stamps you'll want to lick

UPPERCASE magazine comes up with jillions of interesting art projects and calls-for-submission, but rarely do the calls overlap with my limited skills and not-so-limited interests to the extent that I go beyond just thinking of participating. 

This month, however, UPPERCASE has a couple of postage-stamp-related calls on offer---and you know how much I love artistic postage stamps. So, this time, I'm not just thinking about submitting, I'm actually thinking really hard. 

But all I have so far is a vague idea that celebrates the 2014 UNESCO decision to register traditional Japanese cuisine as an Intangible Cultural Heritage. Oops, I remembered to write in the country name, but I forgot to include a denomination (value) for the stamps..... Hmm, must add it later or do it over.

The call description says:
Design or Illustrate your ideal postage stamp! What would be the perfect topic? What style? Typographic or illustrative? Vintage-inspired or modern? What country (real or imagined)?

Whether I end up submitting work or not, it will be very cool to see what other people create for this call. If you'd like to submit a design of your own, read the submission details (size, deadline, how to submit, etc) at this link. 

PS: don't let my photo confuse you; submit your stamp design in the correct dimensions and without perforations.

a week of thanksgiving

 

I promised my nephew that I would post a series of "thankful" etegami for one week on Facebook. I decided to fulfill that promise with etegami-collages, so that they could do double-duty as my own contributions to the box-card etegami challenge I am currently hosting.  

I made #1 (rooster crowing) and #2 (early morning newspaper delivery) because I am thankful that I woke up this morning. I'm planning to do a spin-off series with these two, called "The Sounds that Morning Makes."  I made #3 to express my delight in the coming of autumn.  I made #4 because watching some people peck at the keyboard with one finger makes me so grateful that I was taught how to type properly. I made #5  because I'm thankful for being able to live in Japan. I made #6 because I'm thankful that there are always things to take delight in, no matter how hard life is sometimes. I made #7 because I take delight in the form and function of dragonflies. I made #8 to express my thankfulness in being able to see colors.

new etegami call-- box card art

I don't think I've instigated an etegami call since I retired the Etegami Fun Club Newsletter. And it's high time I did. The challenge this time will be to use gift boxes, commercial product boxes, or product wrappers to make an etegami collage of some kind.  If you can recall my last post, I confess it was in preparation for this etegami call.

Your submission should combine a product box with a handpainted etegami image in the simplest way possible. If there are sensible words already on the box, you don't need to add your own. But if you can add your own words without turning the etegami-collage into a big mess, please do.

Here are the requirements of the call:

1. Your submission to this call should be a physical etegami, not digital. For this call, it should be sent in an envelope through the postal service to the following address:

dosankodebbie's mailart gallery
Hiragishi 2-11-1-22, Toyohira-ku,
Sapporo, 062-0932, JAPAN

2. The submissions should be approximately 15 cm x 10 cm (6 inches x 4 inches) in size.

3. The deadline for sending submissions to this call is October 31, 2014.

4. DON'T FORGET THAT THERE MUST BE AN ETEGAMI ELEMENT= A HAND-PAINTED IMAGE SOMEWHERE ON THE COLLAGE, AND PREFERABLE SOME HAND-WRITTEN WORDS, ALTHOUGH THE WORDS THAT ARE ALREADY PRINTED ON THE CARD MAY BE CONSIDERED SUFFICIENT.

Update: As the submissions come in, I will post them on a new blog I set up just for this challenge. Later in the year, or early next year, I hope to find a more public, real-life venue to display them. Please click this link to see the growing collection of box-card etegami-collages. They are a lot of fun, and everyone has been so creative!

etegami invitation cards

One of the Red Bubble groups I belong to is doing an Invitation Card Challenge. I was struck by the fact that I'd never done an etegami invitation card! In fact, the only invitation card I can remember ever making is a Hen Party invitation printed from a lino block carving. And that was decades ago.  At the time, having a small baby made it difficult to get together with friends. So I decided to invite them (with their babies if they had any) to socialize at my apartment.

For the invitation card challenge, I made the etegami posted here, and then tested it on the members of my Etegami Fun Club group on Facebook. The image itself passed muster, but many of the responders told me they understood "hen party" to mean a bachelorette party, which made the phrase "baby chicks are welcome" seem out of place. I checked the dictionary definition of hen party and it says "a social gathering restricted to women," but bachelorette party seems to be the most commonly listed interpretation. I guess common usage has changed over the generations. What do you think?

UPDATE: Guess what? This card won the Invitation Card Challenge I submitted it to. Yaaaaay!

sketchbook project 2011 (part 2)

Here are some more pages from my Sketchbook Project, which I have titled: A Collection of Japanese Proverbs and Sayings. See part 1 if you don't know what the Sketchbook Project is. I've actually completed all the pages, but some of the glued-on pieces keep popping off after they dry, so I'm exploring ideas for sealing the pages without making the whole book too bulky.

sketchbook project 2011

Submitting to art challenges helps me maintain a steady pace of producing etegami. I've blogged about some of them in previous posts. Illustration Friday is one such challenge that has kept me on my toes because it renews every week, and the topics often boggle my mind.

You may have noticed the Sketchbook Project banner somewhere along the right edge of this page and wondered about it. If you haven't already done so, click on the banner and check it out. I thought about it for months before I actually joined, and once my notebook came, it took me almost as long to pull my ideas together, because it's the most large-scale art challenge I've ever attempted. I have to somehow fill up a notebook of fifty pages with artwork based on the theme of "if you lived here..." (I chose the theme from a list they gave me.)

I finally decided to combine the Sketchbook Project with a goal I set for myself at the beginning of this year of producing up to 150 etegami illustrating Japanese proverbs. Since the pages of the notebook are thin and slick, it doesn't work to paint directly on them. I have to print out copies of my etegami and glue them into the notebook. The result is sloppier than I would have liked, and the colors not as vibrant, but I'm trying to accept that.

I'm half-way through the notebook, and thought it was time to post some sample pages. I will probably be adding some hand-written trivia and doodles in the blank spaces of some of the pages, but not much.