After two months of making no ATCs, I joined a swap called "Scrappy Hearts." It was hosted through Facebook, but all communication went on through a chat on Messenger. It was fun to try something new, and I wanted to try this method so I could set up a station at the Art Lab in late January/early February.
The next set of cards was made all in one day. I started out making three "Studies" of famous paintings, using alcohol marker on paper. Then I made one abstract, with all DOTS. I think I counted them at the time (it was something like 700-800, but I misplaced the card I used to count and I do NOT plan to count again...
Finally, a hand-drawn doodle cat card just for fun.
Early in January I was invited to join a Facebook group called "Mammy's 100 Tiny Paintings." I thought it might be fun to be in a very small group, with a simple challenge to paint 100 tiny paintings in 52 weeks. Easy for me... but then I paint incredibly simple, fast paintings. All of these were FUN... but I had forgotten how hard it is to get a really good photo of an acrylic painting.
For the January 17-January 20 long weekend, I joined an ATART on ATCsForAll.com.
I did not update the ATC portion of this website for EIGHT months. During that time, I was doing a lot of art prep for the Mulvane Museum Art Lab!
After a very long break from ATC trading, I decided to jump back into "Emily's group."
Emily had posted a card that I wanted, and there were interesting conversations going on between the two "main" ATC boards.
My old iMac, at this point, had gotten TOO SLOW. I was trying to learn to use the Pages App on my iPad. Journals for September and October were done on the iPad. I learned a lot. Here are the first two pages of the "new" journals:
After the long break, I decided to start a new spreadsheet, for "Life as an ATC Artist, Part Two."
I had seventeen cards left from the old days, so I put them on the spreadsheet.
The new era started with card #2275: "Resist 250901." I traded it to Emily.
Next came the hybrid card "Fight! Fight!" shown above.
This time around, I really wanted to make some more serious ATCs.
These do not capture the impact of the actual memorial, but I felt good about the pair of cards. One traded, one I kept.
Both cards share the number #2285.
(There were some custom cards made for trades in between.)
The more serious cards gave way to Halloween cards.
#2286-#2303 included a single alcohol marker jack-o-lantern, which took a LONG time to trade, and several skull studies.
Then I made a series of crafty Halloween cards that resulted in some fun conversations.
I was all excited about trading Halloween cards, so I posted a bunch, all at once, and sat back and waited for all the offers.
And waited.
They were...
Um....
Not popular.
I was sad. But if there is one thing that I have learned from trading ATCs, it is to take that sadness and convert it into art.
The next day I published a new card.
I made this using Procreate. The card got a LOT of comments and the discussion was a lot of fun.
I print these up to include as extras.
It is card #2312 on the spreadsheet.
Next came a card that has two different iterations.
The first card was made on September 28.
I kept it.
A little while later I made it into a "do-it-yourself" PDF.
I've shared the PDF via Messenger.
I've also included printed copies as extras.
Later, I made a second one to offer on an "on demand" basis.
I think this is one of my best cards ever, because it really shows the differences between HD, hybrid, digital prints, and AI.
I would consider SEPTEMBER 2025 to be a very successful month.
However....
I needed to slow down in October.
And....
I decided to do "Inktober."
I did all 31 days of Inktober, and collected the images on an Inktober page here on my website.
I did the "Drawvember" Challenge, hosted by Jess Ellis from "Emily's Group."
She actually used the TinkerSketch prompts, shown here.
It was all managed on Messenger, which I found to be a bit of a pain to use.
But I did all thirty days. If Inktober got its own page, so should "Drawvember..."
