Denver County Fair Art

Three ATCs by Phillip Hoyle 2016
The theme is arrows. The backgrounds I used were cut from the paper
that covered the tables at our ATC booth at the county fair 2015.

This week I will go to the Denver County Fair. It runs from Friday through Sunday at the National Western Stock Show Education building. I've entered several things into the very affordable art show--two sheets of Artist Trading Cards (a total of 18 ATCs) and a small mixed media piece, the one of the Wild Flowers I posted in this blog several weeks ago. My main motive to go to the fair, though, is to help with the interactive display related to ATCs, a booth with tables, supplies, and the free entertainment of getting folks--adults, teens, and children--to learn about and to make cards. We also tell them about a number of swaps they might be interested to join. They can stay as long as they want and make as many cards as pleases them. It's all free and fun.

I also like hanging out with artist friends. One day I go to the fair just to see all the sights and activities with a friend, an annual event of ours. 

ATC "Arrows" by Phillip Hoyle 2016

If you go to the fair, join us. 

Long live art and friendship.





Denver 2016

Mixed Media ATCs

"Feather" ATCs by Phillip Hoyle, 2016

The theme for an upcoming ATC swap took me back to my childhood fascination with feathers. Back then I was making American Indian costumes with feather roaches and bustles. I rather lusted after eagle feathers although, of course, I could not have real ones since I am not Native. I did order some fake ones but they never really satisfied. 

I am rather satisfied with some of my eagle feather ATCs, a group of a dozen mixed media cards I made. The grounds are acrylic washes on heavy water color paper. The feathers are medium heavy mixed media paper cutouts with details in Prismacolor (shades of brown and black). I had seen an old photo in a brochure from the Denver Public Library that seemed to call me back into the past, a rather tough looking warrior of the plains printed in sepia. So I studied his feathers and you can see what I learned!

Eagle feather mixed media ATCs by Phillip Hoyle 2106

Denver 2016

The Thrill of Collage

A set of collage ATCs made at one 2-hour workshop
by Phillip Hoyle.

When I was thirty years old I began doing artwork for myself, something much more than simply planning activities for children in the various programs I was running related to our church. I wanted to hang on our apartment a rubbing of a petroglyph, a rubbing I had made with crayon on newsprint, but when I got them out they seemed ugly. I knew I would have to do something artistic with my rubbings in order to hang them for display. So I bought boards and markers and paint and glue and carefully began to construct collages with these materials. I was rather pleased, even surprised at the things I thought up to do. 

When I ran out of rubbings I still wanted to make collages and so turned to magazine pieces. I worked in many different ways and eventually even looked in books for more ideas. That went on for quite a few years. And then I began painting. Oh the works often involved collage as well as paint. I learned from teachers and improved my ability to do this work.

When I began making Artist Trading Cards about four years ago, I found my favorite approach is to make tiny collages. I use scraps of paper, cuttings from magazines, ephemera, paint, markers, pencils, pens, on and on. And these 2.5 x 3.5 pieces of art work inspire more freedom of design. They often become design work for larger pieces using different materials. And people like to collect them from like I enjoy collecting theirs as well. 

Give it a try and then find someone to trade cards with.

Denver 2016 

The Write Age

Young boy at the farm with cows

A couple of weeks ago I started attending a writers’ workshop. Why? Well for years I’ve been writing—creative writing. I gave up on the academic writing at age 33 and began writing curriculum resources, first my own resources for programs I planned and then for a publisher. Eventually I decided I wanted to write a memoir about a kid whose grandparents lived on a farm that he grew to love. He didn’t want to live on it or to farm it. He just loved it for how it inspired his imagination—that and for the stories his mom, grandma, and grandpa told him about the place. 

“The Write Age” eight-week workshop is the first actual course I have taken since Written Communications 101 and 102. It is the first creative writing course I have ever signed up for. In it I hope to learn from our leaders and other participants the things that will enable me to write what I have wanted to write for nearly thirty years.

Kids watching swallows swoop over the barnyard

“The Write Age” is a cooperative program of the Denver Parks and Recreation Division, The Light House (a Denver writing school), and the Denver Council on Ageing. I’m pleased to be a part of this new workshop.


Denver, 2016

Zodiacal Musings and Art

Upside/Downsies ATCs by Phillip Hoyle 2016
Sorry about them being shown at a further angle.

According to the Zodiac, I’m a Cancerian. That’s more interesting to other people than it is to me. Still, as an artist and writer, I am always looking for metaphors with which to express myself.

When Upside/Downsies was drawn as the topic for Artist Trading Cards I pondered just what I might make. I made nine cards in which the view from a window revealed a lake reflecting a landscape or cityscape. The support across the middle of the window divided the scene at the shoreline, but the pieces were placed in upside/down order. The reflection appeared in the upper portion of the window, and the image being reflected in the lower. I thought some of the cards were interesting.

My Zodiac 69 ATCs. Phillip Hoyle 2016

But I didn’t quit there. I made more cards of the numbers 6 and 9. It seemed significant to me because besides being upside/down in relationship with each other, together they make 69, my birthday. I chose to emulate Art Deco numeral fonts. Hope you like both kinds of cards. Hopefully they won’t all get traded. I’d like to keep one each for my memories of upside down aspects of reality and of my own life!

Denver, 2016

Art Prints of Old Figures

Small prints, Phillip Hoyle 2016

You may remember these figures from past posts on this blog. I’ve used them several times. The other day I had printing fever and started grabbing more and more partly used or long rejected papers to print on. They worked! In one afternoon I made over twenty successful prints. I don’t always have enough presence of mind or stamina to do so, but I had set things up ahead of time and had set out papers for a set of Artist Trading Cards. 

Small prints, Phillip Hoyle 2016

I printed the small prints shown here while I was in my frenzy. These old designs of Native North American petroglyphs and the ancient Chinese yin and yang magical symbol brought me the deepest joy. The figures are small but the impact seemed large to me. Hope you enjoy them too.

Denver, 2016

Artist Trading Cards 'The Orient'

Monthly I attend two ATC swap groups and was pleased when the second group got a topic similar to one the first group had about three months ago. The Orient would allow me to use up some collage items I had collected for Asian Inspired. Such good luck! Glad I didn’t blithely throw away my unused pieces. (Confession: I have before.) 

This time, though, I did make different approaches to the cards although I used Japanese, Chinese, and south-east Asian images. Plus, a couple of weeks ago I collected papers from chop sticks at a Chinese restaurant where we ate.
Most important, I recalled a technique my sisters learned from a Japanese neighbor when we were children, a simple way to make bamboo images. I got out some inks and began trying with varying results and success. I was pleased to dig back into my memory for something I had not done for decades, around six or more decades

Lotus ATCs by Phillip Hoyle 2016

As usual the trade was fun, the other artists there engaging, the sense of community satisfying. What more good side effects can one wish from a simple activity of making and trading tiny pieces of art. (The cards are 2.5 x 3.5 inches.) Hope you are having fun too!

Denver, 2016