Envelope Collage
Read more about the 2021 daily art journal and each month’s theme here.
May’s daily theme was all about envelopes: collaging, coloring, cutting, or painting on them. Or in them. Folding new ones, sewing new ones, or filling them with flowers and confetti. Etc. But there was a lot about this month that didn’t go as planned. For starters, there was nothing “daily” about some of these, so May’s theme dragged way into June before I had 31 finished envelopes. Also, there are a handful of envelopes that aren’t going to fit into the art journal very nicely. Totally my fault…
1. ballet photo taken by my popie
2. the glassine envelope was originally used to store stamps (plus hand-marbled papers, stamp, stickers, etc.)
3. the tennis-playing girl is from a vintage camera manual
4. another vintage illustration – I found the bird in a small frame at Goodwill
5. glassine stamp envelope, dollhouse illustration from a Reader’s Digest, stickers from Stickertopia: The Museum
6. envelope folded from a hunting guide map
7. watercolor experiment + illustrations from Extraordinary Things to Cut Out and Collage
8. a page from a vintage star book peeking through
9. “P.S. I do hope we’ve put enough stamps on.”
10. glassine stamp envelope, scrap paint blobs, statue sticker from Stickertopia: The Museum
11. stuffed with flowers (with a few of my favorites pressed for the journal)
12. stuffed with confetti
13. a coloring book sheet from A Million Bears painted with watercolors
14. the spoon illustration is from an old Sears catalog (plus mark-making scraps from February)
15 – 16. various stickers, stationery, and catalog fragments
17. address frame stamp (very roughly) carved from a rubber block
18. envelope stamp carved from a school eraser
19. Halloween coloring book sheet and colored pencil
20. “stained glass” Harry Potter coloring book sheet (Hedwig!)
21. pieced together from security envelope patterns
22. cloth and lace ribbon
23. hand-marbled using pastel dust
24. illustrations from Extraordinary Things to Cut Out and Collage
25. and 26. are both folded cloth paper – thick enough to stitch on without ripping anything
27. marbled paper (more pastel dust), security envelope pattern, a sketch of my gramma by my popie, and a little stitching
28. sleepy envelope bear = gel pen dots, hand-carved stamps, and pretty yellow collage paper
29 – 31. envelope poems
Using pages from yet another rotten Reader’s Digest, I created a list of words and phrases that caught my eye. I then cut, rearranged, and generally played around until I had small poems I was happy with. Then I sliced peek-a-boo holes in the envelopes big enough to see only the words I needed.
