Christmas Cards Galore

Christmas Cards printed on Gel plate with stincils. Golden Open paint.
Monoprints by Phillip Hoyle 2016

I am so pleased to tell you I got fifty cards done. Then I counted how many I needed and found I could have stopped at thirty or forty! Oh well, I went at it with enthusiasm and kept experimenting with my techniques. 

Each of the cards is different from the others. And they come in two basic ideas. Those above are prints made directly onto the card stock. They have a very modern look. I hope the folk who get them will appreciate what they get!

The other basic design was to print on pages from an old German Lutheran Hymnbook. I used the same gel plate and stincils. I glued the prints onto the card stock. 

Cards with hymn page prints made on gel plates and glued on cards.
Monoprints by Phillip Hoyle, 2016

Then the other jobs: writing the greeting for inside, printing it, gluing the pages into the cards, signing each card, updating the address list, writing the return address on each envelope, and then going through the list hoping to get each address correct and legible. I am so happy to be almost done with the process. 

I made more Artist Trading Cards using the same stincils and suspect you will find some here next Monday. 

Happy Holidays.

Denver, 2016

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

Printing Frenzy

Print by Phillip Hoyle 2016

Finally I'm back to printing and mixed media with a fall theme. I picked up and pressed elm leaves, cotton wood leaves, grape leaves, and several kinds of maple leaves. I've been printing them and enhancing the prints with Prisma color pencils. I'm exploiting the over abundance of leaves and the use of a couple of Gelli plates using Golden OPEN acyrlics.

Following the instruction from my art friend Sue, I'm working like a mad man, printing, layering, printing on top of prints, having a ball of it in celebration of the methods and the season of falling leaves. I have picked up large and small leaves, sticks, grasses, and hope to keep up myenergy until I use up too much paint and paper. Of course that will only send me to the shelves to find more paper, old envelopes, stray scraps, on and on. 

Leaf Prints by Phillip Hoyle 2016

I do wish I had a better camera and scanner but you get the idea. This week I also started printing on maps and other paintings and prints. Who knows where this will lead me. I'm having fun. That always seems the best motivation for doing art, at least for me. 

Hope you are engaged with some process and finding enjoyment with the multi-colored autumn. Sadly, it looks like the season is about to end even though the calendar promises another month! By then we'll be decorated and I may be influenced by holiday designs and colors! 

December 2016

WHEELS Artist Trading Cards

Wheels ATCs Phillip Hoyle, 2016

For years I enjoyed having a car. Now for years I’ve enjoyed NOT having a car. Last weekend’s ATC trade featured the theme wheels. That’s just right for me, a change from upkeep and expense to a simple celebration of designs. I tore and cut varied wheel figures out of 1950s and 60s LIFE Magazines and created eighteen tiny ATCs—a mix of color (black, white, and red), of techniques (monoprints, collage, and drawing), of materials (printed images, acrylic paint, ink, rice paper, mat board grounds, and glue), and of artistic ideas (contrast, layering, abstraction, design, etc.).

I felt quite pleased with my cards and gleefully traded them with a dozen other folk. The conversations sparkled, a surprisingly intense sun warmed the scene, and artistic discussions made for an especially creative time together on a Saturday morning.

Denver, 2016

Wheels ATC 2016

Writing, Writing, Writing

12-year old Phillip in photo for BSA month celebrating
the American Indian subtext of Scout life. It was the
front page spread in February, scouting month and
shows my Indian costumes recalling all the fun we had
camping out there on the creek while working at home
in the city dreaming. 

I'm writing a lot these days, so much as to bite seriously into my art studio time. Still, I consider writing one of my arts so I am taking advantage of a Writers Workshop being held just two blocks from the house. My topic relates to my childhood and its fantasies and values related to my Grandparents' farm out on Clarks Creek south east of Junction City, KS where I grew up.

The place fostered plenty of images for my boyhood, ones that related to place, family stories, Boy Scout outings, and hours of reading books from the public library. I was a youngster serious about his fantasies. Now I'm an old man still serious about them but now as topics and stories to be written. And I admit, I still sometimes work with feathers and glue as I do mixed media pieces of art.

Denver 2016

Quoth the Raven

Raven ATCs, Phillip Hoyle 2016

Finally Halloween has arrived! I've been stuck on those images for weeks and will enjoy moving on. But I wanted you to see a few raven cards. I think they actually look more interesting and even a bit ominous in hand than in these scans, but that's the way things go. 

I took 29 Halloween cards to last Thursday's trade. As usual the Halloween theme prompts artists to create many bizarre things. Mine usually look a bit tame. Guess it's all in the imagination, but I took plenty of creepy spiders and several of these large black birds. And I came home with funny and frightening images for which I traded. 

Halloween ATC's, Phillip Hoyle 2016

Tonight I am preparing to hand out lots of candy. Last year we had over ninety begging 'Trick or Treaters' come to the door. We're expecting a big group this year since the weather is so mild. 

Denver, 2016

More Halloween Artist Trading Cards

ATCs by Phillip Hoyle 2016

My ATC fever for Halloween has led me down creepy ways. Here I say “boo” or simply scream loudly to unsettle my artistic reluctance. But I did make more cards. I suspect you will see even more next week. I stuck with spiders and hope to make something of ravens. Check out this latter idea on Halloween.

The black and orange backgrounds were made from crepe paper that I wadded up and glued onto matboard scraps. I used glue stick and then a wooden roller to make sure the thin paper adhered. Then I drew with jell inks and glued a few other things on them. And I enjoyed the work.

Hope your Halloween plans are leading you into both fright and frolic. Make both artistic.

Denver, 2016

Out of Focus ATC
Phillip Hoyle 2016