Last week (March 15, 2007, to be more specific) CP recognized Canadian realist painter Mary Pratt with the latest issue of its continuing Art Canada series. Here’s a taste:
“Realist” indeed! It’s only after taking a close look at paintings such as “Jelly Shelf” (pictured on the left) that you’re able to tell that it isn’t a photograph. Pratt goes as far as erasing all traces of her brushstrokes to accomplish the photorealistic effect. An interesting aside: Pratt painted much of “Iceberg in the North Atlantic” using a Windex bottle filled with blue paint.
Her artistic philosophy is simple — as she puts it, “my role seems to have been to make people see things that are around them all the time that they never noticed before…”
While the paintings chosen for the issue are clearly wonderful, I’m a little leery of the design of the sheet itself; the “horizontal-bar” motif, which seems at odds with Pratt’s style, just doesn’t do if for me.
On a different note, last year Canada Post introduced “Permanent domestic stamps,” which have no specific postage value printed on them. Basically, they are good for life — there’s no need to supplement them with additional postage when the rates increase.
Will this have an effect on the number of new issues released in the future? I’m not sure, but what I do know is that it presents an interesting opportunity to “stock up” — while these permanent issues are immune to changes in postal rates, they will no doubt be affected by increases in price; for the opportunistic philatelic investor, the thing to do would be purchase a load of these sheets at the current price, and then re-sell when the price inevitably goes up — “buy low, sell high,” right?
I would be all over this, but my “resources” are tied up in Elvis Presley collector’s plates at the moment. Any day now, these babies are gonna make me rich! Well now, speaking of the King, why not dredge a little something out of the archives… This US issue was released on January 8 (Elvis’ birthday), 1993, and was accompanied with a little controversy; for one thing, the American public had been asked to choose which representation to feature on the stamp, and apparently there was some debate among members of Congress as to whether or not Elvis should be on a stamp in the first place (details right here). Anyhow, here’s what we ended up with:
Something About Mary
Last week (March 15, 2007, to be more specific) CP recognized Canadian realist painter Mary Pratt with the latest issue of its continuing Art Canada series. Here’s a taste:
“Realist” indeed! It’s only after taking a close look at paintings such as “Jelly Shelf” (pictured on the left) that you’re able to tell that it isn’t a photograph. Pratt goes as far as erasing all traces of her brushstrokes to accomplish the photorealistic effect. An interesting aside: Pratt painted much of “Iceberg in the North Atlantic” using a Windex bottle filled with blue paint.
Her artistic philosophy is simple — as she puts it, “my role seems to have been to make people see things that are around them all the time that they never noticed before…”
While the paintings chosen for the issue are clearly wonderful, I’m a little leery of the design of the sheet itself; the “horizontal-bar” motif, which seems at odds with Pratt’s style, just doesn’t do if for me.
On a different note, last year Canada Post introduced “Permanent domestic stamps,” which have no specific postage value printed on them. Basically, they are good for life — there’s no need to supplement them with additional postage when the rates increase.
Will this have an effect on the number of new issues released in the future? I’m not sure, but what I do know is that it presents an interesting opportunity to “stock up” — while these permanent issues are immune to changes in postal rates, they will no doubt be affected by increases in price; for the opportunistic philatelic investor, the thing to do would be purchase a load of these sheets at the current price, and then re-sell when the price inevitably goes up — “buy low, sell high,” right?
I would be all over this, but my “resources” are tied up in Elvis Presley collector’s plates at the moment. Any day now, these babies are gonna make me rich! Well now, speaking of the King, why not dredge a little something out of the archives… This US issue was released on January 8 (Elvis’ birthday), 1993, and was accompanied with a little controversy; for one thing, the American public had been asked to choose which representation to feature on the stamp, and apparently there was some debate among members of Congress as to whether or not Elvis should be on a stamp in the first place (details right here). Anyhow, here’s what we ended up with:
Handsome devil, ain’t he?