altered playing cards (APC)

MMSA is having an APC swap so I dug out my cards and did a few. Made me remember why I like ATCs so much - the tightly defined design space. You have to be creative in 8.75 square inches - the area of a 2.5" x 3.5" ATC or a standard playing card.

I've recently been paging thru Artist Trading Card Workshop by Bernie Berlin, trying to add a few more tricks to my usual collage/gelli/stencil/doodle repertoire. It's one of my go-to books  because the techniques are mostly ones that use supplies I already have on hand and it's chock full of finished ATCs by a variety of artists so there's lots of idea-inducing eye candy.

Anyway, I had the hots to do some gel medium transfers so I dug around for likely looking images of women or kids and slathered a few layers of gel medium on them.

While they were drying, I collaged some gelli printed book page onto one of the cards and some white tissue paper layers onto a few others. Sprayed the still-wet tissue paper with inks, then with water and let two of them drip onto the third. Two got two layers of tissue but on the third I wadded it all up and made a highly textured surface. Took forever to dry but it looks cool.

As I was rubbing the paper off the transfers I tore the eye area off the little girl, and said a dirty word. Then I realized it wasn't a disaster, it was a design opportunity! (put another layer of gel on the other two transfers cause one 'opporunity' a day is enough for me)

I get impatient with the rubbing-paper-off part and always get too rough with them. They are very delicate, and I know that but I still do it pretty much every time. (what's the definition of 'stupidity' again?)

The top two pics are the correctly done transfers and the third one is the one-eyed girl. Shoulda put her a one-eyed Jack card, huh? Didn't think of that till just now. Darn.

Found some appropriate text in my folder of old book pages, drew a branch on the textured one, and wa-la - four APCs for the swap. They didn't all have to be green for the swap but that's my color family these days.

freebie wildflower scan & APCs for a swap

My friend Moneka gave me a neat little book - Wild Flowers of America - published in March 1932. I love the soft little paintings of each flower. It's falling apart with ancient scotch tape here and there, so I carefully took it all apart this morning, erasing pencil scribbles left by some bored child. I've scanned 9 of the images plus the front cover, inside cover and front and back of the intro page. Use them however you like, including works to sell. Just please don't sell them as images.


I made gel medium transfers out of a few. This is one of my favorite things to do with almost any image. It gives a softer image and allows the background to show thru. I do mine with a single fairly thin coat of gloss gel medium, and have to be very careful rubbing the paper off cause they tear easily.


Here's the finished APCs for a swap on ATCsForAll.com. First layer was a thick coat of gesso with torn pieces of green tissue paper mushed into it. They warped terribly and I thought I'd have to abandon them but a few days under Our Heritage of World Literature (the heaviest book I own and whose only use is sitting on top of things that need smashing), and they flattened out enough to use.


Stamped a text stamp in black, then put down the flower transfers. Stamped a dragonfly onto a regular old white paper napkin, then tore the edges and applied them with gel medium. Added a word from an old book, inked the edges and they're done! Yay. And just a few days ago I had no ideas for these things and was thinking of dropping the swap.


I really like the layered look that gel medium transfers give, with the stamped text showing thru. Try them, if you haven't yet.