The idea for this postcard came from spending the day on the phone with my sister.  When I saw the photograph, it reminded me of great "sister days"  Yesterday was a great day to spend together.  I just wish she lived closer so we wouldn't have to spend our time on the phone.

I inked the background with a turquoise stamp pad, then stamped it with distressed blue.  The birdcage is stamped in black and all other items came from my stash of scrap pictures.  I love it.

I saw some tutorials about alcohol inking on glossy paper and thought that I could try it on some photo paper that I had.  This is the result.  You can't see all the colors.  I used a blue and a purple and pounced the paper with it.  Once it dried I used a rubber stamp with flourishes and sepia archival ink.  The only problem was that the photo paper had something on it in the middle and it worked as a resistant.  You can see the white spot in the middle of the design. I can still use this if I cut it in strips or punch circles out of it.  I wish you could see the redish purple that marbled through the design.  The whole point is that photo paper worked great.  No need to buy special "glossy" paper".

The idea for this postcard came from the Sunday Postcard Art Website.  The idea was to create a postcard using Venetian Masks as the theme.  I found two Venetian Masks through a Google search. The style of the masks reminded me of Marie Antoinette.  I did some Google searches for images of Marie and found this wonderful image from the Movie.  I copied the image into MS Word and then sized it to the size that would fit the postcard.  I also copied the images of the masks into MS Word and sized them until they looked like they would fit over the faces.  I printed everything out and cut out each image.  I then glued the masks over the faces, which I think turned out great.  I used a flourish rubber stamp with my Sepia Archival Ink and stamped randomly on the image.  I went through my stash of scrapbook paper and found a perfect page to use as my background.  I typed the words using a free font download from http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=113, "Mom's Typewriter".  I cut the words out colored them with alcohol ink, glued them in place and I was done.  I like how it turned out.  It makes me smile when I look at it.

My First Attepts at Postcard Art

When I went to visit my sister in Florida, we went on some mad shopping sprees for craft items and she introduced me to alcohol inks.  I have been browsing the postcards that so many talented artists have posted on the web and I wanted to try my hand at it.  When I returned home, I thought making a postcard would be the perfect medium for playing with my newly purchased ink

I used watercolor paper and cut it to measure 4" x 6".  The size of a standard postcard. Then I  inked the background to look like grass and blue sky.  I used a rubber stamp and stamped another shade of blue over the sky to give it texture.  I did the same thing for the grass.  I cut out the girl and the bird from some graphics that I had and glued them in place.  I typed the words, printed them, cut them and inked them.  Then I glued them in place.  I think that it turned out pretty good for a first try.  It makes me happy to look at it.

  

This is my second attempt and I came up with this idea from the Sunday Postcard Art Website http://sundaypostcardart.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/rusty-ole-barn/  There theme was Rusty Old Barn, which made me think of the old time barn dance.  I thought it would be clever to have the animals dancing.  Well, it was amusing to me and made me giggle.

They have a wonderful site and some fantastic artwork is displayed.  If you haven't visited the site, grab a cup of coffee and sit back and enjoy.

I wasn't going to post this one because when I did it, I didn't like it.  I was experimenting with inks and stamps.  I set it aside as a bust, until I recently found it in my stack of papers and I thought, hmm, where did this come from. It's kind of cool.

These first attempts are pretty simple and I hope to get a little more detail in them and more daring with each new try.  Now that I know that I can doodle, I might add some more of my own handiwork to them.

Learning to doodle. That's right....I said learning.

I have been looking on-line for mixed media and altered art projects to ewwww and ahhhhh over and I saw a lot of journal books. The journals that I saw were wonderful and the people that create them are quite artistic.  As I was mesmerized by the projects that I saw, I was also intimidated.  I could NEVER do that, I have zero artistic ability.  Seriously, you don't want me as your partner in Pictionary!  I have a hard time drawing stick figures.

Then yesterday I bought this wonderful book, "Journal Bliss" by Violette.  It says to quiet your inner critic and begin by "PRACTICING" doodling by making faces, drawing borders, drawing from nature and creating flourishes.  I thought, you either new how to draw or you didn't and I knew that I didn't!  So this made me think, what the hech, I might as well try it.  I don't have to show it to anyone and if it is an epic fail, well at least I tried. The first thing I did was get a piece of paper and a pencil.  Then I sat down all excited and ready to draw...something, but what?  I was at a total loss.  I don't doodle. I had no idea where to start.  So I Googled it.  That's right, I Googled "doodling", to see what people doodle.  I am always amazed at what you can find on the internet.  I finally saw some ideas and put pencil to paper and below are the first attempts that I made.

 I know ..... not real impressive, but I was excited.  I was at least doodling!  I made two attempts at drawing a squirrel from a tutorial that I found.  You can see from the drawing below that I did not do very well with either attempt.  I did get frustrated with myself and the inner critic was screaming, "see I told you that you couldn't draw".  So I set my pencil and paper aside and decided that was enough for a first try.  Geesh, just thinking of silly things to draw and let my juices flow took it out of me.

This is my second effort at doodling.  Again, it isn't anything impressive and my son and all my nieces and nephews that have super powers when it comes to art, would scoff at me.  But for someone who couldn't even think of WHAT to doodle, much less doodle it, I am very happy.  My next move will be to add some color to the mix.  I think I now have the confidence to try some journaling. This is going to be fun.