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Kandinsky Style Envelope Tutorial

Hello Happy Mail Club participants! I'm so excited for this! We had an AMAZING turnout for this first month! I hope you all have FUN and feel so good about the joy you are spreading!


For our first Happy Mail Club tutorial, we are going to be making a Kandinksky Style envelope. Wassily Kandinsky was an artist from Russia that is considered one of the fathers of modern art. One of his most famous paintings was called Color Study, Squares with Concentric Circles. He loved trying different color combinations and how colors interacted with each other.





What you will need for the Kandinsky Style envelope:

  • envelope

  • pencil

  • colored markers or colored pencils (markers used were Tombow Dual Tip Markers for the rainbow stripes and Pentel Sign Tip Brush Pens for the lettering)

  • ruler

  • small mason jar or small mug to trace circles

There's just a few things that I want to warn you about with this Happy Mail Club:

  1. If you are a perfectionist, please push back against those urges! (I know it will be hard!) But truly, this is not about sending someone a PERFECT envelope. It's about making someone happy when they open their mailbox. So keep focused on that!!!

  2. One thing I like to do is practice once on a mockup envelope, then do the real deal. That way, I can get all my lettering jitters out and then get on to the beautiful one!

  3. Check the size of your stamp! Nothing would be worse than making a beautiful envelope and realizing the stamp covers up part of your design. So grab the stamp you plan to use and trace it in the corner as a guide. This will save some heartache!


Ok, let's do this thing! Here's a short video of the process. Watch it and then we'll take it step by step!


Here we go!


1. Use your mason jar or small mug to draw half circles on the edges of your envelope.


2. Using alternating colors, draw rainbow stripes . Mix and match on the numbers of stripes you use. I found that odd groupings looked better (ie 3 at a time.)


3. Mark your lines for your address. The first line is going to go right about halfway down your envelope. Then, draw 3 more lines underneath, spacing them equally underneath. (Mine were about 3/4 of an inch apart. Yours may be a little differently spaced, depending on the size of your envelope.)


5. Time for the lettering! So when we look at how this lettering is laid out, I want you to pay attention to where the baseline is, and what is above and below it. The blue lines are going to help you see where the highest and lowest parts are.