I think that anyone who lives in Canana and wears a "sleave" would be happy with any type of color test pattern. They are everywhere if you look hard enough.

     Companies hide them because they are ashamed of them.

Color tests are hard to find in Europe because the printers of the boxes do not always use test patterns :-(

Or, they are doing black digital coding maybe?

Hard to find because we have to feel for the side that the box is glued

...and under that gluing there might be a color test. 

I have found really nice ones only on US products like Colgate

...but not other brands.

Lipton tea boxes have a deep red for Fruit of the Forest...Green Tea has BLUE:

But ALL products have for DEAN: 

bar codes! (and some are in BLUE :-)

Searching for color tests. Found three so far on boxes waiting to be cut into substrates (fancy word for postcard blanks.) I'd saved security envelopes for years, Anna helped me to figure out how to use them back in the day (2003)

Dear Ms Cope and Dog Cope, We sent you a promissary note for $6,000 in error. It should have been sent to VMH in France. Please forward the money -- not the note -- to his usual Cayman Islands bank account (he tells me you already know the details). Thank you.

The postal ledger banana blog is now in cyberspace: http://thepostalleger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/bananas.html

Thank you all!  Any late-comers will be added. I loved participating in this with you.

Searching for color tests...and turned over a carton of fruit juice! This brand is owned by Coca Cola and is in tetrapack! Whahoo...lots of COLOR:

Looking for colorful envelope insides/ Yep bills and...MomKat's blue and white envelopes (cut open and turn inside out :-) BLUE!

Very nice BananaBlog, Rebecca!

It is fun to see all the various BananaArt that was done. 'Love it!

Hello, think I blogged all the banana MailArt ;)

Banana MailArt UPDATE

Thank you all. It was fun and a joy to receive.

ps: is it a coincidence I eat more banana's lately?

Thank you Suus and Rebecca for blogging!

Suus and Rebecca, a great idea and two great blogs, super!

But do the banana blogs have "ALL" the banana art?

Never too late...this from Cheryl H. arrived today!

Beautifully hand painted...good things come to those who wait.

(And is there still one member on the list outstanding???)

Haha, banana eats man ;))

Oh this is a good one.  Cheryl H, the dark horse pulls it off again.  Keep the paint brus in her hand.  Always enjoyable.

Erni sent me a very nice banana but Darwin took it and will not let go.

Have added Cheryl's banana to my banana blog! http://thepostalleger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/bananas.html

I wouldn't be BLUE...

just waiting patiently for a BANANA yellow "egg-warmer" from Suus in Mokum. The one she sent to Greece has been lost-in-the-mail :-( ...sigh.

Thank Mail Art Martha.  I'm going to try to track some of this down.

Banana juice?

Blue bananas?

This place is going bananas!

Here are the 9 Banana Art pieces that did arrive in Greece,

many thanks, 'love 'em ALL!  xxx

From Anna Banana. I am chuffed. Many thanks.

Thanks for posting Alicia.  Anna does some fun stuff.

Got a nice note and faux postage stamps from Anna.

Anna B sent the Banana Rag and a sweet note as well Dean. 

BANANA NUTRITION NOTE: Green = Potasium, Yellow = Sugar

Arrived in Greece from Anna Banana...Yay!

Anna Banana also sent other goodies:

Announcing a mail art call:

and security envelope art..fantastic!

Received Cheryl's funny man-eater on Friday ;) Thank you Cheryl!!

Like the Ana Banana stuff (security envelope art is great) and Cheryl's Banana maneater.

Jennifer Phillips sent me Floating Bananas from Las Vegas :))) Thank you Jen!

Update Banana MailArt februari 2013 ;)

Cheryl H., USA

Raphael 'L, USA

Thank you!

Banana Bonanza from Erni Bar:

     The mailman rang on the interphone.  "I have an envelope for you, but it's too big for your mailbox."  I replied; "Sorry we are not home right now, please leave a messgae after the beep, or bring the oversized envelope to the top floor."

