Mail Art

To start this project, I had to figure out what kind of art I wanted to send through the mail. I did a little bit of research just looking at "mail art" to get some inspiration, and most of what I saw consisted of decorating or drawing on envelopes to send in the mail. That didn't appeal to me as much because I had in my head that I wanted to send art in an envelope, not have the envelope be the art itself. Regardless, I found this picture which inspired me to use micron pens in my art.

It happened that right after this project was assigned I was going to be travelling home to Seattle for the weekend for the funeral of my grandmother. Since I knew I needed to be working on the project over the weekend, I remembered my experience with Artist Trading Cards which I was really interested in in high school. They were small enough to take with me wherever I was going along with a couple micron pens. I found some examples of popular artist trading cards (bottom two images) but I really wanted to use micron pens rather than mixed media. Then I had to find some inspiration for what the subject matter was going to be. I looked on Pinterest and found these art works that I have seen before and really liked, but never tried the art style. 

I loved the nature aspect of the examples I found. Growing up in Seattle meant I was always inspired by nature- I was constantly surrounded by trees taller than buildings, mountains on any horizon, the ocean, rivers and lakes and waterfalls, and fresh air. Camping and hiking was a big part of my childhood, and still today I love spending time at home to enjoy the beauty and peacefulness of nature. It makes its way into my art quite often, and I don't think there will be any time in the future when I stop being inspired by the Pacific Northwest. Here are just a couple pictures of my home: 

These bottom pictures are taken at the exact same place at the same waterfall 6 months apart. I thought it was really interesting to see the change of seasons around the same subject from the middle of winter with a dusting of snow and cold to the middle of summer when it was warm and sunny and green. So as I was starting these artist trading cards on my flight home I decided to incorporate the geometric style I had found earlier with my memories of trees and waterfalls and nature. I also ended up including some flowers and a fish, and a diamond with some flowers as well, but those all stemmed from the original inspiration. The cards were very fun to make and I really enjoyed sending them to my classmates. I attempted to send cards to specific people according to who I thought would like what best. I also decided to use an inkpad and put my fingerprint on the back instead of a signature. I thought it was a more personal touch to the art, and since I have gotten to know and care for the people in this class I thought it would make the art sharing more intimate.

Here are some other links of inspiration: 

More artist trading cards

I remember looking specifically at this website a few years ago when I first learned what artist trading cards were. It was very helpful for me and inspired me to buy artist trading card paper and start making them. 

Micron pen drawing video

As per usual, a video that gave me inspiration. This one was actually very similar to the idea that I had in my head of what I wanted to do, so this video helped me see the art actually made and really helped along the process.