Want to get creative juices flowing in your house? Hop on a new trend for making, collecting, and trading mini works of art."Ninety-seven, ninety-eight ... Mom, I need to make two more!"
My 7-year-old son, Quinn, yells as he heads for our jumbled art shelf in the kitchen. He pulls out two pieces of blank white paper the size of a baseball card, colored pencils, and a fine-point Sharpie pen. Briskly, he turns out his 99th and 100th Artist Trading Cards, titled Scandinavian Death Worm and Tennis Ball. He tucks them into plastic sleeves in his three-ring binder, alongside a riot of companions of every color and style. Then he counts them again.
Quinn isn't alone in his obsession with creating tiny works of art on rectangles of paper, either cut by hand or bought in an art-supply store. The Artist Trading Card (ATC) movement, begun in a Zurich, Switzerland, art gallery in the late 1990s, is sweeping the globe. Adult artists swap work in their communities and online -- and, increasingly, kids and families have discovered the trend's charms. Sharing the "collect-'em-all" appeal of other types of trading cards but featuring handmade and utterly one-of-a-kind designs, ATC cards beg to be counted, lingered over, shown off, traded, and treasured.
"There are just two rules in ATC," announced West Hartford, Connecticut, artist and teacher Erika Davis-Pitre at the beginning of the first ATC workshop Quinn and I attended. "Every card must be 2 1/2- by 3 1/2-inches in size, and they can be traded but never sold. Otherwise, no rules: your card is waiting for whatever you can dream up." As proof, Erika handed out binders bulging with cards painted, sewn, stamped, dyed, printed, collaged, and bursting with landscapes, portraits, and poems. The classroom buzzed. As we sifted though collage supplies at our long art tables, Erika laid out a few guidelines. "Write your name and the year on the back of every card," she said. "And think about giving it a title when you're done." As we worked, she passed along more valuable advice: take your time, do your best work, use the whole card, and remember, there's no such thing as "wrong" in art.
Ready to make mini masterpieces? Read on for some of our favorite techniques for creating amazing cards, plus pointers for trading them and resources for supplies.
TESSELATION: Tessellation, a term used in art and science, refers to a repeated pattern that fills a defined area (such as a wallpaper design, a quilt, or many of M. C. Escher's artworks). To make a tessellation-inspired design, use a black pen to draw a freehand shape with several closed spaces (for example, a circle divided into pizza slices or a snowman). Fill each space with a tiny repeating pattern, such as dots, squares, flowers, circles, or triangles.
STAMPS: Store-bought or homemade stamps (such as a potato or a foam stamp) are easy for the youngest artists to handle and can be the centerpiece of a card embellished with markers, glitter, or other supplies. If you are using various colored inks, clean the stamp with a wet rag or baby wipe before switching shades.
LOOP-THE-LOOP: Loop a marker or gel pen around in a scribble, finally rejoining the line to the starting point. The image should look like a tangled piece of string with lots of loops. Fill each one with color, using marker, colored pencil, or gel pen.
SPIN ART: Attach a card to the center of a Spin Art machine with masking tape. Use tempera or acrylic paints and spin. For a variation, add interesting lines by gently scraping the wooden or plastic end of a paintbrush across the card as it turns. (If you don't have a Spin Art machine, try placing the card in the bottom of an old salad spinner; set it spinning, then remove the top and drip in the paint.)
FINGERPRINTS: Press your fingers onto an ink pad with washable ink, then onto a card. Use a pen or marker to add to the design. Stumped for ideas? Try drawing things that contain a circle or an oval: a spider, a ladybug, a snowman, a flower, a sun, or a moon.
STAINED-GLASS TISSUE: Cut various colors of tissue paper into pieces the size of a nickel or bigger. Using a glue stick, cover the whole card with the pieces; you can overlap them to create new colors. When the glue is dry, outline the edges of the pieces -- or "panes" -- with black permanent marker. To finish, paint the card with a thin coating of white glue.
VENN DIAGRAM: In math and logic, a Venn diagram, with its overlapping circles, is used to demonstrate shared qualities among different sets of things. Create a Venn diagram card by drawing around a small glass or a large coin with a black pen to form an overlapping pair of circles. Next, fill in the circles with designs. To make a true Venn diagram, fill the area of overlap with elements that appear on both sides.
RESIST: Create a simple design in light-colored crayon, then use a watercolor paint to wash or paint over the design. The card will absorb the watercolor paint, but the waxy crayon will resist it.
COLLAGE: The possibilities for a collage card are almost endless -- you can use magazine cutouts, seeds, thread, even fortune cookie slips. Adhere the materials to the card with a glue stick. If you're working with friends, pick a theme like soccer, spring, or space and see how each of you interprets it.
WHERE TO FIND SUPPLIES: Blank cards made from Bristol board, watercolor paper, bamboo, vellum, and other materials are available at art-supply stores and online ($1 to $3 for a pack of 10; jerrysartarama.com). They're also easy to make from plain white card stock or other substantial paper. Sets of plastic trading card sleeves are sold at office-supply stores and large retailers for $5 and under.
TWO WAYS TO TRADE:
1. FACE-TO-FACE: For kids (and adults, too), the most satisfying way to trade cards is in person. "Swapping them in person is motivating," says Erika. "If you see that your friend does beautiful work, you're going to work harder to make your own art the best it can be." You might want to coach young artists on the etiquette of trading, suggesting a few key phrases, for instance, to keep the process courteous: "Thank you for admiring my work, but I don't want to trade this card right now." Erika encourages kids to compliment others' work and not to feel insulted if an offer is refused. Everyone has different tastes!
2. ONLINE: Most ATC swap sites (such as atcsforall.com) are targeted at adults and run themed swaps ("Stormy Weather" or "Gorgeous Goddesses") that have a start date and an end date. Most online swaps for kids are organized by parents. Keep an eye open for swaps sponsored by kid-craft bloggers or set up your own using a Yahoo group or a site like swap-bot.com.
