I’ve wanting to do these little artist cards for some time now. They are the culmination of a couple of ideas bouncing around in my head. Firstly, they are a fun way to do a piece of art fairly quickly. You don’t have to invest too much thought with it and it opens all kinds of avenues for creativity. Kind of like one panel cartoons.

Secondly, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to generate a small amount of income to support the strip. Now, don’t get me wrong here – I’m not in any way, shape or form attempting to earn a living from this strip! On the other hand, you’d be surprised how much money you can spend creating a strip – just in art materials alone. If these blasted inking pens would last more than one week – I’d be ecstatic!

We’ve had some interesting discussions over at Tall Tale Features forums about donations. The long and the short of it is that I feel I could hardly ask for anything without giving something back, and so the artist cards came to mind again.

It also seems like a cheap way for a fan to have pieces of original art. People trade artist cards too – and that’s a whole other thing.

Anyway, my thought is that I will do these various artist cards, and they will be all different things and all fairly unique. Sometimes they might actually relate to the strip in some way, but probably mostly just little vignettes.

I’m going to set up a donation button that has a minimum amount. The amount will be small – maybe a dollar – I’m not sure. It has to cover the cost of the material and the first class stamp and envelope at least! I mean the point is to get a little money in to help out.

Anyway, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the idea. And to help out – here’s the three first cards. They are all done in ink – with a brush pen too (it’s another thing – I can practice using the brush on these). Two are colored with colored pencil, one is in watercolor. (I really like that one.) I’ll probably pick different media to do different ones. The size is 2.5″ x 3.5″