Summertime, and the writing is easy

Dear Everyone ~

We are delighted to showcase four new postcards by watercolourist and BZS in-house illustrator Janet Bouldin: three bouquets in beguiling vases and a teapot collage. This is Janet’s inaugural teapot postcard—she has been making these collages with scraps from my bookbinding projects since 2021. We first featured the originals here in our A New Season of Serizawas blog post. 

 The snippets she’s used to make the teapot on this postcard are from a Japanese Katazome paper whose pattern we refer to as Japanese Floating Garden. These scraps were from a buttonhole-stitch book I had made for my postal muse. The texture and colours are reproduced beautifully on the card. 

 Janet comments, “I try to make use of the pieces exactly as they come from Bari, without any alteration, to see if I can make a coffee or tea pot, sometimes even a cup.”
 
The floral postcards are quintessential Janet. “When I’m looking for things to draw and paint, it seems I land most often on a vase with flowers—there’s something calming and meditative about the combination. The hellebore in the bird-shaped pottery pitcher is a bit different and quirkier. The pitcher belongs to a friend I visit. I love the colour of the hellebore and the way it looks a bit like a hat.” 

Janet’s whimsical postcards measure 4 x 6, so you can indeed mail them at the postcard rate. They are all printed, including her previous sets, on Mohawk Superfine in the eggshell finish, a surface that welcomes all manner of writing implements.

Speaking of writing implements, I have just refreshed our Kaweco fountain pen shop listing with three new colours in the Collector series: Mellow Blue, Sage, and Teal. Also in the writing accessory department are four new glorious Kyo-no-oto inks: No. 10, Ochiguriiro (a rich dark chocolate); No 11, Ruriiro (a deep nautical blue); & No. 12, Ryokyuuiro (a glorious aquamarine);  and one Special Edition, Ginkaisyoku (a shimmery sage). It occurs to me, as I’m thinking about ink, that all of these colours are fairly marine, an opportunity to add a soupçon of summer, a seaside breeze, to your communiqués.