     I think this confused him, but he brought it up anyway.  "I guess you know what this is.", he said.  "Well one never knows if it comes from Germany.", I said

And a full side envelope it was.  In the Erni style.

And to my delight weird and wonderful things were inside.

The way it works is you place a banana in the holder, then put it in the banana bag.

And ten seconds later, they are brown.  How does Erni do it?  Amazing.

Thank you Erni, for keeping them fresh!  Ideas that is.  Bravo!

Lots of brown bananas...

Choco-Bananas...full of ERNINESS :-)

There are Erniness Apples,too.

(but we don't have an apple Band here at IUOMA do we?)

Incoming banana from Jen in Las Vegas!

To see the more of the contents of Jen's envelope visit:

http://thepostalleger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/bananas.html

Jen included a private message which I will respond to but I will say that pool parties are not in the vocabulary of most people living in England, but I'd love to see some photos (Jen loves taking them)!

It's Official...BANANA MAIL....on #854 Brain Cell:

Welcome K.S. Chambers to the Banana Band.  I'll see if I can slip a banana in your mail art somewhere.

Thanks Dean, glad to be among the banana people.

Welcome K.S. Chambers!

Oh and K.S. Chambers starts out with a home run.

Thank you for this one K.S.  It is simply Bananas!  Love it.

From Anna Banana, but don't mention the ID card.

I was privileged to see Anna's 'Maar is het Kunst?' performance/seminar in Maastricht in Spring 2011, and it was great fun.

From the part of this I saw (I had to leave before the end, alas):

i) 'participation' referrred to the audience being shown a lot of photos of different sorts of art (paintings, happenings, events) that featured bananas in some way or another. For each of these, the participants (ie the audience) had to fill in questionnaire saying if they were art, or not. At the end of it, people got degrees/diplomas from Anna's Banana University

ii) I guess the bananas could have been eaten. As we all know, Donovan's 'mellow yellow' banana trip wasn't for real, narcotically speaking, but that probably won't stop people still thinking that such a thing as a banana high exists.

iii)  and iv) the research, was I suppose, seeking insights into what people considered art or not -- not just Anna's, but those of other banana-inspired artists. Or, in her own words 'Where do you draw the line?' between what is art and what isn't

v) from looking at the flyer, there doesn't seem to be a Mail Art element in the performances at the listed venues, BUT when Anna came to Maastricht in 2011, she performed at the 'Mail 2 Maastricht' venue.

I think that the smoking the baked inside of scarped banana skins was given prominence by Donovan in his mid-60s song, 'Mellow yellow'. I tried it to, but, as you say it didn't work. However, after going through all of the trouble to prepare something -- anything! -- to smoke, you often thought that, or pretended that, you were high.

(A related activity at the time was to buy seed for domestic birds, and then search through it -- seed by seed -- to try and find something that was could be mixed with tobacco and smoked. That didn't work either.

And don't even start me off on the search for potentiall-narcotic-but-not-poisonous-magic-mushrooms)

way late on this one. Reference to smoking banana peel: me too, but, we may have thought our perceptions were altered.

Donovan's guitar adapted the Woody Guthrie slogan 'This machine kills fascosts' to 'This machine kills'. Suggesting....that

...either there weren't (m)any fascists around when Donovan was warbling, and/or he wasn't politically committed enough.

"There are things known, and things unknown, and in between are the doors." Huxley? William Blake? Jim Morrison? Ray Manzarek (who died last week)?

Thanks for the history, Erni.

Oh! I thought I had got into the wrong group but it seems not. Dean promised to send something to make Kevin happy. before disappearing.Kevin is my postman and he loves reading my Mail Art. So here it is what I received, held by my Becasine.

2013 CALIFORNIA STATE FAIR BANANA SIGHTINGS:

BANANA SLUG CLOSEUP:

ALL FOR NOW!

HUH! GUESS I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION....THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP!

missing Dean :-(

Hoping all is fine with him and he will be back in 2014,

we will have to: