ATCs

Got on a run of ATC making recently. Not sure why, but it's an art form I've always liked and once I made one, they just kept coming. If anybody wants to trade for one, speak up. All but the postage stamp one are available.

Dug thru the orange and turquoise paper scrap files and then added a stamp.

Had this weird little face already cut out and then found
 the silly text that seemed to fit his expression.

Gelli print circles left over from the day Rhonda was here.

Sometimes I look at these later and wonder what the hell I was thinking.

Love this one. Tore the center out of an old photo

MMSA mixed media ATCs

The ATCs mentioned in the previous post. These already had background on them, so I worked on adding at least two more techniques and creating some sort of interesting collage. I haven't made ATCs in a while and was struck again, as I always am, at what a perfect art form they are. Compact, doable in a short amount of time, just enough space to tell a little story.

incoming ATCs

 Stamp heads have taken over! Postcards, ATCs, journal pages - they're everywhere!! Including here, where I received one from Connie and two from an MMSA swap.

Also received a lovely bird themed ATC in a trade with Carolyn (IG name @cfalbro). She does a lot of swaps on Instagram, a thing I had not thought of until I ran across her.

This one is Connie's. She posted a bunch of ATCs on her blog
and the Sun-Maid guy just grabbed me.
I commented how cool I thought he was
and he showed up in the mail a few days later.
Thanks, Connie!

These two are from the MMSA swap - Michele in VA's on top,
Pamela's on the bottom, along with the cute little envelope it came in.
Both of them are great examples of the genre.

A serene bird ATC from Carolyn.
Love the frayed cheesecloth. 

kitchen table art

Trying to catch up on a few things, so here's some unfortunate phone pics of art I've done at the kitchen table while watching endless hours of Olympic coverage. More on that in the next post.

stamp head ATC

bird ATC that got swapped with an online art acquaintance

silly Renaissance themed post card for mail art pal Jewels

another stamp head ATC that went to art pal Connie

catching up

The day the Grow Your Blog party started, I caught a head cold and left for 4 days in San Diego with my long-time art friend Julie. It was a great trip and deserves its own blog post, but when I got home, my head cold got worse and work got crazy, so I got behind on the fun stuff - arting and blogging.

Over the weekend, I got a few things done and crossed off my endless Excel chart of art projects. I love that it's full because it keeps me dialed in to making art. This year I'm also keeping track of everything I make. A few bloggers I follow listed all their 2013 accomplishments and they were impressive, so I want to be able to do that next year. We'll see how well I remember to keep track.

Mixed media postcard for a mail art buddy.
All images and text from an old art history book.

A goofy stamp head ATC that I put up for grabs on Instagram.
Someone claimed it PDQ.
Gelli print background, magazine man, postage stamp,
book text, doodling, Bingo card number.

A pretty little bird ATC for Carolyn (@cfalbro) on IG.
She's making a batch, one of which I'll get in trade for this one.
Dress pattern tissue, images and text from old bird watching book,
watercolors, doodling.

Another stamp head ATC with all the same ingredients as the one above.
Trading with a mail art pal, Connie.
Go take a look at her blog. She's been doing a couple online classes
with Jane Davies and the work coming out of them is great.
I may have to sign up.
And if you like hand made books, start with this post and the subsequent ones
about the class The Thread That Weaves.
She made 3 very cool books.

MMSA stamp head ATC

Next up, ATCs with a postage stamp for a head. You can go about this from either side - choose stamps you like, then find bodies they fit, or (I think this is easier) spread all your head stamps out so you can see them, then cruise thru magazines, auditioning stamps as you come to likely bodies.

Neither way is particularly quick and I only had the oomph to do two of them. The 8 card stamp fit the body so perfectly, better than any I've done. You can also lay the body on the stamp instead of stamp-on-body but I don't like to cover up any of the stamp.   First card has a watercolor background, second is a gelli print.

ATCs from AJC swap

Susan, Katrina, Kris, Carolyn 

Here are the returns from the AJC ATC swap.

