Two Artist Trading Card Swaps to Start a New Year

I joined two swaps for the beginning of January: one, a black and white; two, a mega swap of ten cards. For the black and white , I did a couple of Kokopelli drawings. My trade partner listed on her profile that she liked Native American design, especially kachinas. They are simple, but I like them.

My daughter gave me an envelope maker for Christmas, and I used it to make an envelope for this swap. I used a page from an old Southwest Art magazine, and I like how it turned out.

The mega swap was for ten ATCs. I made a few new cards and combined them with some that were from series that I made in the past years. I don't think I could have created ten brand new cards in the last two weeks. Here are six of the cards I sent.

A Room with a View

Pulled myself out of bed at 5:00 a.m. this morning to get ready for the return to school after two weeks and three weekends off. No mater how I hurry around getting ready, making breakfast, grabbing a frozen lunch and scraping thick frost off the windshield, I am late getting on the road. There are also two damnably long stop lights between my house and that of my son at both of which I have to wait and which make me even later. I picked up the grandsons at twenty to seven in the predawn gloom, and we set off across the valley. It was a blue twilight when we arrived in the parking lot. While crossing the student drop off and bus lane in front of the school, I was almost run over by a speeding parent. I could have shaken my cane and hurled epithets at them, but I didn't. I was just grateful that I saw them before they hit me. Once I arrived at my library and settled in to work, I noticed the "dawn's early light" outside my library windows glimmering along the tops of the Oquirrh Mountains.

I took this picture of the view with my Iphone. The phone always makes everything look smaller than the real life view, but of course I forgot to adjust the image, so it doesn't look a spectacular as the view from my windows. I took another photo in the afternoon, and it shows the scale better; but without the beautiful pink flush of the sunrise on the snow.

I have a lovely view from the library windows all the day long.

New Year Swapping in January 2014

I am sending out two swaps today. Both of them have double partners. The first is a location swap where traders pick a state or sometimes a country to represent on the ATC. I always choose Utah, where I have lived for43 years, if it hasn't been snapped up by another. New Mexico, where I lived from 1949 to 1960, would be my second choice; then California where I lived from 1960 to 1970. When I do a Utah location trade, I pick Delicate Arch as the theme. If I were to do New Mexico, I would build the card around the Saint Francis of Assisi Church in Rancho de Taos. I have done several art pieces on that subject. I don't know what I would choose for a theme if I did California; probably something around Huntington Beach, maybe the auditorium and tower at old Huntington Beach High School. Now there's a thought!
The second swap is a simple silhouette on a background. I used a silhouette of Delicate Arch on two backgrounds made from extra ATCs I made a few years ago.
Location ATC card:

I made three of these, so I could keep one for my collection. I haven't hiked up to the arch in many years. My knees won't let me walk that far up hill (coming down is even worse). I am glad I took a lot of pictures.

Silhouette card with the two backgrounds:

Here is what I usually glue on the backs of the ATCs. If I run out of the contact papers with this design, I will put an address sticker on the back with the title, number, and date.

The design is from the title page of an old biographical encyclopedia published in 1888. I bought the book almost 50 years ago at Acers of Books in Long Beach, CA, one of my favorite places to browse when I was a student at Long beach State. I bought many books there that are now over 150 years old.

I also decorated the envelopes for sending the swaps. Here are three of the front sides and two of the backs. The paper was stained with inks in my "secret" process. I like to outline things with black. It must be my expressionistic side.

 

 

My Last Swap-bot Trade of 2013

I sent out my last Swap-bot trade, ATC Profile Trade, on December 27. This trade was sent two partners based on something in the partner's Swap-bot profile. One of the partners I had, listed in her favorite television shows Doctor Who. My three daughters are Doctor Who fanatics, and they have hooked my wife on the program. Curse Xfinity on Demand and all the Doctor Who seasons that are available. My wife is watching them all the time! I admit to watching a few of them with her. We used to watch the show every Saturday night back when Tom Baker was the "Doctor," but there have been a lot of regenerations since then, and I am a little lost.
I made two Doctor Who themed cards for my Australia partner, though only one was required. (I like to send extra ATCs and decorate the envelopes if I have time.) I didn't over do the card hoping that "less is more." I didn't want to cover up the backgrounds, which were made of stained cardstock that I made in 2012. I used the same backgrounds for some Halloween ATC trades in 2012. The color was supposed to be black, but it turned out gray instead. You never know what you are going to get with my paper staining technique. It is always a surprise, usually pleasant, but occasionally a disappointment. I was hoping these backgrounds would suggest the atmosphere surrounding the traveling Tardis. I took these photos with my phone because my scanner is not working, and the digital quality is not very good.

My other trading partner had an alphabetical list of likes. For "Z" she listed zentangles, so I experimented with some zentangles. These may no longer qualify as zentangles, but I like the results of my experimentation. Again the quality is not very good. Scanning gives a much better result.

 

Happy New Year to all. If you contact me, I will send you an original Artist Trading Card to add to your collection, or get you started on collecting. Just remember that you should always reciprocate with an ATC of your own.

My Mickey Rooney Film List

My wife is a member of a little group of teachers who call themselves “The Oldies but Goodies.” They used to be curriculum facilitators for Jordan School District and are now back as teachers in the classroom. They meet once a month to discuss curriculum. One of the group was able to obtain tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert featuring Deborah Voigt last night, so the oldies went together. My wife was happy to go, because she has gone with me to the HD broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and has seen Voigt in four operas. The other oldies had never heard of her, the low brows!

I got to stay home and babysit the dog, because our family didn’t enter the “lottery” for concert tickets this year after not getting tickets for the last four years. What did I do? I watched a Mickey Rooney movie at TCM On Demand: Stablemates co-staring Wallace Beery, with Margaret Hamilton before she was the Wicked Witch of the West. Rooney was 17, playing a14/15-year-old. Most of his teens and early twenties he was playing younger teens and he could cry with the best of them.

