This card went to my friend Jonathan down in LA. Despite being involved in the film industry he doesn’t seem to be nearly as narcissistic as I am – the only evidence of him I can find online is an IMDB profile that I’m not 100% sure is actually his. I’ll have to look around and see if I can find anything else.

This was one of the most satisfying illustrations I’ve done in a long time. I finished coloring it and thought, “Hmmm, that looks pretty good.”

It’s not that it’s better than previous drawings (or drawings to come). It’s that it turned out better than I expected, more quickly than I expected. These postcard illustrations are being done for communication and practice. The communication happens by mailing them. The practice happens in the drawing and coloring. I’ve gotten a lot of practice drawing over the years. Not so much practice drawing in color. This was the first color drawing I did where I tossed on the color like I knew what I was doing. Satisfying!

This postcard went to my friend Sin who, as far as I know, has no webpage for me to link to. How twentieth century of her.

And here’s the color version.

This is a portrait of Nizzibet’s nephew. He’s twelve. I wasn’t too worried about making the portrait really accurate. These postcards are meant to be done as quickly as possible with as little fussiness as possible. I’m trying to have fun and practice and have little presents to send friends and family.

And here is the image with color added.

I sent the original to Derek. Since we have a regular Sunday evening movie night I can ask him if it arrived.

This might turn out to be a dead letter image. It’s one of four cards that I mailed out before it occurred to me that maybe the price of postage had gone up since I’d purchased the cards. (The cards date back from when Aged Mother lived with us. She thought she would write cards to friends but never managed it) I checked USPS.com and yup, the cost of postcard mailing has gone up a penny. Of course I didn’t put return addresses on any of the cards. Stupid me.

Yesterday’s image with color.

This card is going to SJ Chiro. I know where she lives, but can’t find the address at the moment. Since I drive by her house at least once every couple of weeks it shouldn’t be hard to get the number the next time I go by.

I love sending mail almost as much as I enjoy receiving it. Paper mail that is. I’m fond of email but it lacks the physicality and individuality of a personal letter delivered by hand. Every month I get a postcard from my bother Glenn. It’s awesome – a little piece of art plus a short message from someone I care about. It makes the 45 credit card offers I get between postcards tolerable.

Email is efficient. It’s fast and cheap. But when the power is out you can’t read it by candlelight while drinking tequila shots.

I used to be a pretty proficient letter writer. It’s a skill that’s attrophied. I miss sending mail. Once I’m done with work I’m not much for talking, much less writing. I can still draw however. And I’ve got a stack of preposted poscards. It’s not quite letter writing but it’s better than just thinking hard about distant friends and hoping they pick up on the vibe.

I’m doing the art on the actual cards in black ink. Then I’m scanning the art and coloring it. I’ll post the original art one day, the colored art the next. Any messages I manage to write will be between me and the recipient and the USPS.

Because I’ve mostly been sending emails in the last few years I haven’t kept up on my dirt world addresses. If you think there’s a chance I don’t have your mailing address, please email it to me at davidlee.ingersoll @ gmail.com sometime during May 2007 and I’ll be happy to send you a postcard. (You’ll have to remove the spaces in front and behind the @ to get the address to work. But you knew that.)

I’ll post the first postcard in the series tomorrow.