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.