This is a race between homemade postcards & professionally printed cards.
All of the cards are similar in size & thickness. They were all dropped into the mailbox at the same time. The process of postage & delivery becomes part of the art itself. We’ll see how many arrive at their addressed destinations in whatever condition!
The factory-printed cards are well made & everyone gets the same image & story. There is more financial cost in ordering printed cards. Though, timewise they take much less work.
The homemade cards are much less expensive, but take much more time to create. There’s something fun about having an original piece of art, regardless of how sloppy it is. Below is a video of the process that went into making the homemade cards.
Several years ago I started TalebyMail as a hobby to focus on developing illustration skills. Spending more energy drawing lines than scrolling pages seemed a better use of my time. After moving from Minneapolis, MN to Seabrook, TX in October of 2020 I took a long break from illustrating stories.
I recently decided to start creating stories again, but my schedule is inconsistent & my art printer broke. So, I’m sending postcards instead of the former 8-page stories. I might move on to writing stories one page at a time on postcards. This will fit the idea of “The Slowest Stories Ever Told.”
Card Images
The professionally printed cards have an image of a dragon on them. The poem on the back is shortened from a much longer & incomplete story. The theme of this story is perception. I was working towards a redemptive ending, but it might never be finished. So, those of you who received these postcards might be the only folks to read anything about the dragon, at least any time soon. (If you’re wondering if this story was inspired by you, it wasn’t.) A lot of my recent illustrations & story ideas have come from personal journals. …What I’ve learned from printing this postcard is that words are much smaller in print than they appear to be on a computer screen. I hope you have a magnifying glass to read the script.
The homemade cards were simply a quick idea to complete this project. Hopefully, the simple scribble quality of the art will encourage a few of you to create your own art without too many worries about perfection in your skills.
Destinations
I sent postcards to 12 different destinations. Each address was added to a random piece of the homemade cards & one of the factory-printed cards. So, everyone that gave me their address should receive two cards in the mail.
When you receive your postcards, let me know. I scanned copies of each piece before they were sent off in the mail. It will be neat to see their condition after going through the US Postal delivery process!
If you’re interested in replying with a postcard or some other type of mail art, I’ll gladly share it on this site with a little write-up about you.
Annette Randall says
Hey Kirk, Thank You Soooo Very Much for my Post Cards !!! I Love Them !!!