More altered collages and some ATCs

Here's a group of three ATCs that I did in early April. For some reason, they made me smile. An old-time quality with the old stamps and illustrations.

These two postcard collages are from the early 2000s.
I altered them by adding a circle and a stamp to one,
and a single stamp to the other.

This feels very satisfying.
I have more of these old collages to alter and mail out.
If you'd like to be added to my mail list, send me your postal address via a comment on this blog or to my e-mail address in contact on this blog.

Mail Art Mail Art Mail Art

#127

#128

#129

#130

#131

Small prints of Tiny Town scene/ATCs? Maybe.

Catching Up, Mail Art & More

#124

#125

 I've  been having fun with a circle stencil and water soluble 9B graphite.

I added a bit of color with water color pencils.

#126

#127

#128

Cards

cards

In cleaning up my studio table, I found cool stuff to cut up into substrates. With only one added piece, I get an interesting composition.










This collage is on a piece of card stock that fits into a First Cover envelope. I made this specifically to send to someone who likes Mary Cassatt.








Here's another composition using the same substrate as in #125.












More circle Mail Art.












Here's how I created the circle pieces. I worked on large sheet of water color paper, making circles with the stencil and the graphite and pencils.


I added water and when dry, I cut the paper into Mail Art sized pieces, Artist Trading Card pieces, and left overs for book markers.

No waste!




After the pieces were cut out, I sprayed them with matte fixative.

Hmm, I'm thinking I should do the spraying before I cut them up, oh yeah, that'd be better. Right?








This is a view of the 23221 Post Office the other day. I was sitting in the parking lot and noticed that the clouds were gorgeous! Notice the light on the side of the building had come on because the light was low. The wind blowing was nice to show the flag better.








Here's my studio table post clean up. I'm so happy that I spent the time to clean up and organize. on the left is a plastic box holding received mail. I'm pulling pieces from that to send responses. On my wall, are new inspiration pieces.

I'm happier in my studio now that I have more making space on the table.

How messy does your space have to get before you clean it up?

#190 & 190a, cool water and hot day

The patient photographer waited for the perfect photo op' in Tiny Town

This morning, we arrived at the pool earlier than usual, since it was already getting warm. We didn't see the temperature duck at first, then spotted it in the corner at the deep end. He seemed confused so we sheparded him to open water. Poor Duckie. Confused!





I've wanted to use this photographer in something special, as he's a very famous photographer. Do you recognize him?

Bon Voyage

I'm sending this altered card to some acquaintances who are leaving for a long trip, on while they'll make a stop in Uganda! This morning, I finished our bag of Ugandan coffee and thought, "perfect!"  It's kind of like this figure is carrying a sign-board, right?






This is a group of three Artist Trading Cards that I sent out in a call for an ATC exchange. I haven't made any works this size in a long time so I had to check into my archives, where I found these "space" related pieces.
They were from a time when I demonstrated to my students how to make an edition of 10 ATCs.  The blue circles are actually holes in the cards, which I scanned with a blue background.  

Collages, ATCs

I'm just starting to lay out all of the small collages that I made while in Paris, to look at what I did. Here's a series of collage Artist Trading Cards and a small collage. I found myself doing some new things with the collages, 1) simplifying them 2) using more color. The latter is not so evident in these ATCs. I'll post more of the small collages soon so you can see how colorful they are. The red one here is about 3" x 3" (7cm x 7cm)

Artist Trading Card workshop

I had to show you some of the ATCs done by participants in my Artist Trading Card workshop yesterday. We had such fun. These cards are the results of the first experience I guide the participants through and it involves collage, randomness, and making a series of 10 from a single sheet of 8" x 10" (20.5 cm x 25 cm) paper without much waste. Sorry about the resolutions of the images. hmmm. The little happy figure with the Artist Trading Card book image was taking with my cell phone. I was so lazy to go downstairs to get my camera. How silly of me.

Artist Trading Card workshop

Here are a few of the ATCs that I've made over the years. This selection is from 2004 to 2007. I'm posting them to promote my Artist Trading Card workshop which will be held on 7 February 2009 at the VMFA studio school. It'll be held from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. The last hour will be a trading session and I'd love to have anyone in this area, who makes cards, come by and join my class for the trading session.. Mark your calendars. Okay, so I'm assuming that I'll have at least 10 people interested in signing up for the class. Hint, hint, hint. If you aren't familiar with this form of art making and sharing, check out the site of the founder. Some of you, my long time readers, will remember that I met him, M. Vanci Stirnemann, in 2006. You can see the picture of me with him in my archives (Sept. 2006.) I was grinning like crazy! Over the years, I've exchanged with people in person and via mail. I've taught a workshop to students at University and high school level, and tried to spread the word about how much fun this is, plus it's a real boost to any blocked creativity. You don't have to be an artist do make the cards, just a desire to participate and learn. Once the Studio School get it's catalog out, I'll post a link.

30 minutes of "fame."

I had 30 minutes of local fame today. Woo Hoo! I was interviewed by Tim Bowring on his show: Zero Hour on WRIR (97.3) This is our local indie radio, check it out on-line, it has a live stream you can pick-up. Tim put me at ease and I completely forgot about the big microphone right in front of me. He's an excellent interviewer, really listening, and asking questions that made me think more about what I do as an artist. I talked about Artist Trading Cards, mail art, the art-o-mat, and the RealSmallArt League. I hope that some listeners will become interested in creating some small art themselves. Come on, everyone, make some art!!