Philatelic Friday: Giant Pandas

These Chinese brush-painted pandas from my box of stamps are too cute. No, really. I always thought they were more contemporary looking than traditional brush paintings--I think it's the way they're stylized with the Mickey Mouse ears and the eyes (they look like little beads that were add-ons after the paintings were done). Actually, if you scroll down this forum page, you can see the first day covers and they're in a more traditional style, but the other panda stamp released that year is way more so.

And well, it's no wonder they're so cute. Turns out the artist who painted these, Han Meilin, was the creator of the 2008 Beijing Olympics mascots.

1985 China