Artist Trading Cards

I have been involved in a Digital Artist Trading Card Swap for over a year now. Although we make them digitally, or partly digitally, we mail them out and all of the Artists I swap with live in North America and Europe. It is wonderful to receive the cards in the mail each month as a nice change from the usual junk mail and bills. I am also a member of the local Art Society and about 12 months ago I was invited to give a talk to the members about Artist Trading Cards. Inspired by that, some of the members formed a monthly Artist Trading Card swap group and I have recently joined in that. The result is that I now receive between 10 and 20 Artist Trading Cards each month. Woo Hoo. I love these little `Works of Art' - each one represents a piece of the Artist who created it. I also love the fact that the cards are traded and not sold, so that each Artist can create their cards without a `purchaser' in mind. I think this tends to result in Art which comes from the heart rather than something `trendy' which is designed to sell. Ironically the cards are often coveted as they are beautiful, but they can only be traded or displayed. I have an album for mine and I love to look through it, each time seeing something new that I have missed before. This is my card from the Art Society February Swap, the theme was `Portraits'. I painted this in ArtRage, and the lace `brush' was added in PhotoShop.