Artist Trading Card Collage Abstracts

ATC Abstracts, Phillip Hoyle 2018

I attended an ATC workshop on Thursday in which I made a group of collages from collected paper items. The company was fine, conversations sparkled, artwork seemed especially creative. The first trades were related to the evening's theme, insects. I brought prints of grape leaves with Japanese beetles busily eating holes in the leaves. 

ATC insects, Phillip Hoyle 2018

After that trade I started work on the abstracts using mostly magazine images from a folder of things torn or cut from old magazines. We had to work quickly since we were each aiming at making at least ten new cards in two hours.

Viewing all the completed work of the evening was like entering an art gallery for a diverse show from nine artists ranging in age from teens to eighties.

Phillip Hoyle 2018

Artist Trading Cards: Eyes Collages

   

Eyes ATC, Phillip Hoyle 2018

ATC eyes, Phillip Hoyle 2018

ATC eyes, Phillip Hoyle 2018

More "Eyes" Artist Trading Cards from the last trade. Always fun to make these pieces that push one's creativity. Again, grounds from acrylic washes on watercolor paper. Eyes from old magazines. Ideas from putting the two together. 

Artist Trading Cards measure 2.5 x 3.5 inches. 

Make some yourself! Have fun of course. 

Artist Trading Cards: The Eyes Have It

Eyes ATC, Phillip Hoyle 2018

A few months ago (or was it a year or so?) I collected some photos of faces with a variety of expressions from some old magazines given me by a friend. I thought of them when “Eyes” came up as the ATC topic. Luckily I found the folder and in a couple of hours made eighteen cards. I collaged them onto grounds made from old paintings adding a few lines. I was pleased. The cards traded quickly.

Eyes ATC, Phillip Hoyle 2018

Sometimes I wish I could show the pieces I traded for, but perhaps they are in someone else’s blog. I do keep them in books sorted by artists, collections that serve as inspiration for my art. They are my own art galleries to visit when the weather is bad.

Eyes ATC, Phillip Hoyle 2018

Artist Trading Card Collages

This Gorgon ATC is kind of creepy, a foretaste
of Halloween that is coming up pretty fast!
ATC collage, 2017

At last week's ATC workshop I traded all my fetish cards and then set out to make enough new cards to trade with each person there. I completed just enough to bring one home, this lovely figure that incorporates part of an ancient Roman carving with a photo of a plastic woven screen. Well juxtaposition is one of the values of many approaches to collage. The figure seems truly odd to me.

I made a dozen new ones at the workshop and enjoyed the good feelings of being together with friends I've known for several years as well as ones I haven't got to know so well. Working together with other artists stimulates one to do their best work even when the pressure is on, or especially because the time is slipping by and you still have five more cards to complete. 

The cards I made last Thursday
ATCs by Phillip Hoyle 2017

More Fetish Artist Trading Cards

ATCs of Badger and Bison, Phillip Hoyle 2017

Last week I went to the ATC workshop ready to trade only to find I had gone one week too early! I chalk it up to old age and too compressed a schedule. You'd think a retired person would do better meeting a schedule. I say that because I don't have nearly the schedule I sustained for many years. Still I write, do my artwork, and socialize. I attend both writing and art workshops and classes. Life is full. I like it that way. 

Bird ATC, Phillip Hoyle 2017

I like animals in general although I am less excited these days by squirrels that are making it necessary for me to keep cleaning off the patio as they harvest sweet locust pods. They're as messy as my grandkids, dropping all the leftovers on the patio. I'd put out a trash bin but it wouldn't solve a thing. They don't look where they drop and sometimes they drop them right on me as I sweep. See, life in retirement still has its challenges. Hope you have an art filled week and meet some interesting people.

Mixed Bag of Artist Trading Cards

ATCs made at last week's workshop. Phillip Hoyle, 2017

At the last ATC workshop at Jerry Simpson's studio we traded cards of either Smiles or Chicken and Egg (like which one came first). I took a bunch of them but they all traded and I had been making them late in the day! I'll make some more for another post.

