December 2014 Blog Posts (228)

The challenge this month was to further develop my tonal modelling through a number of representional still life compositions. I needed to overcome the tyranny of line by avoiding line drawing altogether. Through this process, I discovered that the lost and found lines in a drawing become immediately more apparent, enabling me to create line through the use of tone alone. To achieve lost lines I am using an eraser and leaving the canvas white or lightly shaded. I am also beginning to assess…

Looking back at the first month of regular drawing practice, I can see where my use of  tonal variation has improved. The perspective in ‘Swains Lane, Boxing Day’ is good, but although I have included tonal variations, they are not very subtle and I have struggled with them, due to an unresponsive pencil. I have been using a 2B pencil, which does not have sufficient…

All the best for 2015 nice works nice moments nice days for all !!!

Começa o ano e fico a pensar, como ele será...espero que seja repleto de muito amor, carinho e paz, pois os filhos já não falam com os pais e os casais só brigam e falam em separar...meu Deus isto tem que acabar. Devemos fazer uma…

Hello everyone,

I'm having trouble being able to respond to messages, and though I've searched my account settings, found nothing that could rectify the situation. If you get to see this blog post, it's to wish you -

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2015. May your year be full of Mail Art and good cheer and good health and good friends.

Best wishes, always,…

Lush "pink" mail art arrived from the Artist in Seine in time for the New Year! Yay!

Some very important images here...but I cannot give out their identity, sorry.

Anyone wish to take a guess as to who they might be?

Now the…

And the SECOND package from Hamburg that arrived at the end of 2014...

Interesting wrappings here, too...the answer is "Yes. our Erni"!:…

Last mail delivery for 2014, and here came 2 (TWO!)  from the Off-Scene Akademie Hamburg!

Nice birdie for Wildlife in the City: chiep, chiep? or chirp, chirp? or tweet, tweet!…

The postman finally brought the "last-of-the-mail" for 2014...

and Edmund displayed it on our "blue" placemat :-)

All will be blogged over the New Year Weekend surely,…

New Years Resolution: It's time for a new PAW...in fact this will be a P-PAW!

In 2008, 2009, and 2010 I participated in an exercise in self-discipline that had been started by some online photo friends on one of the Leica groups. It's called "Picture-a-Week," and the idea is simple: make at least one good photograph each week, no matter what, without fail, no excuses. Doesn't have to be prize-winning, but it should be one that I am happy to show off to some sophisticated phot…

If you have sent me something in the last few weeks a response should be on its way to you this afternoon.

Today's trip to the post office brings my total pieces sent in 2014 up to 151. I have sent mail art to 12 different countries including the UK.

I hope you all have a creative, mail art making…

Baked beans, collage and add & pass. New blog here ->

Just got back from Diane Keys new show at the Elgin Museum of Modern Art (EMOMA). Wild stuff. I was surprised to see my name in the Catalogue:

Keys continues to burrow into the layer of duff on the urban floor, a sediment rich with meaning "para aquellos con los ojos." (Trans.: For those with the prescience to find the vision of…

The International Day of The Banana is now in the rear view mirror but even though I didn't enter the mail art call I did receive some entries including a Banana Surprise from Stripgoose who has never sent me anything before. Surprise! Thank you,…

Mail-art by IUOMA member David Stafford (Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA)

December 28, 2014 - The inclusion of a pipe-bedecked David Stafford in the holiday card he sent me this year puts me in a mood for a bit of puffery as…

For those few of you who missed Nadine's One Person Show at the Burbank Museum of Unnatural History, here's a quick review from the Burbank Gazetteer:

Wendell-Mojica's stinging portraiture produces a laugh and a wince when we realize balloting may be going on behind our own backs. Through January…

From the Catalogue:

Like Diane Keys and Nadine Wendell-Mojica, Bruns is a culler of culture, a diva of detritus who captures the zeitgeist daily in scraps of ephemera. The gestalt of the assemblage IS the art, a snapshot (or scrapshot, if you will) of a flailing culture amid which we flounder, up to our eyes in the onslaught of imagery that…

I had admired Linda Faye French's series The Theory of Buttons. Each piece is subtitled, and, for me, the titles enhance the work.

Completely unexpected, The Theory of Buttons Solar, Electrical appeared in my mailbox.

Many silvered and blackened orbits, against a cosmic green and mauve firmament. With suns, planets, moons tightly…