Mail Me Art

As some one obsessed with anything to do with Postcards, Stamps, Letters I was reallly excited to discover 'MailMeArt' a British based project by Darren Di Lieto. The first MailMeArt brought together loads of illustrators & designers who mailed him a work of art. But the condition was that the actual art has to be on the envelope or packaging mailed. The project was also converted into a beautiful book by the same name. You can buy it here.
Mail Me Art 2 is now open for submissions and so I decided to send my very own handmade postcard. I handpainted all the stamps of some of the things I love. The stamp collage then become the front of my postcard. Plus I also got to use my custom stamps that I had created (from Royalmail) a while back.

Esquire Cover Archive

Came across this amazing archive of all the covers of Esquire magazine starting from the first issue back in October 1933. Check them out here.

Flickr Favourites: Hot Air Balloons

Lately I've been obsesssssssssed with Hot Air Balloons. I'm drawing them a lot and every where I see I come across them in some form or the other. And as usual I've added a lot of them in my Flickr favs. Here are a few that made it to my desktop favs for inspiration.

Bookworm: An Awesome Book

A while back I bought an awesome book called "An Awesome Book" by author and illustrator Dallas Clayton. He wrote this book for his 5 year old son. It's a book every 5 year old should read it and every 50 year old should read it too and everyone in between. What I liked about the book was that it was very inspiring yet very simple. But sometimes I think life should be just that... Simple. The book has been a great success and now he has started a foundation called the Awesome World Foundation and for every book he sells he's going to give one away. So please go buy a copy of this awesome awesome book.

Real Lego House

We all have a vision of how our dream house looks like. For UK based designer James May, it's going to be a Real Lego house that will have a total of 816 million Lego pieces. I wonder what I'd make my house off?? Postal Stamps maybe...?? :)

via >incrediblethings

Shambala Festival 2009

I know it's been a while but I've hand my laptop die on me this weekend. I hope I can get it fixed soon. Anyway here are a few fun fun moments from Shambala Festival a few weekends back. I had sucha wicked time and would love to go again. Took part in loads of workshops and general merriment. But I probably had the most boring costumes. If you want to call a mask a costume. But I will definitely make more effort next year.

I painted this mask for Mr. S

Maddest Tea Party

Bookworm: Light of India - A Conflagration of Indian Matchbox Art

All of us have some kind of obsession or the other... mine among other things (don't get me started) is to collect art & design books. So I've decided that I'll share them here. This one is called Light of India - A Conflagration of Indian Matchbox Art. As an Indian formerly living in India, I grew up with imagery like this all around me. This is what Indians see every day around as part of their daily lives. It's functional, it's cheap, it's not 'Art'. I probably felt the same way when I was there. I might have still felt the same if I was still living there. But living away from India has changed so much for me. it's helped me recognise the beauty in things that I took for granted earlier. Anyway I think this book is beautiful and very inspiring and I feel very silly saying this but I'm extremely proud of it. The book is available to buy on Amazon.

The Picture Postcard Show 09

This Saturday I had the most amazing time at the Picture Postcard Show near Victoria Station, London. This show was organized by the PTA and they have regular Postcard fairs all around the UK every month and every other month in London.

There was some serious buying going on with some postcards on sale for as much as £200 each!

This year's theme was 'The Great British Seaside' and they had some very interesting and unique postcards from private collectors.

I don't really buy anything as a serious collector, just anything that's visually interesting. A few of my purchases.. I bought some early 19th Century Advertising Postcards of Typhoo tea and Persil washing powder and a lot of London Underground reproductions of original posters.

This was my best buy of the day... Royal Mail limited edition Channel Tunnel stamps issued in 1994.

Custom Stamps by Royal Mail

My obsession reached a new level when I found out that you can print your own custom stamps 1st class Royalmail stamps from the Royal Mail website. I've made lotsss of fake stamp illustrations but it was just another feeling to see my Manhattan Monsta as a real stamp! The only downside is that the bespoke stamp does not have the price or the Queen's head actually on it but is attached to a templated stamp. Anyway I can't wait to create more stamps especially since Christmas is kinda round the corner. So this year my Christmas cards will have an extra personal touch. Yay!
You can create custom Royal Mail stamps here.

Inspiration Ceramics

Elsa+Sam

Bailey Doesn't Bark

Helen Beard

Yoyo Ceramics