August was...

...."Put a Capybara On It" month.

(among other things.)

and since I somehow managed NOT to blog for the entire month, there is much to share.

There's no way I'm squeezing everything I did this month into one post, so we'll start with the Capybaras.

Gina set the theme for this month for a small group of mail art friends.  There was an official Capybara themed swap, due by month's end, but many group members got in the spirit of the theme and sent Capybara postcards willy-nilly to everyone in their mail circles.

My PLAN was to submit one card as my official swap entry and to join the Capy-frenzy for everyone else.  I pictured dozens of rodents-of-unusual-size flying out of my studio.

But in my typical seat-of-the-pants fashion, I waited until the last possible second to get started, which means my Capy celebration ended up happening in September instead of August.

Thankfully my swap partner was my dear friend and (swap host herself) Gina, and she forgave me my procrastinating ways.

The problem was, I'd run dry.

All good ideas had evaporated.

I was panicking.

It took me almost a week, but I finally came up with 3 cards, which I didn't really even like that much, and since I felt so bad for being late on my swap I sent them ALL to Gina. (cuz three crappy cards are better than one?)

(okay, I actually kinda like this one)

The backgrounds are made from gelatin-printed cereal boxes, created in a frenetic burst last weekend.

The critter images came from google, and the text and other pictures came from a stack of Fortune magazines from the 40s (scored at an antiques store on vacation!)

 

Tonight I sat with the rest of the backgrounds (and the same Fortune magazines) with visions of something else entirely, but I couldn't get Capybaras out of my head.  It's been a stressful week, so I decided not to fight the rodent-muse.

Here's the capybara continuation...

I think I finally found my Capybara groove.

I wonder where it will end?

There's been a lot of giggling in the studio tonight.

Stress has evaporated.

It's good to be back.