Summer postcard art

This year my local art supply store, Wet Paint, is doing their 13th annual Summer Postcard Project. All you have to do to participate (from anywhere!) is make a postcard and mail it to the store (postmarked by Aug. 15, 2026). Today I made two postcards for the project.

I absolutely love how this one turned out. I started with a watercolor postcard, glued a gel print to the front, and trimmed the edges. Using bits and pieces from other gel prints, I cut out petals, leaves, and a center for a flower. I played around with the layout for awhile; the flower was too big to add a second one, but too small to be the only thing on the front of the card. I finally settled on adding a quote, and this one — “Where flowers bloom, so does hope” — was the perfect length and the perfect sentiment. Using a Micron pen, I drew a border around the postcard and all the flower pieces. Then I held my breath and started the lettering for the quote. A few places were a little tricky because the paint on the gel print was bumpy, but I did it! I used a ruler to help with spacing and keeping the words straight. I added a few little hearts and covered the postcard with Mod Podge to help protect it in the mail.

For my second postcard (which I actually made first), I created something in the style of neurographic art. I started with a watercolor postcard and used a Sharpie permanent marker to trace different-sized circles. I let the circles overlap and go off the edge. Then I rounded off every place where two lines intersected (so the V shapes look more like U shapes). Then I started filling in the shapes. First I did the doodles, three different styles and four shapes for each style. Then I used ZIG Clean Color brush markers to add the color. Working one shape at a time, I “painted” water on the shape with a water brush, outlined the shape with the color, and then used the water brush to pull the color into the middle of the shape. And since I like to do things evenly, I filled in nine shapes for each color. :)

I’m ready to drop these in the mail tomorrow. The store displays all the postcards they receive in their front windows, so I’m looking forward to stopping by in the coming weeks to admire all the summer postcard art. Thanks for stopping by!