I spent the weekend at the
Dragon*Con convention in Atlanta. People tend to see the description of the convention, "
the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!" and ask me WHY?
Well, first, my teenage daughter turned me on to it. She loves all things anime, and most things video games, and plans to do costuming as well as musical theater, and she got me to look into it and so I went last year. I liked it so much that I returned this year.... Yes, I'm planning to go back next year. There are tons and tons
of things to do, see, and learn there (
more info here), but for me, the art track was well worth every cent I spent.
After thoroughly enjoying the costuming track last year, I realized that they had an art track, so I attended several artist panels. They included Artist Open Studio Drawing, Classical Digital Painting, Before the Paint Goes On, What to know when creating a realistic painting, and Artist Trading Card workshop and swaps.
I used to create and sell a lot of Artist Trading Cards back in my Ebay days. I stopped because The eBay artist market went south, and so my art (of all sizes) stopped selling. I started content writing around that time, and my writing work edged out my art. I went to the Artist Trading Card
workshop because I thought, hey, why not go, it will force you to create (my whole reason for attending Dragon*Con this year)... and so I did. I made five ATCs in a 24 hour period (it only takes about 1/2 hour each), and the next day, I traded them all in about 10 minutes. I ended up with a lot more cards than I had given out, so my guess is that folks were either generous or really liked me cards. I think it was a combination or both.
Anyway, here are the cards I created, that I no longer own. (these photos are a little shadowed and uncropped because I snapped them with my iPad before trading)
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| This was was done in a method they called ZenTangles which helps you create a card when you have no idea what to draw. It was officially the first ATC I'd created in 7 years. I used my favorite artist pen and a crayola black marker as I wanted to see the juxtaposition of lines between the two tools. I thought it was a little busy, but another artist like it so... |
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This
also started as a Zen Tangle, but as I love to write on my art work, I
wrote a little message. This was to my hotel. It says, "Dear Westin, I
conscientiously object to my bill. $180 a day and no Wifi. Parking
should be free. Ps. Sorry about the mess". If it hadn't traded, I
probably would have left it as a hotel "tip". |
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| I drew this after I watched an exchange with a Zombie CosPlayer and a young lady. Firstly, I loved everything but the Zombies. I seriously wanted to carry a fly-swatter to swat them away from me if they go too close... they really creeped me out... Especially since they all stayed in character so well. This particular Zombie had been drinking though. So he was making crude remarks to a very respectable young lady, then getting irate because she did not find him charming.... Hence, the caption. "What's the difference between a sober zombie and a zombie who's been drinking? A drunk zombie wants to talk!" A guy grabbed this one up and gave me two of his in exchange. |
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| This is what happens when your husband and daughter fall alseep early and wake up at 3am for a party in the hotel room. This started as a ZenTangle that I tried to pull an image out of... but it was 3am, so I don't really know how successful I was. |
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| This one is the most important thing I learned at Dragon*Con. If you are on floor 36 and a half empty elevator goes up... get on it. Yes, it is possibly going up to floor 45, but when it comes down, it will be full. Hence the caption, " Elevator rule #1: What goes up... must come down". This was my favorite and one of the ladies running the workshop scored it. |
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| I will show more of the cards I received tomorrow, but for now, here are my to favorites.... It's pretty clear that I love black and white, isn't it? The card on the left is entitled Skull-Trait by Matthew Mahnken The one on the right is by Julianne Trew. It is scratch art... it is more detailed than you can see. It is breathtaking | | | |
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