For one week in September 2014 I sketched the Delaware Seashore, with the purpose of sketching 52 landmarks and typical scenes. I was born in Delaware 36 years ago and wanted to make a deck of cards celebrating my home state. Although I moved to Oregon with my parents at an early age, most of my childhood summers involved a visit to see the grandparents and swim in the ocean at Rehoboth Beach. Since the first release of my Illustrated Playing Cards of Portland, Oregon in November 2010, people have requested and demanded that I sketch many cities. This collection of drawings is my best effort to capture the feeling of Delaware in a dialogue with place. My process involved walking around looking at everything, trying to find good vantage points, at comfortable angles. As an artist who sketches outside en plein air, like a painter of older times, my creative activity is sometimes challenged by atmospheric conditions like heavy rain. It is my hope that the drawings on these cards evoke a sentiment of the beach. My drawings are not only functional art in the form of a deck of cards; to be played or displayed. It is a small but precious gift; a souvenir for visitors, a token of a special place.

All drawings were originally sketched on location without the aid of a photograph.  The drawings were completed with watercolor pencil and pen and ink in Portland, Oregon at Alberta Studios.  I used my great-Aunt Ethel’s ink pen to complete the drawings. Suits and numbers are an original hand-drawn border template made by the artist for Illustrated Playing Cards.  Boxes are offset printed and die-cut.  Each box is signed, numbered, and folded by the artist.  Cards are digital prints with a UV coating, printed in Portland, Oregon.  Small-batch printings are cut square, round-cornered and shrink-wrapped.

Special thanks to my grandma Amie Sloan for inspiring this project.