In this workshop we first trade cards made to a theme (or not) and then work for a couple of hours to prepare cards for trade with all participants present. I found a couple of maps in one magazine and several illustrations from old (really old) issues of Popular Mechanics. Collages were my focus but I also drew and painted into them. 

I never tire of this kind of work and of the socializing with other visual artists. So much fun, stimulation, and warmth. 

A couple of the ATCs in closeup. Phillip Hoyle, 2017

Christmas Art

Prints made on gel plate on Advent pages from old hymnal
Phillip  Hoyle 2016

Every year I wonder just what artistic things will happen to welcome Christmas. I start imagining, sketching, and gathering possible materials for cards, larger pieces of art, Artist Trading Cards, and other pieces on related themes. So far this year I've made prints on card stock, old pages from a 19th Century German hymnal, monoprints, stincils, collages, and the like for a Christmas card. I've printed on many kinds of paper to see just what will work. I'm already gluing pieces together and writing down some ideas for a general greeting. And, of course, I feel like I am running out of time. 

Monoprint using stincil on gel plate.
Print on envelope.
Phillip Hoyle 2016

But I'm having fun and will begin a new Art Journal featuring holy people. I haven't limited my idea yet and so have no sure aim at ancient or contemporary, a single religious tradition or something eucmenical, people or symbols. But I remind myself that journals do not need to be overly planned. they need to respond to the turns of a day or a week. Journals reflect a journey. They log progress and regress. They express just what is happening at the time. 

Print on freezer paper
Phillip Hoyle 2016

I hope to present you with great variety in the coming weeks. Again, thanks for your responses. The old year flees, the new year approaches. Celebrate both with art and love.

Denver, 2016

International Artist Trading Cards

ATCs international theme Phillip Hoyle 2016

Last week I didn't make beautiful Artist Trading Cards although some had beautiful colors, others had good design, I liked some, but there were no flowers or peaceful images. "International" took me to maps and a look at the world in terms of borders and the transgression of borders. I traded most of the cards on Thursday so am showing the one no one thought to take plus one more I made since. 

I'm afraid my take on "International" is worried over conflict and fear, feelings probably related to it being an election year. At least I am showing emotion! Art needs that.

I enjoyed the ATC swap/make/and swap at the One Man Band Art Studios of Jerry Simpson. As usual the group of fourteen traders and card makers provided great entertainment, food, socializing, and inspiration. Hope you found some interesting art to brighten your life.

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 

Art Journal with No Words

Art Journal by Phillip Hoyle, 2016. A mixed media experiment and
a personal experiment to see if I can produce a book in which I write
no words. So far, so good!

I am pleased that the project to produce an art journal this year is underway. I've made good progress both in making pages and in coming to understand what I am doing. So without words I arrange my pages paying some attention to what appears next to each other. Someone may wonder just how I made my decisions. I'm not sure I can even explain.

Art Journal by Phillip Hoyle 2016. Of course there are words on the old
map I've used, but they're very hard to read and only indicate the part
of the world from which the petroglyph designs have come.

I am making some personal references through the use of a few photographs, for example including one of a snapshot I took when I was a young teen at a powwow, another one of a family member many years ago.


I hope you as a reader of this blog will get as much kick out of my efforts as I am in doing the project.

Art Journal by Phillip Hoyle 2016. I am having a great time with mixed media
interpretations using prints, monoprints, stamps, and a variety of pens. Each
page measures 5x8". 

A Flight of Owls

I'm unsure of the traditional way to designate a group of owls. Perhaps they don't have such a designation. Other birds have rather fancy names attached to their groups. But I do know that the many owl Artist Trading Cards I made took flight. I had made twenty seven cards. Now I have none! 

I took three sheets of nine cards each. One sheet had nine drawings. One had nine prints. You may have seen them in last Monday's post. I also had one sheet of nine collages. Now I have none!

