Mini Masterpiece prepping with Artist Trading Cards :: Interactive Art History

This is my third year of doing the ever popular Mini Masterpiece project with the Art History students and this year I decided to add something into the creative process of it by having the students do some trial runs with artist trading cards (ATC). Do you do ATC at all with your students?

In all honesty, I have wanted to get in on the ATC "game" for quite a while and I even have quite an inventory to do it - I ordered different supports in ATC size at the beginning of the year - but I haven't been able to get it and keep it going. I blame the ridiculous schedule I keep at any given time with working full-time, graduate studies (also full-time), married and family life, and everything else in between.

(Next year, my goal is to definitely get ATC creation and exchanges going here within the school's art community and then eventually have it connect with another school/art community. I think it would be a great for a student leader to spearhead and so it's on my goal list to make happen in that way. Anyway...)

I have all of these ATC but I haven't used them this year so far. Last week there was a major school-wide field trip that happened though with the Science department and I was left with only half of my students in almost every class! It was the perfect time to break out some ATC for the students to do some creative processing and exploration. I found it especially useful with the interactive art history students since they are prepping for doing the Mini Masterpiece project and the ATC are just the right size to get them to start thinking about scale in order for them to do more successful works of art when they get their final materials.

I put my hand in this shot so you can get a better understanding of how small they are! 

The students used the Portfolio brand Oil Pastels that we are such a huge fan of and they all turned out some pretty amazing ATC that many of them took with them in order to be able to give to their friends and/or hang in their lockers.

I have never done ATC before but I feel like it really worked as a nice stepping stones for art history students to feel a little more prepared and confident for when it comes time for them to put paint to canvas.