Latest landmark stamp collages

I sometimes spend hours searching for suitable stamps to complete a picture and add the final touch.
As all artists will agree it's sometimes hard to know quite where to stop .. but I just had to find a dove to finish off the Brandenburg Gate to my own satisfaction.  Having finally placed the eagle on top of my version of the Quadriga - the chariot pulled by four horses, I wanted also to include a dove as a symbol of peace now that the gate is no longer a dividing line, but a sign of the unification of East and West Germany.
It proved a long search and I found several contenders for the role, but finally settled on the South African stamp, which has a strong illustration of a white dove which stands out against the blue sky.

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin    Stamp Collage

And the camels arrived too .. in fact there were so many in the end that I was spoilt  for choice, and used several to give an idea of scale and distance, using some of the smaller ones nearer to the Pyramids, with some of the larger ones in the foreground. Luckily I managed to find most of them from my own stock of stamps, and promised myself that very soon I will have another sort out and filing session to make life a bit easier next time. I recently purchased a very strange assortment of stamps from Libya, and purely by chance they included a couple of nice camel stamps which I've used in my picture.     Both pictures are now being copied for limited edition prints and cards and the originals will shortly be framed for my forthcoming exhibition in March at Gloucester Guildhall Arts Centre.  Further information to follow!

Camel image cut from Libyan stamp 

Pyramids of Giza stamp collage

Shakespeare - the bard of Avon - on everything including stamps!

We recently spent a day  in Shakespeare's home town, Stratford-Upon-Avon. It was a new experience for our youngest daughter,  now 18, as she couldn't remember her last visit .. but she was just 3 years old then! Everywhere, there are reminders of  the Bard of Avon. Even the Bank has his portrait over the door! And  the local branch of W H Smith uses a quotation from Titus Andronicus to entice customers inside! And I didn't know Anne Hathaway had tea rooms!

 Of course it's an expensive day out if you choose to visit all the landmarks associated with him, but the great thing for locals is that you can get a Season ticket, and return at your leisure to do all the Shakespeare sites over the period of a year! We had a leisurely stroll around the Shakespeare's Birthplace museum, Hall's place - the home of his daughter Susanne and her husband, and enjoyed the gardens where there are some wonderful sculptures  - characters from his plays with relevant quotations, and yet more sculptures down by the River Avon.

Shakespeare's birthplace

Tim and Basia Clegg of Torbay Stamp Centre  also recently made reference to stamps issued to commemmorate William Shakespeare, in their latest Youtube film, The truth about first day covers (part 6 of their series about stamp collecting). It  features a cover  bought on board the Queen Mary II signed by Judi Dench!  It's well worth watching and we can  look forward to a new book about Shakespeare too!

Shakespeare festival stamps issued in 1964

 GB Shakespeare stamps celebrating 50 years of the Royal Shakespeare company were issued in  April 2011. They include stamps featuring quotations from Hamlet -" To be or not to be, that is the Question" and  Romeo and Juliet- : "Wherefore art thou Romeo?"

detail from the Cobbe portrait of William Shakespeare

• Since our previous visit  a newly authenticated portrait of Shakespeare has also been added to the exhibits in the Birthplace Museum.  Known as the Cobbe portrait, this beautiful painting was previously held in the Cobbe Collection of art.  A rather different image of William Shakespeare from the one we are used to seeing, and I wonder if it will ever appear on a stamp.

Variations on a theme of the Union flag, or Union Jack

We're so lucky to have such a wonderful colourful national flag and I've enjoyed making stamp collages of it using a variety of British stamps over the years.  These have been themed to include the word LOVE in the centre, large and small, using the Greetings issues, and in 2012 the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee I used more stamps featuring memorable events and icons from the Queen's 60 year reign.  All our stamps have the Queen's head, on so every stamp was appropriate for this particular version of the flag. A previous blog post gives more details about this one - complete with an acknowledgement from Buckingham Palace!
The Beatles have also been featured, with the LOVE,LOVE,LOVE  reference together with six Beatles album covers included in one of the collages.  A Christmas  flag is made up mainly of Christmas stamps!
The original flags are approximately 12 x 9 inches but canvas prints or giclee can be scaled up to any size and the most recent commission was the largest I've ever been asked to produce.

