Artist Trading Cards

Like plenty of other artists, I've been bitten by the artist trading card bug. I've done a couple of swaps and really enjoy seeing what other people are doing. These are so much fun to make; I get to play with new techniques with no pressure, because they're little! And I can sew beads on them without going nuts, because they're little! Etc. Here are pictures of some of the ones I've done.

The ones below were all done for a swap with an underwater theme. I knew about the swap theme before we went on vacation in Key West in June, so I used it as an excuse to buy fish fabric and lots of beads and pearls (and some tiny shells) while we were there. I thought about them as we were snorkeling, thought about how different really being there is compared to all the pictures we see and the way we *think* it looks. I tried to capture some of that in the first set, but I'm not sure how successful I was. Of course, the scans don't show the details well, all the fibers and stitching and frayed pieces of silk. The second set has lots of "stuff" captured underneath tulle and held in place by stitching, but again, they don't scan real well; the tulle reflects the light and hides some of what is underneath. I guess what I'm trying to say is they're all much cooler in person! (July 2004)