In 2022, I came to Postcrossing forum looking for help for my Ukraine proejct. In 2023, this project kicked off again with the new punchy name Stamp Out War: Support Ukraine!.
As I am preparing for the auction of the Ukraine support maxicards resulted from the 2022 edition and organising the 2023 edition, a daring idea about the future of this project came to mind.
What if I gather artists around the world to hand-draw/paint a unique postcard based on a Ukraine support or tribute stamp (which can simply be a sunflower or yellow flower stamp in many countries) and make it into a maxicard? In the end, I will collect all of these unique hand-painted maxicards and auction them to raise funds for Ukraine.
I came to have this very ambitious idea because I don’t know, as of today, what to do with the hand-painted maxicard I produced for the 2022 edition.
It’s an artwork that incorporates the design of a stamp issued earlier by Canada Post with a strong Ukrainian appeal. Moreover, the piece was sent to a specific post office in Ablerta, Canada, for cancellation on the 24th of August, 2022. A first-day-cover cancellation that marks the issue of Canada’s Ukraine support stamp was added to the piece.
I just thought it would be nice to have this piece being part of a bigger initiative.
What I am looking:
The artwork’s dimension shouldn’t be large (mine is exceptional because of its composition), a regular postcard size would be sufficient. The visual style can be anything that suits the artists. It can be executed on a wide range of media, from drawing to watercolour painting to even a printed copy of digital art, so long as an ordinary postage stamp and a regular postmark can be applied on the surface of the artwork (oil painting may not work though). The style too is not limited; illustration, representational, abstract, etc., something that goes with the design of your country’s stamp. Colour scheme-wise, so long as blue/yellow stands out, it doesn’t matter how many other colours the artisit use (although the more is not always the better).
The artists remain the copyright holders of their artworks, which they are at liberty to reproduce as many copies as they wish. So long as there is only one original that will be stamped and postmarked on the 24th of August, and it is this piece that they will donate for the cause (in the case of digital artwork, one print will be postmarked with the mention of 24 August).
If it goes well, this project will most likely be held in 2026. So plenty of time to prepare. I am asking it now because this project’s preparation is much lenghtier and I need to decide how many Ukraine support / tribute stamps I should keep for 2026.
To give you an idea, here are some of the stamps that can be used in this project. These are the type of objects I will ask participants to incorporate into the composition of their artworks.
So far I have one willing volunteer from Singapore. And I am from Canada. Anyone else would like to volunteer your time and energy for this cause? Do you think having the world’s artists to produce hand-painted maxicards to support Ukraine is feasible at all?
P.S. I have been hand-drawn/painted this kind of philatelic items for a decade now. For more exemples, please see my Postkard Art project page.