Just before Christmas I received a request all the way from Australia, from a British ex-pat working in Perth asking if I could customise one of my collages and enlarge it as big as possible and have it flown over there. He listed subjects he particularly wanted me to include, such as the Beatles, Sir Winston Churchill, a red telephone box, a guardsman, the England flag, references to Wales and the North West of England - and Mo Farrah winning his Gold Medal at the 2012 Olympics!  There is just one image which is not a stamp -that of Britpop artist, Noel Gallagher, which he particularly wished to be included, and supplied to me to fit somewhere in the design. The poppy was also chosen to be the central image.
I was very pleased with the quality of the print and the efficient service I received from my local printers in producing the canvas from my design to more than a metre in width, and the transport company who collected the parcel from my home and delivered to a very satisfied  client in Perth just 5 days later - in time for Christmas!

In search of a camel ..

Another work in progress has lead me astray .. but it's an interesting distraction. I've embarked on a new stamp collage: the Pyramids of Giza,  in Egypt of course! Landmarks have become a favourite subject. I once  made a 3D model of the Great Pyramid using a plastic pyramid shaped chocolate container (Ferrero rocher I think!), covering it with Egyptian stamps, and I decided to deconstruct this and use the stamps to make my collage.

work in progress   .. .  waiting for the camels 

We visited Egypt in 1987 and I kept a diary of the trip,so have been re-reading it in an effort to recapture the atmosphere. We explored the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the largest of the group and it was  an unnerving  climb up through low and narrow passage ways,  claustrophobic and very hot and airless.  Frightening to think of being shut in there for any length of time.  Much better to admire this amazing landmark from  outside!   Quoting my diary now, "Having emerged breathless, hot and thirsty from the pyramid, we collected our camera and found a camel!", or more accurately I think the camel and its owner probably found us. Ahmed, the camel owner, persuaded us to dress up in the standard Egyptian headdress and coaxed us onto the camel for a photo opportunity,  after a not very successful attempt at haggling!  Then we headed off to a sand dune to take our photos of the pyramids, avoiding further encounters with camels.

Having built the pyramids (!)  the hunt is on for camels on stamps to add authenticity to my scene!
It's like searching for a needle in a haystack - I know they are somewhere! Finally found what I was looking for having done some research online, and then remembering that I probably had the very ones in an old and tatty album  .. somewhere.. and here they are!

My online research revealed an interesting story about the design of the iconic stamp of Sudan which shows the Camel Postman.  In 1897 Captain E.A. Stanton was a surveyor and map maker in the Sudan and was an amateur artist who made illustrations of the oases, wells and other places of interest in the region where he was stationed.  Lord Kitchener ordered him to make a design for a postage stamp for which he was allowed just 5 days! Not an easy task, but inspiration struck one day when the regiment's mail was delivered by camel.  He persuaded a friendly local Sheikh to put on his uniform and climb on the camel so he could sketch him.  Bags were stuffed with straw to imitate mailbags and local destination names were added.

The Camel Postman stamp

The design was accepted and the first stamps were issued in March 1898. This stamp was in circulation for many years and the design was also used on Sudanese banknotes and coins.

 Some of the stamps are highly sought after by collectors, some specialising in this stamp alone,but I'm pleased and relieved to say that mine - the ones shown here at least, as I'm hoping I may find others, are virtually worthless due to their poor condition, but will make excellent material for my stamp collage.

Who says nobody writes letters any more?

Postcrossing card  received from Germany

Beautiful hand made card received from the Netherlands - thanks to Helma!

More about postcrossing - and I'm so pleased I joined and now receive interesting things in the mail instead of just brown envelopes and junk mail - although this can also have its uses, as some very creative people  turn it into works of art!  I send and receive postcards to people all over the world and also exchange stamps with other collectors. It's not restricted to stamps either as people often request other items they like to collect, such as beer labels, fridge magnets, and I've just been asked if I have any bow ties I could exchange for stamps! Hoping I can oblige!

