Deep Dark Fears

By Fran Krause (Taken from here).

Book Covers (and Pages) on Postcards

Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1964. Cover by John Sewell.

Printing Processes, 1971 (Series 654 - How It Works), by David Carey. Illustrated by B. H. Robinson.

The same day as the latter, arrived this postcard featuring the 42-line Bible. I love this kind of coincidences in my mailbox!

Postcards sent by John and Laura (the UK). 

No Fun at All!

It seems that 2020 is not going to be a good year for snail mail. I read that Icelandic stamps are going to disappear, and Italian mail boxes will do, too.

I cannot believe it is true :(

Rainy Postcards

Everybody says we should have been here last week

The place I live in is packed with tourists. Probably you have read my complains about in my letters and postcards. They come because of the beaches, and don't like the rest. Two days raining, and they seem all lost, wandering through the streets, bored...

How funny that I have received these postcards the same week! Both feature Rupert Besley artworks, but were sent by different people: Laura and John, from both sides of the UK.

First spot of rain we've had in months!

Fresnel

Envelope sent by Fabienne (France). That happy sailor seems to introduce us the stamps. The three stamps are wonderful. But, of course, the lighthouse-related would made the day of any lighthouses lovers!

Augustin Fresnel is a very important name in the lighthouses history: among his achievements, there is the Fresnel lens. The stamp was issued on 3 May.

Stamp issued on 22 Juin 2018, featuring the pink granite coast of Ploumanac'h and its Mean Ruz lighthouse.

Among others, she included this postcard with four lighthouses in the Somme department (France): Le Crotoy, Le Hourdel, Brighthon and Ault-Onival.

Reading Women

Girl with a cat, c. 1840
(Unidentified artist)

Good Read, by Michael Scholl

Storytime
The Shiels Collection, 1991

(No details on the back of this postcard)

Sent by Bryon (the USA), John (the UK) and Heleen (the Netherlands).

Sunday Stamps | Summer, Sun, Hot

After some A to Z rounds, the theme for this week at Sunday Stamps is Summer, Sun, Hot. Among my received stamps, I have found some that seem appropriate... What do you think?

Australia, 2007
Nostalgic Tourism

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH Post), 2004
Holidays

Japan, 2012
Greetings Summer

Lithuania, 2004
Holidays

The Netherlands, 2007
Summer Stamps

The Bosnian and Lithuanian stamps participated in the EUROPA stamps contest in 2004, under the theme Holidays. You can see here all the stamps issued by the different countries.

Head to Sunday Stamps to see more summer-related stamps. And... why not participate yourself? Show us your stamps!

Stunning Buildings on Postcards

Postcards of the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre of Beauvais sent by Fabienne (France). The big postcard shows the south façade. The normal-size postcards feature the astronomical clock (14th century) inside the cathedral, and the artists that made it.

Banqueting House in Whitehall, London. This ceiling was painted by Peter Paul Rubens in 1630-34. Postcard sent by Laura (the UK).

Cathedral of Bremen (Germany). Postcard sent by Christian.

Rainbow Weaver

Inspired by Claire's letter and this post I printed and coloured this Elsa Chavarri illustration for the book Rainbow Weaver / Tejedora del arcoiris (Written by Linda Elovitz Marshall). Then I made an envelope.

(You can find the printable here.)

National Eat a Peach Day

By Naz Şahin Özcan

According to this postcard (the second I have got from the series), today is the National Eat a Peach Day. No problem with that... except if I have to combine the peach with the second postcard I got from Byron the same day!

Sriracha Sauce
By Jöel Penkman

They postcards belong to Curious Feast: 100 Postcards by 10 Artists.

Icelandic Stamps

Are they going to disappear?!?

Update 28/08/2019: An interesting blog post here.

Post Office Murals

Mural of Cincinnati (detail)
Saul Steinberg (1914-1999)

US Post Office lobby artwork painted in the 1930s and 1940s was celebrated on 10 April 2019 with the issuance of the Post Office Murals Forever stamps.

