Saturday Night Contest - Your Card Story

CaseyRudd

Director of Operations
Team member
Jun 5, 2009
3,393
3,801
Charleston, SC
www.instagram.com
Hey guys, hope you all are having a great start to the weekend! If you've noticed our Instagram feed or even some of our SNC's over the past few months, you would know that phenomenal playing card artist Scott Dyer has a series of 52 different "card stories" using a single playing card. He made his final piece (#52 over 52 weeks) about 4 days ago, which involved the Mystery Box Playing Cards. It has been a remarkable journey, and we are certainly eager to see what Scott has in store for the future.

To commemorate Scott's accomplishment, this week's contest is based around the idea of telling a story using playing cards. What is the challenge? Create a piece of art using playing cards that help tell a story. It can be a story that is personal to you, a piece that invokes mystery and wonder, or something that represents you as a person and/or magician/cardist. We all have a story to tell. You can create this piece of art out of multiple cards, a single card, by making a sculpture, drawing or painting on the cards, using pieces of cards and form them into a mosaic, etc. You can make them into anything, in whichever way you choose. As long as you use playing cards in some way, any piece of art you create is fair game.

Once you have finished your card story, take a picture of it and post it on Instagram or Imgur. Along with posting the picture, write a brief summary of what that story is or feeling it represents in the description, as we would all love to hear your stories. Post the link to your image in response to THIS forum thread by no later than 7:30pm EST tomorrow, Sunday, October 25th. Once time is up, our panel of judges will go through all submissions and decide on a winner based on the criteria listed below.

We are looking for the entry with the overall best execution and impact, as well as the unique-ness, creativity, and originality of your art piece. All of these factors will be taken into consideration while in the judging process, so make sure you try your best. This isn't about whoever has the most experience or skill in making art, as each and every one of us has a different story to tell.

What will the winner receive? 1,000 Elite Member Points and a brick (12 Decks!) of Green Monarch Playing Cards, shipped on the house, anywhere in the world.

We are looking forward to seeing your creations and the story you wish to share!
 

Justin.Morris

Elite Member
Aug 31, 2007
2,793
888
Canada
www.morrismagic.ca
So many stories to tell - how do you choose! Today was actually a big day. I love being a dad, and today I got to let my daughter watch Star Wars for the first time. What a fun moment to share with her. I know it's geeky, but it's a profoundly amazing thing to watch your kids grow up. I'm so proud of who she is becoming. So anyway, the card craft part is simple, but this is my tribute to being a father and he fun things we get to share in. Here's the submission:
https://instagram.com/p/9Q4eO4sufe/

https://goo.gl/photos/F8T1Di2MyxCMfRLN6

Here are a couple of shots of putting it together: https://goo.gl/photos/2VDg91V9NM8PrziU6
 
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Tower of Lunatic Meat

Elite Member
Sep 27, 2014
2,435
2,029
Texa$, with a dollar sign
So many stories to tell - how do you choose! Today was actually a big day. I love being a dad, and today I got to let her watch Star Wars for the first time. What a fun moment to share with her. I know it's geeky, but it's a profoundly amazing thing to watch your kids grow up. I'm so proud of who she is becoming. So anyway, the card craft part is simple, but this is my tribute to being a father and he fun things we get to share in. Here's the submission: https://goo.gl/photos/F8T1Di2MyxCMfRLN6

Here are a couple of shots of putting it together: https://goo.gl/photos/2VDg91V9NM8PrziU6

Holy cow! Cards and technology. Helluva combo you have there!
 
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Bryant_Tsu

Elite Member
I don't know what kind of story to tell so I'll show you all a page from my story, after all it is the easiest one to tell.
I believe that life is like a roller coaster, it has its ups and downs. It has times where I wish I wasn't on it and times when I'm glad I jumped in. Best of all, I am in for a surprise for what's ahead.
When I feel stuck, down, tired, or blue I have to keep in mind that there will be a time of reprieve ahead, I just need to wait for it. I am who I am, I can't jump into the mind or body of someone else, that's just a fantasy.
I am unique.
I am different.
Be different.
https://instagram.com/p/9P2mA3v0-R/
 

Eli Retschlag

Elite Member
Apr 5, 2013
3
5
For my entry I had to upload two images. One showing the detail and one showing the height of the sculpture, so I hope you don't mind.
https://instagram.com/p/9QFcu7oExw/

https://instagram.com/p/9QFqOSIEx_/

Basically throughout my life I have been obsessed with paper. Whether it is art, or books, or cards, anything that involves paper, I love. Throughout high school in art class, everyone was drawing or painting, but I was the only one making sculptures from paper. I made stencils and intricate cut outs of anything that I could.
When I saw that the contest was to create something from cards I decided to combine my fascinations.
Cards and paper sculpture.
I decided I would make a sculpture fit for a king, so the natural choice was the Monarch ace.
I created a base of cards, and then proceeded to cut slits into it. From here I cut the cards in half for ease, and stuck them in and glued them down. The end result is a 3D sculpture of a Monarch ace completely made from playing cards.

