#370 - Geometric

A new Handmade RR. Taebbig came up with the theme.

From Alienne:

I like Alienne's mixed media technique, and the bright colors.

"let's connect" makes me think of connecting dots and lines which fits really well with the theme. 

I also really appreciate the Otto Dix stamp :)

From taebbig:

This is such a good take on the theme, simple and effectful.

taebbig wrote this at a Postcrossing meeting in Berlin, so it is signed by a lot of different postcrossers. fun :)

From Jacqcoen

                           

                            

This geometric fish from Jacquelynn reminds me of a patchwork quilt. I like how the different patterns come together, and how edged geometric shapes combine to form something organic.

As always, I'm enjoying the pretty stamps.

Sent to Alienne, Jacqcoen and taebbig:

I really liked this theme, and ended up doing these 3 cards featuring Platonic solids and the Penrose triangle.

I may do a blog post on some of these things in the future. I like the intersection of strict mathematical logic and mystical symbolism.

#350 - Spiders

My third Handmade RR. I came up with the theme for this one. I work with spiders, and I'm trying to cure my arachnophobia.


From Alienne:

Alienne has drawing talent, and she painted the background with coffee.

I love this one!

From taebbig:

taebbig has sewn this on to a leather-ish fabric. It's so well made and I love the idea and the tiny googely eyes on the spider :D

From VickiKamalova:

                           

                            

Vicki made this great halloween themed card which has a crochet flower in the middle.

She also made  a bookmark with a picture of a beautiful piece of spider jewelery. I love it, and I am using it already

Sent to taebbig, VickiKamalova and Alienne

These cards were my first try with watercolors. I also tried to show the cute side of spiders.Although if I have to be a little biology-geeky about it, spiders with this kind of eyes (jumping spiders), do not actually make this kind of web. Purple card is painted on a page from a Danish translation of the book Catwatching (1986) by Desmond Morris, which has many of these nice cat drawings by Edward Coleridge

Conquering the Mountains

I made this card for a direct swap with medusa242, who wrote in her postcrossing profile that she likes pigeons. The background is from a Danish translation of Mountain Conquest by Eric Shipton: Bjergenes erobring 1967.

The pigeons are drawn by Claus Bering and I got them from a Danish elementary school book: 

Naturhistoriebog for 4. skoleår 1963

What is the fourth dimension?

Last month I was in Montréal, Canada, where I visited Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MAC)

The retrospective of Québécois artist Edmund Alleyn was a nice discovery. One of the things I like about his work, is the feeling of captured or frozen time. 

So, inspired by Edmund Alleyn and stuff I've found in books, here are some slices of frozen time. 

Edmund Alleyn, Sans titre ca. 1976.

Great blog post about the exhibition

Edmund Alleyn, L'Heure Fixe 1980. 

Edmund Alleyn's site

An unidentified American athlete jumping through time

from a book by the Danish Press-Photographers Association 50 år i Øjet(1962)

X-ray images of a horse jumping over a fence. Might be by Muybridge, but I'm not sure.

I found it in the Danish translation of L'homme et l'animal by Jacques Boudet: Mennesket, dyrenes herre (1967)

Francisco De Goya - Folly of Little Bulls (ca. 1819-1823) 

Printed in Mennesket, dyrenes herre (1967)

Some stamps from my not-so-mint collection.

A page from the absolutely genius From Hell (2006)

Written by Alan Moore and drawn by Eddie Campbell 

... And a bit more From Hell. Featuring James Hinton talking about the strange theories of his son Charles Howard Hinton, who did publish an article in 1880 called What is the fourth dimension? in which he does a very good job of imagining and describing a dimension beyond our own.

Charles Howard Hinton also coined the word Tesseract, and this image is of a tesseract passing though our mundane three dimensions. Originally from a Dutch book called Nothing ALL: Inzicht in de Vierde Dimensie(1953), I found it in this great blog, which also has a lot on C.H. Hinton

Drawing a tesseract backwards in a mirror is not easy!

He's explaining the dimensions - good stuff about 3:00 - 5:00

And finally, a recommendation: When you are done with From Hell, pick up Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, to get unstuck in time with Billy Pilgrim, and learn that "so it goes"

Verdensbilleder

The Danish word "verdensbillede" is best translated as "world view", but literally means "world picture". 
Here, I have collected various world pictures from old books.

How Homer imagined the world ca. 900 B.C. 

Illustrated by Björn Landström in his book Vägen till Indien(1964)

The Ptolemaic geocentric system was the typical world view in the middle ages. The outermost circle is the Firmament, and beyond that is the "crystal heaven" which is the home of God and "the elected ones". 

