Artist Trading Cards by Children

Details from children's artwork made into ATCs
Bunny Rabbit? The Thrill of Surfboarding?
by Hoyle Grandkids

I've traded cards with my grandkids on several occasions, but these cards I made from artwork my grandkids either sent me as presents or greeting cards or left behind when they drew or painted in my studio. They range in age and were made over the past twenty years. 

The topic for this week's trade is Children's Art. I've made these cards from presents and cards they have sent me over the years and from artwork they left behind from their work in my studio. I don't know who made what and probably don't have examples from all ten of these kids.

Drawings: Pirate in Crows Nest, Swimmer in Danger?
by Hoyle Grandkids

Painting and Drawing
by Hoyle Grandkids

Baby and Card
by Hoyle Grandkids

Back to Business

Artist Trading Cards, May 2017 by Phillip Hoyle

Finally after too many weeks with no posts, I'm back in business. I actually did make a few cards for trade but traded all of them and forgot to scan them. Now I'm better organized and hope to make regular postings of some of the cards, leaf prints, and other artwork I conspire to do and complete! 

Abstract designs and monoprints continue to keep my interest. I've been looking at other things too, but don't know when I will feel I know enough about printing to satisfy this current interest. 

Artist Trading Card, May 2017 by Phillip Hoyle

I made four sets of cards but have printed only three of them. Perhaps I'll show more next week--if I happen to remember.

Hope you are warming up in this interesting spring. Here in Denver we fluxuate between snow, rain, hail, and then some days in the 80s. We're courting summer like we're in a hurry. I do like walking around in milder weather. Also my studio is now warmer. I don't have to wear a muffler and my hands don't get so cold.

Leaf Prints

Leaf print on monoprint by Phillip Hoyle 2017

Between writing paragraphs and stories I am still finding my way to my basement studio to experiment with printing. I use leaves I pressed last autumn and finally have made quite a few prints. But for me the approach is still experimental and I'm contented with the artistic play. Comparing my prints with those showing up in books in the subject, I am learning, getting the feel of it. I realize I may ruin quite a few leaves before I am satisfied with the basic technique! But that medium is very costly to the leaves. 

Oak leaves last longer for experimenting. So do cottonwood leaves. But the elm leaves are less hardy. The oak leaf on the print shown above is ten inches in length and, to my way of thinking, a beautiful specimen. The largest of the elm leaves below is eight inches long! I found it in our neighbor's yard, the product of a huge American elm tree. I'm enjoying the leaves and the process.

Elm leaf prints on paper by Phillip Hoyle, 2017

Art Wars

Leaf prints on Thai paper. Phillip Hoyle 2017

I haven't felt so artistically challenged for years, and it's my own fault. But I don't play a blame game in my retired life. I had the opportunity to sign up for a writing class, one on the short memoir, one that promised to get at what was hanging me up in my writing. I signed up and am now on the final sprint to get the rough draft done. It's due on Saturday morning. 

The feeling of war comes from trying to balance my need to do visual arts as well as written, to keep up my blog postings as well as write paragraphs, to solve placement on paper as well as craft  well-proportioned paragraphs. I'm not bragging, just explaining why the art prints shown here are in process. My paragraphs are as well. I have to grin and bear it and ask you to do the same. Perhaps in a couple of weeks one of these prints will show up in final form. I hope so. 

Oak leaf print. Phillip Hoyle 2017

Artist Cocktails ATCs

Cocktail Artist Trading Cards by Phillip Hoyle 2017
collage on monoprints. 

Finally I have something to post. It seems like it's been a long time. I have been working but am beginning to feel like some retired people I used to know who claimed to never have been busier in their lives. I didn't believe them and I certainly do not claim that for myself. My problem is that I have signed up for a writing class and want to get my money's worth. So I'm writing.

I've also been printing using the leaves I collected last fall. It's fun, but I find finishing a piece to my satisfaction is a continuing challenge. Hopefully I'll post something next week ... or the next. 

I'm not much of a drinker and so felt at a loss when the topic for last week's trade was cocktails or, as some people planned to follow, cock tails as in cock-a-do-del-do. I went with the drinks, well actually some of the stemware used to serve them. Design took over and I had a lot of fun. Hope you are having fun with your arts too. 

Cocktail ATCs by Phillip Hoyle 2017
Collage on monoprints

Artist Trading Card Abstracts

ATCs by Phillip Hoyle, January 2017

Finally I am back to work. Actually I've been making cards and planning a number of new prints, even doing some. I have had difficulty getting around to posting! 

Again, Happy New Year. It's almost one twelvth gone. Time flies. The last ATC workshop and swap I attended had the topic Abstract. I enjoyed the freedom and the required concentration. So I'm presenting some of them here. Prints and collages. I did enjoy the challenge. I hope next week to show something more from this week's efforts. 

Happy art in the new year.

ATC's by  Phillip Hoyle, January 2017

Birds Art New Year

ATCs by Phillip Hoyle, 2017 Mixed media

I've been away for a month but am back at work now to post my  192nd blog with artwork. Again I have made Artist Trading Cards ready to trade next week. Birds was the selected topic and so I recalled seeing migrating geese and other birds while traveling by car across Missouri and Kansas on my way back to Colorado. the unusual part of it was we were seeing them in flight on the last day of December. That's late, a testimony to a very mild fall or birds that had lost their calendars. 

Use your imagination. I tried using mine. And Happy New Year 2017.

Birds in migration across the plains
ATCs by Phillip Hoyle 2017