Goodluck to everyone else.
 

Tower of Lunatic Meat

Elite Member
Sep 27, 2014
2,435
2,029
Texa$, with a dollar sign
For my entry I had to upload two images. One showing the detail and one showing the height of the sculpture, so I hope you don't mind.
https://instagram.com/p/9QFcu7oExw/

https://instagram.com/p/9QFqOSIEx_/

Basically throughout my life I have been obsessed with paper. Whether it is art, or books, or cards, anything that involves paper, I love. Throughout high school in art class, everyone was drawing or painting, but I was the only one making sculptures from paper. I made stencils and intricate cut outs of anything that I could.
When I saw that the contest was to create something from cards I decided to combine my fascinations.
Cards and paper sculpture.
I decided I would make a sculpture fit for a king, so the natural choice was the Monarch ace.
I created a base of cards, and then proceeded to cut slits into it. From here I cut the cards in half for ease, and stuck them in and glued them down. The end result is a 3D sculpture of a Monarch ace completely made from playing cards.

Goodluck to everyone else.


That is quite an impressive display
 
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Reactions: Eli Retschlag
Jun 5, 2013
44
5
Hungary
Hand cramps.
I think it's a shame that our audience don't get to see and appreciate the amount of practice we put into our art, refining the methods we learn and come up with. I've spent thousands of hours practicing the double lift in the past years, only to hide the sleight. That's why I do cardistry (which is also straining on the hands), to show off and entertain when I'm around people and to relax when I'm alone. Also, I just started my first year in an art school, studying video editing and animation alongside traditional methods such as working with ink and painting. So, yeah, the hand exercise game is on.

http://imgur.com/gKkVpaA
 
This is such a great idea!

First off I should say hello, after lurking for a little over a year now this is my first post! I've wanted to get more active on here and other forums and after seeing this contest pop up figured this would be a good place to start.

Second, I'd like to apologize for how long this post turned out, I started typing and just couldn't stop! If you do make it through the whole thing I sincerely thank you! It turned into quite a rambling, hahaha.

Last but not least, the reason I love this idea (and part of the "story" I want to tell with my photography in general) is that playing cards; and magic in general; is what originally inspired me to go buy a camera, learn some of the basics of photography, and in the process absolutely fall in love. A little less than a year later I'm confident enough where I launched a website last weekend and am in the process of taking in/setting up various jobs and assignments.

For the first time in my life see some sort of "career" ahead of me doing something I'm truly passionate about, and in retrospect I owe pretty much all of that to the magic community!

I'll try and keep this short and sweet but basically I've had an interest in photography since I was a child, but it wasn't until the release of the KINGS deck by Daniel Madison and Peter McKinnon last year that an idea popped into my head for a picture (first time that ever happened) and I just wasn't able to recreate the image in my head with my phone's camera; at least not to my personal standards. After some research I saved up for a bit, bought an entry level DSLR, spent most of the next month reading and taking in as much info as possible until I was finally able to hack my way thorugh that original idea (I would love to re-shoot it knowing what I know now ;)).

So that brings me to this morning. I saw this post last night at work (I work the graveyard shift) so when I got home around 5am I wasn't sure if I should go to sleep or set up a small shoot, well I opted to set up the shoot (who needs sleep?) and couldn't be happier! Its moments like today that remind me why I fell in love with photography in the first place: the idea that I thought would take 20-30 minutes ended up completely engulfing my mind and three hours later I had some great shots that felt like they only took me 10 minutes. The fact that Daniel Madison ended up commenting on one of them is a pretty big bonus as well!

Ended up with about 50 images and couldn't decide which one to choose so I narrowed the selection down to two:

https://instagram.com/p/9RFZ7Lq0pW/

https://instagram.com/p/9RFHsjK0oz/

The idea behind this set is basically evil disguised as good. As a child, cards were always my escape from everything bad in the world, unfortunately as I grew older that escape starting taking a liquid form. Everyday is a struggle but I stick to one of the quotes from The Monster by Daniel Madison:

"Embracement is sufferings foe.
I have more respect for the addict who masters the limitations of his poison,
than for he whose nature suffers by the constant avoidance of it.
Through the mastery of pain, suffering becomes an art,
and he who suffers becomes an artist"


I never knew how to put those feelings into words until I opened the book and read that one page.


-Tony
 
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