Cannot find the origins of this Danish illustration, but it is reprinted in Astronomi i billeder(1972)

Kepler's view of the world and the heavens. Also geocentric, but with the added complexity, that each sphere fits with one of the Platonic solids. Resulting in a harmony of the spheres. 

Image originally from Kepler's Mysterium Cosmographicum(1596). This reprinting from Astronomi i billeder(1972)

The expanding unverse - each white dot represents millions of galaxies.

Illustration by Antonio Petrucceli from Life's The World We Live In, Danish translation and print: Vor Underfulde Verden(1957)

The globe in full darkness. As unreal as the very first picture in this post, but much more realistic.

From Det Bedstes Store Verdensatlas(1966), which is some sort of Danish adaptation of a Reader's Digest Atlas.

The structure of a universe. Based on a simulation of the universe evolving from the big bang. The area shown in the picture is about 4 billion light years on each side, and each tiny dot of light is a galaxy. 

From Himlen set fra Jorden(2007)

Books referenced in this post. all from the local second hand shops.

Double Alice

I received two Alice in Wonderland postcards today.

This one if from the very sweet medusa242, who saw my rant about the new Danish postage prices on the postcrossing forums, and offered to send any Dane a card, expecting nothing in return.
I have made her a card though, I am just waiting for the opportunity to send it from Germany.

This one is an official postcrossing card FI-2775710 from Tiina in Finland, just happened to land in my mailbox on the same day as the one above. yay for Alice!

#346 - Mushrooms

My second Handmade RR.

From Nannie/siori

Cute origami mushrooms :) unfortunately the card got a bit of a beating in transit, Lovely stamps.

From Kibele

A bit unorthodox for a "postcard" but I love it! this wonderfully creative envelope contained a bag of stamps and stickers that I can use for making cards in the future.

From VickiKamalova

a lovely mixed media background and a mushroom fairy.

Sent Cards

For Nannie

Norwegian mushroom stamps on an illustrated forest floor. The stamps are held in place by cuts in the paper, and are easily detachable in case a collector wants them.

For Kibele

Sulfur mushrooms illustrated by N.Norvil for the book Svampe - haandbog for begyndere i svampeplukning(1943), The background is from an Alex Grey calendar print of the oil painting Dying(1990). Alex Grey is inspired by hallucinogenic substances, such as the psilocybin in "magic mushrooms".

For VickiKamalova

Marshrooms

Science guy quote

Postcard made by jenniloveshockey on Postcrossing.com. I really like the use of stamps, and it's such a great quote.

To the moon and back

DK-50699 I made this card from a Hans Scherfig painting and an illustration of the Apollo 11 mission. For a postcrosser who likes tapirs

#340 - Cinema

These cards are from my first round robin (RR) on the Prostcrossing forums. I wanted an excuse to make more cards so I joined this Handmade RR thread. RRs work like this: You join a small group agreeing on a theme, and then you send postcards with that theme to all other members in the group. The Handmade RR groups are usually 4 people, so you send 3 cards and receive 3 cards.

Sent cards

for jacqcoen(Arizona, US):

Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction. staring out of my homemade movie theater. I was going for sort of an old school cinema feel with the red and gold.

for Mosshumla(Sweden):

Charlie Chaplin (in The Gold Rush) and a real life filmstrip from the trailer of an Austrian movie called "Hotel". If you hold the card up to the light, one of the frames in the filmstrip can be seen clearly.

for VickiKamalova(Russia):

An illustrated movie poster of Danish silent film actress Asta Nielsen. I didn't do that much on this one, just framed it in film strip (colored black to look more like film strip, the real color on the edges is an ugly see-through brownish color). Those white lines going around are the soundtracks :D

Received cards

from jacqcoen(Arizona, US):

Picture is not so good because of reflections in the lamination. But great card based on her latest trip to the movies with her kids :D I also loved the stamps

from VickiKamalova(Russia):

Audrey Hepburn with a very colorful and fun background. I really like the technique Vicki has used to make this, And it made it through the post with no damage at all. (I put all my cards in envelopes because I was scared they'd fall apart)

 from Mosshumla(Sweden):

I love this card! it's inspired by the 1958 movie version of The Fly. The spider is beautiful, I love how its legs are hugging the back of the card. The web is made of thread (must have been difficult to glue on!) and that little face on the fly is both scary and hilarious. The stamps are really nice too.

I put this card on the wall in my office. I work with spiders, and I think this will be the start of a little exhibition of spider related postcards.