 

Mickey Rooney was in 147 films from Manhattan Melodrama 1934, to Night at the Museum 2006. This does not include the almost two hundred television movies and series episodes he appeared in from 1952 to 2008. I have seen 38 of the movies he appeared in between 1934 and 2006, most of which were made between 1934 and 1944. Some of these I have seen multiple times. Rooney was the star of 96, unless I miss counted, Mickey McGuire comedies, cartoon voices, and short comedies between 1926 (age 5) to 1934 (age13). I have only seen two of the Mickey McGuire shorts (silent), and I don’t recall the titles. Here is a list of the Mickey Rooney films I have seen with the year, character name, and Rooney’s age during filming:

Manhattan Melodrama 1934   Blackie as a boy (13)

 

A Midsummer Night Dream 1935   Puck or Robin Goodfellow (14)

Ah, Wilderness 1935   Tommy (14)

Little Lord Fauntleroy 1936    Dick (15)

The Devil Is a Sissy 1936   “Gig” Stevens (15) One of my favorites.

A Family Affair 1937   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (16)

Captains Courageous 1937   Dan (16)

Hoosier Schoolboy 1937   Shockey Carter (16)

Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry 1937  Timmie Donovan (16) First film with Judy Garland.

Your only Young Once 1937   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (16)

Judge Hardy’s Children 1938   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (17)

Love Finds Andy Hardy 1938   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (17)

Boys Town 1938   Whitey Marsh (17)

Stablemates 1938   Michael “Mickey” (17) Second horse race movie.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1939   Huckleberry Finn (17/18)

Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever 1939   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (18)

Babes in Arms 1939   Mickey Moran (18)

Judge Hardy and Son 1939   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (18/19)

Young Tom Edison 1940   Thomas Alva “Tom” Edison (19)

Andy Hardy Meets Debutante 1940   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (19)

Strike Up the Band 1940   Jimmy Connors (19)

Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary 1941   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (20)

Men of Boys Town 1941   Whitey marsh (20)

Babes on Broadway 1941   Tommy Williams (20/21)

A Yank at Eton 1942   Timothy Dennis (21)

Andy Hardy’s Double Life 1942   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (21/22)

The Human Comedy 1943   Homer Macauley (22) Another favorite.

Girl Crazy 1943   Danny Churchill, Jr. (22)

Andy Hardy’s Blond Trouble 1944   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (23)

National Velvet 1944   Mi Taylor (23)

Love Laughs at Andy Hardy 1946   Andrew “Andy” Hardy (25)

Words and Music 1948   Lorenz Hart (27)

The Bridges at Toko-Ri 1954   Mike Forney (33)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961    Mr. Yunioshi (40)

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World 1963   Ding Bell (43)

Pete’s Dragon 1977   Lampie (56)

The Black Stallion 1979   Henry Dailey (58)

Night at the Museum 2006   Gus (85)

 

 

 

 

December Postal Art I

I joined an ATC swap for the first week of December. The challenge was to create a card with two or more Christmas seals, or any of the stickers that charities send out at this time of year seeking more donations. I have made 10s and 10s of ATC backgrounds. Of the backgrounds I especially like, I make multiple copies. So I pulled out a bunch of background cards and started to explore what I could create. It was a bit more difficult to create an interesting card with a couple of stickers than I had anticipated.

My wife's sisters, Jennifer and Lora, were visiting from California for the weekend and a few days before Thanksgiving, so I thought it would be fun to give Lora the ATC challenge as well. She is a very talented quilter, crafter, and ATC artist, of whose work I have several pieces. Amelia, my grandniece (Lora's granddaughter) was also at the house for a big family dinner for the California visitors, and she also wanted to make a card with us. I thought she made a great card for a six year old. My daughter Rachel also got into the act and made a zentangle card. She didn't follow the rules of using two "charity" stickers on the card. Naughty daughter.

We each chose a different background for our cards which enhances the variety. I wonder what variety we would have had, had we each use the same background. We will never know now. That exists in another time stream.
This is my card:

This one is by Lora. It has a very Salvador Dali-esque flavor to it, I think:

 

My daughter Rachel penned this one. It reminds me of a Pysanky egg:

 

And finally, this is the one six-year-old Amelia created. I don't know what the little drawings represent:

I am sending the three extra cards to my Swap-bot partner as a little Christmas bonus.

Thanksgiving 2013

The time between Thanksgiving and New Years was the best time of the year when I was young. Everything seemed perfect. Even though there were problems in the world, they did not impose any worries on us.  Even when we didn’t have much, we had plenty to eat and too many presents for our own good.

Now this season for me is what some people call “bitter-sweet,” a time of joyful thanksgiving edged with a layer of melancholy. So many loved-ones, friends and family, gone now or scattered far and wide, the kids all grown, and the grandsons growing up too fast.

Some Christmas songs are hard to listen to for long, like Johnny Mathis singing “The Christmas Song” or “Sleigh Ride.” He was one of my mother’s favorite singers. She played his Christmas records throughout December. Hearing his voice and those songs takes me back 50 years to foggy Christmases in Huntington Beach, CA. She has been gone for ten years, and I still miss her. My dad at age 90 thinks she is still around.

Other seasonal songs I love but can’t listen to very much are “The Christmas Waltz,” by Peggy Lee, one of my dad’s favorites, and Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” I haven’t the faintest notion of why they inspire melancholy in my little brain, but they certainly do. I just must have a morbid temperament. Or it could be my annual fall-winter light deprivation depression kicking in. Oh well, Happy Thanksgiving.