Figure A: The stylus was made with a Super Ball at its core and pencil leads hot-glued to it

Figure B: The materials you’ll need

Figure C: Letter to the recipient, an ill friend

Figure D: Make sure your note is on the outside of the paper roll!

This project was the genesis for an Instructable I posted earlier called Drawing Machine (www.instructables.com/id/Drawing-Machine).

Post Office Drawings takes a more mellow approach and turns our friends at the postal service and the shipping process itself into co-creators of art!

1. Gather your materials

A shipping tube

A suitably sized piece of paper

A “stylus” of your own making

Packaging tape

A marker

Money for postage

An understanding friend

Choose a shipping container that will accommodate your stylus. In this project I am using an old stylus from my Drawing Machine Instructable. It fits nicely inside this cardboard tube, allowing for free movement and mark-making abilities.

Cut a piece of paper to fit inside the shipping container. It should be as long as the tube is tall (allowing for the lid to fit, which actually squeezes into the end of the tube). The paper should be as wide as the inside circumference of the tube in order to not have any overlap, which would yield a blank spot where the paper wrapped over itself.

2. Assembly

I will be sending this to a friend who is ill, so I wrote a little note on the back of the drawing wishing her a speedy recovery. Here’s how to prepare your Post Office Drawing machine for mailing:

Figure E: Shipping tube with rolled-up paper and stylus inside

Figure F: Ocho the Cat likes projects, too

Figure G: Address the package

Figure H: Include words of encouragement. Who doesn’t like to shake it?

Roll up the paper with your note on the outside and insert it into the tube

Drop the drawing stylus into the tube

Seal package with packing tape

Write opening instructions near the lid

Address the package

And just for giggles, write some words of encouragement on the package

3. Post

Take your package to the post office and purchase the required postage. It’s probably best to purchase the slowest, longest route to your destination to give the package plenty of time to get jostled and tossed, creating a more “storied” piece of art. Encourage the nice woman at the counter at the post office to shake up your package—tell her she’s helping make a unique gift for your recipient.

4. Other ideas

A tube is not the only way to go here. You can use a long piece of paper rolled up inside of a square box. You can use multiple styli. How about sending two sheets of paper, so your friend can remove the inner piece to keep, then repackage and send the tube back to you, so you can each have a drawing too? Or they can send it on to someone else. Oh, the mind reels with the possibilities…

Brandon Sullivan is a sculptor from Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. He has been working on a body of works he calls “auto-drawings.” Post Office Drawings is one in the series.