Maybe I'm bragging. I certainly am happy that I have twenty-seven new cards from the trade. (Actually quite a few more than that!) I'm happy that I got to see a number of artist friends Saturday at the trade. I'm happy that I got to see a fine installation of art at CORE New Art Space. I'm happy I spent the morning with my artist friend Sue. Oh, she got several cards.

Here are the collages for your inspection. Sorry I cannot trade them with you!

Owl collages with mixed media on paper
Phillip Hoyle

Denver, 2015

Finally!

Finally I have completed my collage, the one I've referred to before, that thrilled me with its content and stalled me in it's execution. Finally it's done and now waiting on the purchase of a piece of glass to complete its framing. I promised to show it to a friend tomorrow evening. Hope that's enough stress to move me!

But the artwork itself is what I am most focused on. In the past I made Artist Trading Cards by printing on maps. I'd print a cut of a Ute petroglyph on a Colorado map or an Osage petroglyph on a Missouri map. Then I wanted to see if I could do something larger--well actually I had a larger petroglyph print I wanted to mount on a larger map. So...

I gathered my pieces: a road map, several prints of the petroglyph in its strangely altered state, a quotation from William Clark's Journal, and my wits. I arranged my equipment and media products: glue, brayer, brushes, gesso, acrylic paints, India ink, stylus, a photo of native grasses of Missouri, a sample of early 19th century cursive handwriting, and about a gallon of piping hot coffee and my mug. 

I started the process--actually many starts and stops lasting over several weeks. (I'm ultimately a multi-tasker.) I mounted the map so the snaking Missouri River lies near the top of the ground. I watered down the white glue and spread it on the mat board and map, rolled the map onto the ground smoothing out bubbles with a brayer, and pressed it between waxed paper to dry while weighted down by big art books. When it was dry I looked at it again and again. Finally I brushed on water-thinned gesso leaving the riverbed unpainted. Several times I changed my mind about which print to collage into the piece. Finally I glued on a print made on translucent paper I thought might let some of the map features--colors and lines--show through. I placed it on the left-hand side below the river, added the box to the circle like in Leonardo DaVinci's study of human anatomical proportions, and decided to paint the native grasses on the right-hand side. 

I painted any number of samples of the grass cluster I would use. I wanted to represent the tall grass prairies common to the area in Lewis and Clark's 1804 explorations on their westward trek up the river. I mounted the print and painted in the grasses. Then I added a quote from the journal around the print. In order to represent the measurement obsession of both the European Renaissance and the exploring spirit shown in mapping rivers and otherwise measuring the newly-acquired Louisiana Purchase, I added the compass points and measurements Clark recorded for the day he also drew the "paintings and carveings" [sic] on the limestone cliff. For balance I drew in another figure--a snake from another Missouri petroglyph and added Clark's comment about how the place where he saw the petroglyphs was "a den of Rattle Snakes." Finally I was happy and have put to rest another piece of art. 

"Taking Measure" mixed media with collage by Phillip Hoyle

One of my art teachers, Polly Hammett, observed that my starting point in art seems usually to be content--in this case a fascination with petroglyphs, Lewis and Clark, 19th century mid-western experience, interaction of Native and Euro-Americans, maps, and so forth. It's no wonder this piece took so long to complete. Now off to another task--oh the framing.

Painting Petroglyphs

On the Trail, mixed media by Phillip Hoyle

    “I am painting petroglyphs,” I write.

     My niggling internal editor suggests, “Isn’t that painting pictographs? One chips away to make petroglyphs.”

     “No,” I insist. “I’m painting petroglyphs.” I work wildly, spraying a water mist on paper, splashing paints of various shades of brown onto the wetness, letting the colors run.

