16 no cost or low cost activities for if you are home for safety / quarantine

Grad school just went all online classes. -_-

Hang out with me on Instagram

My current HDHP ATCs for private trade - click this link!

30th Anniversary of Shark Week! Print your own free copy of a painted art zine.

NEW! A kid-friendly free zine you can print on how to make zines, good for school teachers and librarians: How To Zine

NEW! Stop motion animation that I made for a friend: Mail Art Gnome

Learn to make your own cartoons, a super easy method using a tablet or smartphone

I am an artist in Chicago looking to trade ATCs [artist trading cards] here on Swap-bot. I work in a range of media [multi-media, collage, photography, digital, printmaking] and do very nice fully-painted cards. I also love trading zines, inchies, twinchies, paintings, postcards, collage, hand bound books, artist books, chunky book pages and photographs.

I am in grad school for an MS in Human-Computer Interaction (UX,UI,IA,IxD). I volunteer with my local hackerspace / makerspace Pumping Station: One and have volunteered with Free Geek Chicago. I'm a novice ice hockey player and joined the Wilmette Cougars recreational league team.

SPECIAL NOTE: I am inner city and our mail carrier hauls everything door to door on foot. If she gets caught in a rainstorm or a snowstorm, she has to plow through it. Please wrap items in plastic because sometimes a letter gets drenching wet. A plastic sandwich bag with the bulky zipper cut off, folded and taped, works great. Don't worry about current postcards, just mail them as is / naked.

All swaps coming from a smoke-free home. I don't smoke and I don't let the dogs smoke, either!

The art I like is wildly eclectic. I tend to respond to people's style the most with a preference for fine art and the unique. If you have your own art style, that is my favorite! I want to see the work you create.

LIKES: Portraits, self-portraits, fine art, owls, Basset Hounds, abstracts, ice hockey, dinosaurs, archaeology, Japanese traditional and popular culture, black and white line art or ink art, antique cigarette and ad cards, vintage and antique postcards.

Fandom: MLPFIM, Pokémon, Netflix Voltron reboot and Castlevania reboot, Marvel Avengers, Adventure Time, Hetalia: Axis Powers, How to Train Your Dragon, Inubaka (cannot find last 6 books), Ah! My Goddess by Kosuke Fujishima, Mushishi, Fullmetal Alchemist, Poyo Poyo, G.I. Joe: Renegades, Star Wars (G1, Clone Wars & Rebels), G1 Transformers, Game of Thrones TV series (I ain't got the time to read the books), and Harry Potter series.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Loose prints, unmounted are preferred. Please no lamination. I collect tintypes, cartes de visite, cabinet cards and Polaroids.

DISLIKES: Do not send any Racist Kitsch which was made to look cute but really was intended to be demeaning! Anything bigoted against POC, women, LGBTQ+, or dissing any religions or ethnicities is not welcome.

Please do not use Sharpie markers for art, they degrade badly: Sharpie markers are not art supplies

Want More?: I am willing to swap paintings, custom art work & digital image design and more for stuff - message me for inquiries.

Fiber Destash? I have recently learned how to spin yarn and an interested in wool roving, other natural fibers and dyes if you want to swap. I knit a lot. Friend my Ravelry Account

Please Note: I retain all image rights, copyright and intellectual property rights on all creations.

ATCsForAll

International Union of Mail Artists

Read online for free ArtTRADER Magazine

How to Get Better at Drawing Decades of my experience in one article. Read online or download the article as a .pdf here

Basic Information on painting; maybe go to the oldest blog post and read in reverse order: Click here

Free Book: read Starting With Abstract Painting

Melted Crayon Wax Painting Or "encaustic for lazy people" - 43 second video to learn how to make your own.

10 Tips on Watercolour from personal experience. I also highly recommend this book Watercolour How To Book check your local library or available cheap on Amazon, as of May 2013 copies under $4.00.

1000+ free video tutorials on all art subjects with Jerry's Artarama catalog: Free video lessons

Royalty Free, High-Resolution Photography: morgueFile

Free digital downloads of textures & backgrounds for digital image design, collage, etc: Caleb Kimbrough's BITTBOX

Jay Hilgert's BittBox Free digital image sources & textures.

TanglePatterns.com Free resource for Zentangle drawing.

How To Paint Transfer Toner Images Transfer toner prints of photographs, magazine pages and photocopies of your own drawings, etc. using acrylic paint.

GOLDEN Gel Medium Image Transfer Good method for multi-media art and acrylic paints.

Collage Perspectives at Swarthmore College A 10 minute documentary video of a gallery exhibit.

David Carson on Design + Discovery TED video: A top designer lectures on visual culture.

Vik Muniz TED video: Creativity, culture, art. He is known for his portraits made of sugar.

Raghava KK: My 5 Lives as an Artist TED video: on making and breaking in his fine art career.

Sheikha al Mayassa: Globalizing the local, localizing the global TED video: how art and culture create a country's identity.

7 Projects With Recycled Materials

Art Pillow Design With Fabric Scraps by Alice Berry Low sew, high impact!

Daring Fireball's Markdown Syntax Guide How to put images in Swap-bot and other commands.

USPS Small Airmail Labels No longer available, DIY print your own. Great for postcards.

Mail theft? United States Postal Inspectors Online Complaint Webpage

Zines: what they are and two easy zine patterns to use.

Easy Book Binding Saddle Stitch Video

A short description of Masterboard Process for collage artist trading cards.

ATC and collage recommended adhesives: YES! stickflat paste, glue stick, rubber cement [these three dry flat] Modge Podge, gesso and acrylic gel medium [these are wetter, needs to be pressed. Wax paper and a heavy weight help.] I highly enjoyed the Bernie Berlin ATC Workshop book.

Free vintage and/or public domain images:

Smithsonian Institution Flickr

NASA Hubble Heritage Flickr

The British Library Flickr

Old Book Art Illustrations for download

Pinterest for Les Vieux Jours Vintage collage resources: photos, etchings, drawings and more.

ShellieLewis.Wordpress Antique postcards, ephemera and photography: 300 dpi downloads for free.

USA Library of Congress Flickr

USA Library of Congress Photo Archive online portal

Reusable Art

Karen's Whimsy

Creative Commons Cultural Contributors for art and music

Troubleshooting something? Ask me anything.

Go listen to stuff online for free:

Pixicast ~ Electronica podcasts.

Abstract Science ~ electronica, techno, industrial and experimental podcast.

CCMixter podcast and editor picks Also free music you can use for projects.

Dubstep came from Chicago.

"Digital Witness" - St. Vincent

Guile's Theme Goes With Everything - Smooth McGroove

WCHL Wilmette Cougars

Museum Fun Day