so happy (I think I've got it all here).  So tonight I sat down and spent time writing back to all these wonderful ladies.  Sometimes people don't include their address which makes me sad that I can't send them something in return, but everyone else will hopefully get something in the next week or so.......

I thought I'd try working in a series so made a group that are similar in style - actually took the idea from the painting I did last week with dark leaves.....

Then I decided to try the "paint one big piece and cut it up" method of postcard making.  This is the cardboard from the side of a case of pepsi.  I painted, stenciled and stamped away, then cut it up into p/c sized pieces and ended up with 5 postcards!  I may add a little stitching or something, but this was a really fun exercise.  I know I've seen many of you use this technique and now I understand why! :)

So I had plenty of postcards made to return one to everyone and a few left over for the next batch.  Yahoo!

Next up, a quick update on my revised Joy painting which became collaged with maps and tissue paper layers....here's where it stands now:

Painted a layer of bright colors...........

Love the way the texture is showing up............

My next layer of gesso to push back some of that bright color......now where?  Will have to see .....

Hope my friends back east are lucky enough to escape the worst of the recent snow storms.  I can't believe the weather is still so nasty back there.  Whenever I think of complaining about the rain, I realize how much worse it could be (SNOW!) and just shut right up.  I'll take my rain any day!