                                                                                         

     Occasionally I look up at the petroglyph rubbings that hang on the walls of my studio. I recall standing against the escarpment as I rubbed them, my skin getting burned in the western Colorado sun. The designs seemed so beautiful to me, carved on the sandstone walls and boulders out there under the blue sky, but so ugly when I wanted to hang them on the walls of my apartment. Crayon rubbings on yellowing newsprint. Pathetic looking. I had to do something artistic with these crude rubbings so I could continue to enjoy their beauty and celebrate the feelings they stimulated within me. Collage was my answer. I bought mat boards and started cutting, arranging, gluing. I replicated depth, depicting the rough texture and cracks in the rocks. I was full of ideas and enjoyed creating design, color, and contrast. I started becoming an artist so I could remember.

     While my paper collage contrasted greatly with the hard medium of the original creators’ work, making them did connect me with those ancient artists. They chipped away at the rocks to create an environment of ideas, mnemonics, and myths. I cut and pasted together a world of imagination that carried me back into childhood visits to my grandparents’ farm and forward into a life grounded in such memories.

     The parade of deer, moose, bears, horses, foot and handprints, lines, arrows, stars, medicine wheels, and unnamable creatures elicited an ancient world in my imagination. They conjured a life of wickiups and teepees, of cooking fires and ceremonial smoke. The wind that blew down the Shavano Valley seemed to carry the sounds of chanting, hoof falls, snorting animals, and playing children.

I found in these rock carvings a way to imagine

a life of the past;

I found in them a topic for research;

I found a subject for reflection,

An experience of beauty.

     Crude. That’s what W. C. McKern called these Ute petroglyphs. From his point of view as an ethnologist doing a study for the Smithsonian Institute in the early 1920’s, they were crude chippings of an inferior culture. His evaluation reflected an assumption of trappers, who contrasted their impression of Ute life with that of the Plains Indian tribes much more influenced by white trade goods and ideas. His judgment also reflected philosophical and scientific biases that, in my opinion, missed what these petroglyphs were in themselves and what they represented to the people who made them. The great problem with these markings lies in the fact that it is impossible to know what they represented. Even Native American scholars admit they don’t know. The passing of centuries created an impassable gap, leaving us ignorant, unable to guess with any kind of certainty at the meanings of these scratches. Their permanence laughs at the changes of the societies that made them and of those that still gaze upon them.

     There they remain on isolated canyon walls, colored only by desert paint in blacks and browns. I imagine them peopled, complemented by the colors of feathers and beadwork, by the odors of cooking meat and smoking tobacco, by the sounds of milling horse herds and the melody of a flute. As I rub them, I hear a truck pass on the road below, a hawk call in the sky above, a grasshopper’s wings crackle in the dry desert atmosphere. As I cut the images for my collages, I hear the furnace in the apartment click on and the rush of wind pushing through the vent. As I paint them on paper, I hear footfalls cross the floor above and the motor circulate water in the hot tub.

     I lift the edge of the paper to make the paint run and wonder what the Ute was thinking as he pecked away at the rock. What was his artistic concern? How long did he look for the harder rock to use as a tool? Perhaps he was trying to remind himself of the spirit of the animal he killed to feed his family, his chipping a prayer of gratitude. Maybe he was simply making marks to distance himself from the activity of the camp like a student doodling during a lecture.

     What am I doing? I am thinking about what colors to select to best leave the impression of sandstone. Certainly I am distancing myself from the others with whom I live, but I think I am doing more. I am creating a reminder of the valley, of its plenitude of deer, elk, plants, beaver, gushing springs, rugged rocks, and endless blue sky. I am recalling the past of my imagination to keep alive the leisure of childhood, its unfettered freedom, its sense of unlimited possibility. I am celebrating my connection with the past, with a human spirit that reaches far beyond my family, society, and culture. I made collages and now I paint to show my children and grandchildren life is more than making a living. It is also, and necessarily, an expression of spirit, of beauty, of art.

     I paint my petroglyphs, or more precisely my petroglyph designs, in a work that seems to me as ancient as it is contemporary.

Denver 2006

Paintings by P. Hoyle On the Trail (above) and The Hunt; photo of me in my studio.

The Hunt