Post Card Swap

The Portland Art Collective holds an annual picnic and art swap. For this year's art swap, we decided to alter post cards -- any post card, just traditional in size and no attached embellishments (a challenge for many of our assemblage artists) so that if someone wanted to mail the post card, they could do so. Last Thursday we gathered at Sellwood Park in Portland to enjoy a potluck and exchange our art cards. I started working on my post cards in May, when our group held their spring art retreat at Menucha. I finished the cards while living aboard Rapture in June.

Each of my cards was stamped with an individual word, so it was fun for everyone to choose a card either based on the collaged image or the word -- maybe a bit of both in some cases.

I used repurposed post cards I had at the studio, either expired show cards, vintage cards people have given me, or old ones I've picked up in my travels. These are the backs.

We held our swap last Thursday. The women used paint, collage, photographs, and fabric!  They are all fabulous.

My Book is Back

My Altered Board Book has returned to me. The swap was hosted by Destree and started back in February when I first wrote about it. I've been posting the pages I created in the five other books since then, but now I have my very own book back in my possession. The pages created by the other five artists are beautiful. Here they are:







I'm already excited to do this again sometime in the future. Just need someone to step forward to get the ball rolling . . .

A Memory of Something Lost . . .

Shelby dropped off Kelly's book this afternoon for the final round of the Altered Board Book swap I'm currently in. I immediately pounced on the pages because my time in the upcoming two weeks is very limited for working on art.

Here is Kelly's simple and beautiful cover: A Brave New Beauty.


A glimpse inside Kelly's book at a bit of detail from each page.





Anatomy of my layout, or how I spent my afternoon . . .







A close-up of my pages.




In less than two weeks, my own book will be returned to me. I can't wait! Thanks, Destree, for hosting this inspiring swap.

Don't Be Ordinary

Round five of the Altered Board Book swap I'm participating in occurred this week and wanting to be early rather than late, I got my pages done quick as a wink. I received Destree's book on Wednesday (she's the coordinator of our swap) and just have to share her amazing cover.


Some peeks at what the other artists in the swap have done on their pages.




Anatomy of my pages . . . texture, collage elements, paint, rubber stamps, pen, and tape.







Some close-ups of my pages.




How the book looked as I prepared to package it up and send it on to Wisconsin.

Let It Go

Round Four of the Altered Board Book swap I'm in. I received Brandon's book today and I was excited to get started.


These are glimpses of the pages done by the previous two artists:



Tucked inside Brandon's book was a little booklet with several quotes he had written out. I chose one to use as my jumping off point for my pages.



A little prep to get the book going . . .


. . . . and I was on my way!