My postbox yesterday contained letters from Russia and the Philippines, and also this week I've had mail from the Netherlands and Belarus!

Cards and beautifully decorated envelope received from Jose in the Philippines

English/Philippino dictionary

A little late, but also have to include this beautifully hand made card from Ada in the Netherlands - note the hand sewn Christmas tree!

Not only do we receive cards, letters and stamps and make friends with other postcrossers, we even learn a few words in other languages such as Philippino!    I will have to find the word to say , "Thanks" when I send my reply along with my postcards and stamps!

Postcrossing - I love it!

I've been a member of Postcrossing.com for just a few months but already I've made some great friends in all corners of the world.  We may never meet but it's really nice to exchange news and information and also swap postcards, stamps and .. er, beer labels! It's so lovely to receive interesting post and if you send postcards to others, you will receive cards back too and you can specify what you would prefer to receive.
Take a look at the website for further details.  It costs nothing to join, just the price of a stamp and the postcard of course, but if you are anything like me, you probably have some you've gathered on your travels and you can sometimes find something that someone else will really appreciate. Currently it's  88p to post a card to most parts of the world for a postcard - but do check first, and be sure to attach an air mail label or it may take some time to arrive!

I received this card from Berlin, which gave me the final push to create my own version of the Brandenberg gate (see previous post - work in progress).                I've been hard at work trying to finish my stamp collage, and trying to track down the horses to make my own version of the Quadriga on the top of the gate.  Also searching for suitable stamps to make up the visitors - still lots to do, and I still haven't found a suitable sized John F Kennedy stamp!

Images of horses on stamps - JS Bach and JF Kennedy - all with a connection to the Brandenburg gate

Crowd of visitors to the Brandenburg gate - not sure if Sir Rowland Hill ever visited!

Back to Postcrossing - since receiving the cards from Berlin, I've exchanged some cards with the sender, and have received many more from countries including Russia, Belarus, New Zealand, Lithuania, Ukraine, Singapore,  China, Taiwan, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany and the USA.  Some of the cards I've received have been beautifully hand crafted and I will post separately about this!

Tracy Spiers at the Museum in the Park, Stroud

I had an enjoyable visit to our local museum today, where my friend Tracy Spiers is completing a week's residency exploring the exhibits in order to create a children's book.  Tracy has a special connection with the museum as her grandmother Kitty actually lived in the building as a girl.  I found Tracy in the Kitchen area of the museum, busy sketching her tiny Kitty doll in different situations  including turning the handle of the knife grinder .. I'm looking forward to following the adventures of Kitty and George as they explore the museum's many interesting artefacts  and get into a few scrapes too!       It's free to visit the museum and there are so many interesting things to see including items connected with the local area and people such as Laurie Lee, paintings by many local artists, archaeological finds, fans, household items from days gone by and there are regular special exhibitions.

Tracy Spiers

Happy New Year .. new work in progress: the Brandenburg Gate stamp collage

After a short break over the Christmas period, I have now spent three days, so far, on my latest stamp collage, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. One of my FAQs (frequently asked questions) is "How long does it take you to do a picture?" and the answer is never the same! This is my fourth landmark subject and the first one, the Colosseum took about a month  although I wasn't working on it 24/7!
I've never visited Berlin, but recently have felt a great interest in doing so as I've received correspondence and German stamps from a couple of Berliners via Postcrossing, of which more in another post! Postcards showing the Brandenburg gate gave me added inspiration!
 Making one of these landmarks is quite complicated, from choosing the image to  finding all the suitable stamps to use and my filing system doesn't always work!  I'm using  German stamps for the main structure of the gate - pre and post unification as I felt that was the right thing to do. The wall was once a symbol of division between the two states but now it has become a symbol of peace.I'm still trying to work out how to do the Quadriga (bronze statue on the top). I've found a few possible horse candidates but others may be more suitable if I can find them .. this is the time consuming bit!
Like other well known tourist sites, there is always a huge crowd around  and many famous people including President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate. Size also matters in this case too, as within reason the figures need to be in some sort of acceptable proportion! (artist's licence does come into play here up to a point though).    So, on with the job! Scissors and glue at the ready to deal with crowd control!