Artist Trading Cards on Wood

Wood related ATC collages, 2016
Monoprints with collage

Although I used no actual wood in the ATCs I prepared for a swap meet last weekend at CORE Gallery, I did use a variety of wood images from a number of magazines, working them into designs that seemed to honor the given topic. I felt pleased with the results--at least most of them. 

On Friday evening I was reminded of the change of hours for the meeting at the gallery and sadly was unable to accommodate the time. I'll save these cards until the next swap and workshop and enjoy whatever "wood" items others have ready to trade. 

I read last week that the first display of ATCs was in an art gallery in Zurich, Switzerland. Three artists made the cards. An invitation went out to other artists to bring their own cards and trade. Thus the display kept changing due to the swaps and a world-wide movement began. The trade at CORE gallery was the first such event in the United States. 

"Wood" theme collages ATCs 2016

Denver, 2016

Jazz Festival

The Pavilion at Denver's City Park last weekend

Last weekend’s concert of City Park Jazz Festival ended the 2016 season of ten free to-the-public Sunday night concerts. I was pleased to have attended all ten performances. The weather has run from hot to chilly, from so dry as to parch one’s lips to dripping rain ( although we never did get an all-out rainfall this year as I recall it.)

The variety of bands met the usual high standard and this music was several times supplemented by short concerts from local high school jazz groups before the scheduled concert began.

Beautiful cloud formations add to the park's atmosphere.

I have again been reminded that music has permeated my family life. Dad was a church musician and played jazz standards with great style. He had played in a band that performed at a local hotel almost every Saturday night. On their off nights they would drive to other towns in Kansas to perform. Of course he would be at church early the next morning to play for Sunday school or a service. I grew up knowing hymns, anthems, service music, and jazz. Although I gave up my own work in music some years ago, I have replaced that with listening to lots of live music—mostly jazz—here in Denver. What a life in retirement! And sometimes I still hear a choral concert or symphony orchestra.

Long live music, and may I never lose my hearing!

Denver, 2016

Artist Trading Cards Some Gems

Artist Trading Cards by Phillip Hoyle 2016

I got an Honorable Mention for some of my ATCs at The Denver County Fair last weekend. Getting a ribbon was a first for me in a visual arts competition. I suspect it will keep me focused on the tiny art approach in the year to come. But my interest goes far beyond winning any kind of award. For me the rewards of ATCs has mostly to do with the good friendship I have been enjoying among artists I trade with and make cards alongside. 

I especially liked the judge's comments on the panel of nine ATCs that won the prize. According the the evaluation my sheet included several "little gems." The judge didn't indicate which ones, so in this post I'm showing the cards I judge to be my little gems. 

Maybe you could make your own gems and come trade the with me at CORE Gallery (2nd Saturdays at 10:00). Check online for listings of this and several other Denver ATC swaps and workshops. Join in the fun. You could even save your cards--some of the ones you make--and enter them into next year's county fair.

Artist Trading Cards by Phillip Hoyle 2016

Oh, sorry to be so late posting this. Thanks for looking and reading.

Denver, 2016

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