Author: Aisling

The subject of this pen & ink ATC is the Spalding Inn. I’m not entirely sure why that hotel fascinates me, but it does.

My husband and I have stayed there several times.

And it helps that my uncle and his wife used to vacation there. There’s a sense of heritage, I guess.

But… I don’t know.  It’s more than that.

The Spalding seemed a logical subject for an ATC.  It’s the final ATC in this series of six, and obviously the most detailed.  (The previous ATC, displaying a rose, led up to it.)

Though this country hotel has a charming history and – supposedly – a few great ghost stories, it’s not actually associated with UFOs.

The reason I put a flying saucer in this ATC is because the Spalding Inn is along the flight path described by America’s first known alien abductees, Betty & Barney Hill… and I wanted something interesting in the sky.  (The design of the card is based on my fine art painting of the Spalding Inn.)

The Spalding Inn is located in Whitefield, New Hampshire.  It’s near Mount Washington, and it’s generally in a perfect location for exploring the White Mountains.

As of 2019, and perhaps earlier, the hotel closed when its previous owners sold it. I think a local company bought it, but I’m not sure.

That also makes it a great location for any artist to set up an easel and paint, en plein air. From any spot on the hotel’s property, there are amazing views in any direction… all year ’round.

You can download a free, printable copy (at 150 dpi) of this Spalding Inn ATC by clicking on the image above, or by clicking here.

For me, this ATC (artist’s trading card) was about design.  I wanted to see if I could use a simple subject and create enough visual interest so people don’t simply glance at it and say, “Ho-hum, it’s just a rose.”

I’m not 100% certain that I achieved that, but I think the various shading techniques work well enough.

This ATC actually repeats an exercise that I did in my junior year of high school.  I’m not kidding.  I’d learned a lot from it, and it’s stuck in my memory as something very positive.

Like my other ATCs in this series, this card was drawn with a Size 0 (zero) point rapidograph-style pen.  It’s a Koh-i-noor Rapido Drawing Pen, and I love it.  Unlike older rapidographs that I’ve used since college (when dorm friend/artist Darcy Grimm showed me her rapidograph), this one doesn’t seem to clog easily.  That’s a huge plus, and it’s one reason why I’m doing far more artwork with it.

Anyway, it’s all dots & lines in this ATC, and I’m pleased with it.  You can download a printable copy (at 150 dpi) by clicking on the card image, above, or by clicking here.

This ATC is typical of the scribbles that decorated my class notes starting around age 12.

Bored out of my mind in junior and senior high school, I only half-listened to teachers. (Yes, I regretted that later.)

Instead, I drew a variety of designs, usually a series of connected images like the one at left.

For me, the squares and rectangles represent the architecture of the city.  The swirls represent the city’s energy, and the stars are the dreams and real-life stars, while the circles are clouds and bubbles of creativity.

Free download

You can download your own copy of this ATC by clicking on the image at left, or by right-clicking here and saving it to your hard drive. Print it at 150 dpi so it’s 2.5″ x 3.5″.

This is one of six ATCs that I created in October 2010, experimenting with a new pen.  (It’s a Size 0 point Koh-i-Noor Rapido Drawing Pen.)

Evolution of this style

When I was a teenager, I sometimes drew these designs in ink and just left them as-is.

Others were drawn in pencil during school.  Later, at home,  I drew over the pencil with India ink and my crow quill pen.

When the ink was fully dry, I’d add color.  My mother had paints left from her years as an air brush artist (Dr. Ph. Martin’s radiant, concentrated watercolors) and I used those because the colors were so vivid.  Generally, my color choices included magenta, turquoise, lime green, and yellow.  I used purple as well, but carefully; it’s a color that can dominate artwork very easily.

One of these drawings — painted with acrylic paints — decorated a residential elevator on Marlborough Street in Boston (MA) in 1970.  I remember showing it to musician Jaime Brockett when he visited me, and he could barely believe I’d created it.

Even then, I don’t think my appearance or demeanor matched who I really am.

Another  of these designs became a wall mural in an office just outside of Salt Lake City (UT) in 1973.  It’s no longer visible, of course, but I like to think that it still exists under layers of paint and tasteful wallpaper.

(Hmm… have I mentioned that I was a rather mobile hippie in that era?)

The art themes

These kinds of scribbles have a lot in common with work by Peter Max, but I don’t think he was popular when I began drawing these.

In fact, I think the art in my class notes (and this ATC) drew upon the same cultural icons that inspired Max and others. (The posters for the Grateful Dead and for concerts in general —  particularly around San Francisco — also featured similar imagery.)

When I adopted elements from any popular art, it was probably from a TV show that (I think) aired in the afternoons when I returned home from high school. It had a title like “The Amazing World of Dr. Silver”, but that’s not quite right. I’m pretty sure it was on PBS and produced in Boston, Massachusetts.  (Does anyone else remember this show?)

Mostly, there was a certain style to the art of the late 1960s and early 1970s.  It was happy but also complex, in its own way.

This ATC reflects that.