The origin of Post Office murals can be traced back to 1933. That year, in a letter to longtime acquaintance President Franklin D. Roosevelt, artist George Biddle suggested that the U.S. government should commission artists in need of work to enliven the walls of public buildings. Later that year, perhaps spurred by Biddle’s plea, the Roosevelt administration established the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). The New Deal program led to the hiring of more than 3,700 artists.

From 1934 through 1943, the Section commissioned more than 1,000 murals. The buildings were some of the country’s most widely trafficked public spaces, which meant many people could enjoy the murals.

Each of the pane's 10 stamps features a detail of one of five unique murals.

Sugarloaf Mountain, 1940
Rockville, Maryland

The work of Judson Smith (1880–1962) appears in Post Office locations in Upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Painted in oil on canvas, Sugarloaf Mountain depicts the small peak located near Frederick, Maryland. The Post Office in Rockville, Maryland, where the mural was initially installed is now a police station.

Antelope, 1939 
Florence, Colorado

The Section of Fine Arts commissioned artist Olive Rush (1873–1966) to create murals displayed at public buildings in Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico, where she lived. Painted with tempera, Antelope features a herd of pronghorn, which are sometimes referred to as American antelope. The mural hangs in the lobby of the Florence Post Office in Colorado.

Mountains and Yucca, 1937
Deming, New Mexico

Painted in oil on canvas by Kenneth Miller Adams (1897–1966), Mountains and Yucca depicts Cookes Range, located in southwestern New Mexico just north of the Deming Post Office where the mural is displayed. This landscape is rendered in soft colors and features yucca shrubs and trees and other plant life.

Kiowas Moving Camp, 1936
Anadarko, Oklahoma

One of the Kiowa Six, a group of 20th-century Native-American artists hailing from Oklahoma, Stephen Mopope (1899–1974) designed a multi-part mural depicting Plains Indian life. Mopope and Kiowa Six artists James Auchiah (1906–1974) and Spencer Asah (ca. 1906–1954) painted 16 murals with tempera paint directly to the plaster walls in the lobby, including Kiowas Moving Camp. They can be seen at the Anadarko Post Office in Oklahoma.

Air Mail, 1941
Piggott, Arkansas

Daniel Rhodes (1911–1989) created murals that adorn public buildings and Post Office walls in the Midwest. Painted in oil on canvas, Air Mail depicts a letter carrier helping pilots load bags of mail onto their plane. The mural, which hangs in the lobby of the Piggott Post Office in Arkansas, is an ode to postal workers’ commitment to serving communities across the United States and beyond.

Information taken form here. Stamps sent by Bryon and Phillip (the USA).

You Fill the World with Goodness

Postcard sent by Claire (the USA), made out of cereal box. Actually, this was intended to become a postcard.

I was wondering how many people had actually cut the boxes out and sent them as postcards... When I received another one, from Bryon!

Women on Stamps | Z for Zus

I think that the Dutch word zus means 'sister'. I did not find any better way of finishing this  round of Sunday Stamps A-Z than these 2006 stamps, with illustrations taken from an old book for children to learn to read. 

For this round, I picked up the project of showing stamps dedicated to women. You can see here all the Women on Stamps featured on this blog. I am glad I did it, and I really enjoyed learning about such interesting people. I hope you have done so! 

Don't forget to go to Sunday Stamps to enjoy more Z-stamps!

A Blue Elephant

Watercolour elephant sent to Alan (the UK). The leaf stamp is a especial one, eucalyptus-scented.

HitM | Cheese Dairy

I guess this wood postcard sent by Fabienne (France) was more intended for the VQR Postal Project. But it also fits in the Houses in the Mail project, don't you think so?

Red Flowers

Envelope decorated with coloured pencils, sent to David (the USA).

Some Recent Envelopes

Sent by Bryon and Julia (the USA), Rosemary (Canada), Olga (Russia) and Catherine (France).

Whimsical Picture

Sebilj (Charity Fountain) at Baščaršija, Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Postcard sent by Ana and Danijel.