My copy of the July edition Uppercase Magazine arrived in the mail this week. I knew that two  of my drawings had been accepted to be published in this “Stamp” issue and I had seen a low res online version. (Read about it here http://www.alissaduke.com/2015/06/my-snail-mail-in-uppercase-on-etsy.html from a few weeks ago.)

I watched over the past two weeks as people in various countries around the world received their copies. They tweeted, instagrammed and facebooked their joy and excitement. And now I can join in. I hold my copy of Uppercase in my hands and savour each wonderful article. (frequently flipping to pages 11 and 59 to look at my drawings and pinch myself that I am in this amazing magazine)

How did I get here?   Looking back  through my flickr photos I see my first snail drawing was in my first Moleskine Sketchbook in January 2009. (Flickr is a an online image sharing platform that I have been scanning and tagging my photos to since December 2008. I use it as a searchable database of my sketches.) I drew this shell for an Everyday Matters drawing challenge of “draw a shell”. It is drawn  with a lot less detail than I would do now, as I was only just new to watercolour pencils.  At the time I wrote, “I came across this shell in the garden. It was empty so I took it home an drew it. Snails can be really beautiful- well, their shells are!” I also drew some “snails in action” in the same year and my comment at the time was “he actually moved around quite a bit, and  I think we were both pleased when his modelling session was over”.

Then came my entry for the Toowoomba Mail Art Competition in 2011 featuring snails on envelopes. The photo below displays all the envelopes I drew on, pinned to a corkboard.

SONY DSC

These snails are the drawings that I have used for the Uppercase submission.  I then chose five of these drawings to print on my snail mail envelopes that are available for purchase on my Etsy site. https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/AlissaDuke.

Of course, there were some printing blips along the way (below) as I figured out how to place the snail on the envelope.

But I am so pleased with the result The snail journey is not over yet. You will be seeing more snail adventures in the next few weeks as they venture out in Melbourne.