Rachel

From Rachel from the Netherlands these great drawings arrived, with greetings from Purmerend thanks to this friendly turtle.

And a Jellyfish:



some Octopus tentacles?



And a funny bird and sunny quotes on the envelope:



Thank you very much, hartelijk dank, Rachel, ben er heel blij mee!

Carina (3)

I love this envelope from Carina, showing so many cool animals!

The content is pretty and interesting, too. Among it a small lovely letter:



An other kind message:



A contribution to my 'What or whom is she staring at' mail art project:



A piece of design paper. protected by this little fellow:



Folders about Carina's work:





And a nice backside of the envelope:



Thank you very much, Carina!

FinnBadger (7)

Received these familiar Fish a week ago or two or so. The movie Finding Nemo was released in 2003 and I loved and still love to see it (being a fan of Crush' wise words, too). And recently we saw Finding Dory in cinema.

I was wondering who the sender would be. At first sight I couldn's open it, and I thought it had to be like that: both sides glued together.

However, tonight I did a new try to open it. And I succeeded. And oh, ay... Not only familiar Fish but also a familiar mail artist!..
I should have recognized the handwriting!



On the back side great matching (new) stamps showing Shell-Fish / Sea Snails.
And the Octopus.

So there was an inside, and inside I found this card, with at the back side a kind message.



Thank you very much, FinnBadger!

Eva (18)

The most wonderful Animal I have ever seen, I saw today for the very first time in real!
The Fishus Globetrottus, also known as the Globetrotter Fish, was sent to me by Eva.

I think it is an Animal to whom I feel very familiar with, even though I don't have gills anymore.

In case you didn't hear of the Globetrotter Fish before, Eva was so kind to provide us with some scientific information:



The Globetrotter Fish arrived in a colourful envelope, showing aquatic Fish and other Sea Animals.



Fortunately (for me) the envelope first had been returned to sender, and fortunately (also for me) Eva did a second try to send it to the Netherlands. Fortunately for the two of us this time it arrived well, and by it's extra journey, oh fortune, I got an extra Moroccan Fish stamp!



Thank you very much, Eva, moltes gràcies, I love it!

Vizma Bruns (4)

Vizma Bruns made me extremely happy by adding a lot of Platypus to her mail art. As you might know, all animals are my favourite animals, but some animals are a bit more favourite than others. The Platypus is one of them.

On the back of the envelope some beautiful rubber stamp prints. Among them many fish, an Octopus and the famous Bunny:



And inside, among others, a Painter / Artist. Some people consider painters / artists as a weird kind of humans, too, and we all know (but some of the same 'some people' don't like to concede) that also Humans are Animals :-)




Thank you very much, Vizma!

John Edwards (2)

Similar to the Blobfish, the Dumbo octopus - named after the famous little long-eared Elephant - is living in deep sea.
With his/her large eyes it's a cute looking animal.
Similar to the previous drawing of the Blobfish I love this drawing, which also has been created by John Edwards.
The mail machine has added some interesting small hole (bottom middle) in this card, but fortunately John's autograph is still there.

Thank you very much, John!

Anu Chathampally

Green Octopus swimming in orange sea. Created and sent by Anu Chathampally from the USA.
My scan alas isn´t able to show all beauty in this mixed media work of mail art. The round things, for instance, look pale in this digital version, but in real they are bright orange.
Love it! Thank you very much, Anu!

Katerina, Angie and Matthew

Katerina from Greece met Angie and Matthew in the USA, and this collage is one of the results of their mail art collaboration. I am happy to have received it! And added it to this Real Weird Animals site, because there are several interesting animals in their mail art. Like this sea water horse above.



And an Octopus. In Dutch we call the Octopus 'Inktvis', which means 'Ink fish' (maybe this word exists in English, too?).
So I think it a nice coincidence that this amazing eight-legged animal has been printed thanks to an eraser stamp and... ink!



Katerina added stamp stickers of a wellknown character and her new friends: Alice, in Wonderland. Here meeting one of my other favourite animals, this time an alas extinct one: the Dodo.



Thank you very much, Angie, Matthew and Katerina!

Vizma Bruns (2)

A Platypus from the land of the Platypus: Australia!

Thanks to Vizma Bruns we can learn the story of the Old Man Platypus...



.. and learn how to have a drink while being in a Fish Tank! (My bottle of course contains water, or coffee.)
(What happened to Marie?)



Nice stamps, even a Mailogram and an original Vizma Artistamp!

This Giant Lobster was on the smallest part of the mail:



And this is a piece of fabric which really asks for being added some more stitches to!



And last but not least: a great transparent dotted envelope, with on the stamp... an Echidna, yay!



Thank you very much, Vizma!

TicTac

This amazing Octopus has been sent from Germany by Ptrzia TicTac.
With a lot of Eye-Fish (or Fish-Eyes?) around!



Some fish were cut out (great work done, Patrizia!), and suddenly the snail from Ptrzia's accompanying letter appeared in the fish' place. Somewhere in one of these pictures you can find this rapid snail!
(Who by this deed made a kind of 'Where is Wally' search image!..)



Patrizia has a great mail art project: Message in a Bottle.

Thank you very much, vielen Dank, for your contribution!

Amuldo (2)

An other beautiful amazing animal sent by Amuldo from the Netherlands: the Octopus! Or better: Octopus meets the Squirrel.



"'Do you think me weird?!', the octopus asked the squirrel.
The squirrel watched him and hesitated for a while.
'I mean, with all those arms and suction cups,' the octopus said.
His cheeks turned grey and he looked down.
'Not at all', the squirrel said. 'I don't think you weird.'
'I am not weird indeed', the octopus said in a low voice....."

Watch the - again great - stamps, and the messages on the rubber-stamped waves (click on the picture to enlarge)!

The text has been written by the Dutch writer Toon Tellegen. For the people who never heard of Toon Tellegen (pronounce the Dutch name 'Toon' more or less as 'Tone'): to my opinion, I think it's worth reading more work of this author. He writes short stories about all kinds of weird animals (well, after reading this short story I'm afraid they're not that weird anymore!). Apparently about animals, but of course providing us humans a lot of food for thought.

Thanks a lot, hartelijk dank voor deze leuke verrassing, Amuldo!