Painted birds

Sent to Ireland for the charity Palestine Postcard Project.

Donkey stamp

I've drawn this donkey some time ago and sent it away. Luckily I had scanned it, and this way kept the design. And recently it was accepted, similar to the ox, to be turned into a rubber stamp :-) So if I'll have received the stamp (hopefully next week, from UK to NL) I can stamp the donkey on my mail to my dear mail friends :-)

Year of the Ox

I thought I already had posted my Year of the Ox-ox at the start of this year, but apparently I didn't. Meanwhile I sent a scan of the design to Azeeda, a company in the UK, who uses designs as prints on all kind of objects. And, luckily for me as a stamp hoarder: also designs are turned into (unmounted) rubber stamps! :-)
I earn a few cents per bought object, and so far I'm the only one who bought this rubber stamp (plus one for Eva, Eva: it will be on its way to you soon, for your LVQR project :-) ).

Drowning thanks to DAP

Ik hoop dat de nieuwe president er ook zal zijn voor de èchte Amerikanen: de oorspronkeljike bewoners van het continent. Deze tekening maakte ik 4 jaar geleden, naar aanleiding van de brute aanval van de Amerikaanse overheid op de mensen in Noord-Dakota, omdat er zo nodig een oliepijplijn (DAP, Dakota access pipeline) door het grondgebied moest. Grrr.

I hope that the new Potus will stand for the real Americans: the native people. This illustration I made four years ago, because of the more than brutal aggression of the American government against the people, to force an oil pipeline (DAP, Dakota access pipeline), which would and will destroy the people's earth and water. So unfair and cruel...

Postslak - Snail Mail Snail

After work, the mail has been delivered.

Sent to Canada.

Happy New Year of the Pig!

Portrait of a horse named Olly

'Framed' the way my late grandfather added photos to his photoalbum.

Sent to the owner of Olly (well, people own animals as much as animals own people - so: sent to Olly's human :-) ).

The revenge of the Fish

Anyone who thinks 'sport' fishing is a nice hobby is short-sighted. There is debate about the question whether fish do feel pain or not, but I think no one can deny that having a hook stinged through your lip and getting into an environment in which you're suffering from asphyxia is not such a nice situation.

The postcard you see on bottom right made me make the illustration above.
Sent to Willemien in Germany, who loves fish in a positive way.

More rhinoceros

Rhinoceros I always think nice to draw. Here is an other one!



(Also penguins apparently are a nice theme to draw!)

The revenge of the Trees

It is autumn, time to finish the mixed media mail art I started to create many months ago. The tree leave I used, had fallen from its tree in one of the previous autumns.
A lot of Trees have been murdered recently, both in my neighbourhood and close to my work. It makes me angry and sad, however I'm finding a little comfort in the fact that nature (hopefully) will 'win' in a way, after all.

I hope the receiver won't get too sad by this scenery, so I thought to paint the envelope in bright orange colours and to add a friendly hedgehog.

Ballpoint Snail

Part of an envelope, I decorated with ballpoint lines and this Snail drawing.
I created it in 2016, then lost the envelope somewhere between other papers in my piles/files, found it again today and won't wait any longer to send it :-)

Rhino and chicken

Sent to Ryosuke Cohen.

Do we really see a Gecko?

Drawn in 2015, finally sent September 2017.

Oranjevrouw - from the Dutch woman's soccer team

This member of the Dutch 'Orange' women's soccer team I drew as a reply to Jimmy Connors in Berlin, who has sent me several collages and recently wrote very kind words about our 'Orange' teams.

I guess the player won't recognize herself in my drawing (she's a very good, excellent player!), but at least I had a try. That's what counts, doesn't it?!

To be a Penguin or not to be a Penguin

"Penguin in snow and ice landscape."

I think it always fascinating to see that a drawing suggests a complete object, or in this case, a complete animal, while in fact not the complete object or animal is shown.

Sent to Ti Ar Raden, who has a black and white mail art project.

Economics worth more than animal life...

Some of you might know that in the Netherlands and some other countries the fipronil scandal took place in the past months.
Millions of eggs, hard work for the hens, have been destroyed.
And worse, hundreds of thousands hens have been killed. Some farmers have chosen to have the hens moult to have remove the fipronil from their bodies.

The newspaper article shown above, saying the judge decides farmers are allowed to kill the - healthy - chicken, made me very angry. Because the headline mentions 'gifkippen', 'poisonchicken', a 'framing' word.. What can the poor chicken do about it? And the text says the chicken are 'economicaly worthless animals'... While each and every animal is worth being!

My very first Etegami

I never had heard of the word 'etegami' until I got involved in an etegami swap recently.

Etegami, or 'picture letter' or 'painted letter', origins from Japan and consists of a simple hand-painted drawing accompanied by apt words, mostly done in postcard size for a quick and easy mailing.

Etegami can be about daily objects. So I chose to draw/paint one of my favourite obkects: my morning coffee (with milk, no sugar).
Here you can see a picture of this very first etegami, next to the original object.



On the back side this etegami artistamp appeared.

And the stamp which I added to the envelope, invited me to make a longer green road:

The earth and the mail art network were born on the back of a turtle

I think it a good idea to consider the title to be true.

Front side of an envelope, created to send to Ryosuke Cohen for his Brain Cell project.



Back side of the envelope, which is the address side:



And the inside:



Wishing the turtles a safe journey.

About Chess, Stork and Orion soup

Two people to whom I can send black-and-white mail art are Ryosuke Cohen, for he is turning it into a colourful Brain Cell form, and Alex Witter, who has a mail art project on the theme 'Black and White'.

As I love chess, and horses, I chose to draw them these two chess sceneries.


For Alex, I added a stork on the back side, because the stork ('ooievaar' in Dutch) is the symbol of his city.



To the envelope for Ryosuke, suddenly Orion Soup appeared.



Wishing both pieces a safe and speedy travel!

P.S. There is a third person for whom we should create black-and-white mail art: also Ti Ar Raden has a mail art project on the theme.

P.S. 2. Real chess lovers will have spotted the error in the compilation made on top: nine squares in a row instead of eight! :-)

FeMailed Artist and Scientist

Recently I was invited to join the 'Femail-XX' mail art project about female art and science.



I chose to draw this illustration, in honour of Maria Sibylla Merian (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1647 - Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1717). As an artist and scientist, Merian has played an important, be it not so well-known, role in natural history and biology.
Did you know that there were times that people thought butterflies arose spontaneously from mud and dirt? For us it is so obvious that butterflies originate from eggs. However, not until Merian's era people got little by little aware of the connection between butterflies, caterpillars and eggs. And Maria Sibylla Merian was one of the very first to research and draw these species and their metamorphosis. And the very first to add the hosting plants to her insect illustrations.
At older age (as old as I am now) she even traveled by boat to the tropics, a 2 months journey, to Suriname. There she researched more butterflies and other insects, and she has published beautiful, and scientifically seen correct, illustrations of the insects and all stages and surrounding vegetation.

This not so correct drawing is just a small honour to a woman who deserves a high place in natural and art history.



The mail art project's full name is Women Art Scientist Testament Exploration. I couldn't resist the urge to change 'waste' into the well-known female item 'waist'.