Beatrice Cook invested an hour capturing the image of a ferret on paper the size of a baseball card, only to promptly swap the ferret for a cat.
"I just like making art in general, and knowing I can give my art to other people is a nice feeling," said Beatrice, a 15-year-old home-schooler.
Beatrice likes to make and trade cards at least once a week at the Athens-Clarke County Library, where a group of teens and younger children gathers after school and practices a cross between baseball-card collecting and art curating.
The rules are simple. To get a card, you must first make your own. Then, you can start trading.
So far, Beatrice has more than 100 one-of-a-kind masterpieces.
Her friend, Daisy Bray, isn't far behind, though she's not necessarily trying to collect the most.
"I just like seeing everyone else's kind of art; there're so many styles that people do," Daisy said.
Artist trading cards, or ATCs, have been around more than a decade, since a Swiss artist showcased 1,200 cards in his Zurich gallery in 1996 and invited fans to make their own.
Art groups from Philadelphia to San Francisco make and trade the cards, and the hobby even has a publication, ATC Quarterly, which connects traders across the globe.
Trading card artists use all different kinds of materials to fill the 2.5 by 3.5-inch paper canvas. No card is the same and the goal is to be as creative as possible.
Some budding local artists have cut out family pictures and rigged the card to have a 3-D effect.
Others make collages or draw cartoons, said Natalie Wright, a librarian who oversees youth programming.
"You can put anything on an artist trading card," Wright said. "You can cover them with fabric. I've seen some who have covered them with aluminum foil. Some have their own comic styles; some are very realistic; some do collages, or funny scenes with magazine cutouts, and then someone else will do really intricate geometrical designs. It's lots of different styles."
The local library group began collecting in September.
Wright had heard about card trading online, where all types of artists - from amateurs to pros - trade. Some professionals sell cards online because they're more affordable than full-size pieces.
"It's good for some people who could not afford a big piece, but wanted a piece of original art," Wright said.
For budding young artists, drawing small isn't as intimidating as having to fill a full canvas.
"Artists have to put a lot of time and effort into a big piece of work," Wright said. "Filling a card with artwork is less threatening than trying to fill a canvas. it's very approachable."
Once a teen starts creating and trading, parents and siblings often start a collection of their own. And once they start, they can't stop.
"It's kind of like algae," said Sara Cook, Beatrice's mom. "It's catching on and growing."
Parent Jason Hubbard also admits spending more and more of his free time at home making cards.
"It sucks up a lot of my time," Hubbard said. "We'll sit at the kitchen table and do the cards."
Hubbard is amazed at some of the kids' creations.
"I'm always impressed to see some drawing someone did or a collage. I'll see someone's drawing of a picture of a frog with purple warts and I'm like, 'Why didn't I think of that?' "
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