Every time I receive a large-ish batch of a given media - ATCs, postcards, whatever - I'm struck by how individual we each are as artists. The only "rule" for this swap was that the ATCs be mixed media, at least 3 techniques used. Consequently, there's everything under the sun on these cards - collage, paint, gelli printing, stamping, stenciling, drawing, lettering, stickies, stitching, embossing, glitter. You name it, it's on these somewhere. They're great! Thanks to everyone who participated, these were really fun to receive.

Artists are noted below each image, clockwise from upper left.

Sandi, Tangie, Jo, Rain

Debbie (pirate), Linda, Carol

ATCs for AJC

Welcome to Acronyms R Us.

Tangie of the Art Journal Caravan (2014 signups available now) (it will be the last year) announced an ATC swap open to AJC members. Since I've only ever seen digital work from most of the caravanners, I thought it sounded like fun, plus I like making ATCs, so I signed up.

You had to make 12 of them, alike or different so I got out my ATC box full of backgrounds, partially completed ATCs, ATC stamps, ATC sleeves, etc, and dug around. I found enough partial ones to swap with just an afternoon's work in finishing them off. Some were pretty much done but I added doodling or stamps to perk them up a little.

I'll get 10 in return in a couple weeks and it'll be fun to see them.

Looking at the pictures I just uploaded, they're quite a mixed bag of techniques, materials, and time periods. Everything from vintage ledger paper to last week's magazines.

postal ATCs

Here are the ATCs I got in return for the three I sent in a few weeks ago. Remember - despite the size they appear in this post, these are just 2.5" x 3.5", the size of a regular playing card. Lots of art going on in such a small space, the reason I love ATCs so much. You have to pay attention and get it right to fit everything in - a story, color balance, good scale. These artists all did a good job of that.

Made mostly, if not entirely, from vintage materials, this ATC is lovely.
Good colors, nice balance and scale. Love the old handwriting.
And no surprise, it's made by Pamela of CappuccinoAndArt,
a specialist in postal themed ATCs.
Thanks, Pamela - love it.

This cutie was made by Christie on nice heavy watercolor paper
and features a vintage mailman delivering the mail
right into the lady's hand. Don't get service like that anymore.
The background is painted or gelli printed and
looks like a cloudy sky - very nice!

This serene little piece of art was made by Jan.
I love the colors in this one -
reminds me of a wheat field on a summer's day.
All the different patterns going on - the background paper,
the diamonds, the stamps, the circles - really keeps you looking at it. 

two more

I made a couple more postal ATCs. One of my original 3 got called away to a private swap. I'd already made several dylusions inks backgrounds that were kinda bright but I took one of the tamer ones and made it go postal, then I found a partially finished one in my ATC box, so I finished it.

5 for the swap and one to P in SF! I'd forgotten how much I like doing ATCs. Funny how you get away from doing something you loved for a bit and forget all about it. Oh fickle heart! Or more likely, old mind lol.

art+athletics=ATCs

With the Olympics on, I can't seem to stay away from the TV, so I packed a bunch of art stuff out to the kitchen table and made ATCs for several evenings. Here's the results, complete with notes about how and what. All are for trade except "rather wistfully" and the bluebird.

Watercolor background, torn bits of old book pages and maps, inking.
The woman is a vintage image that I layered over an old book page in photoshop,
then printed. "Adventurous" was part of a pack of printed words that I got
from someplace a long time ago. Seemed to fit with her determined expression and the map,
like she might be getting ready to set off for The Continent or something.

Background is an ancient ledger page showing onions, tea, 28 (lbs of?) sugar,
cracked corn, 2 cans of something, 3 breads. Amazing to think it was all
set down by hand, in pencil, and that was what everyone went by.
Inked thru a paper doily on left but you can't see much of it.
The brown strip is old tissue paper from the back of a frame.
The cucumber is from an old page of a gardening book, layered onto a bit of map.
"Buy the giant size..." is from a 1954 LIFE magazine layered onto a bit of
heavily inked book page.

Watercolor background with some old torn paper  and a couple pieces of washi tape.
Inked thru sequin waste for the dots. The image is a copy of an old photo
that's in poor shape and faded but I love his hat and bicycle.
"The very latest craze" is from that pack of printed words.

Watercolor background. The little girl is from a swap, I think. I had some
washi tape in a plaid with exactly her colors in it so I used that plus a polka dot.
"Mischievous" from the pack of words. This one is totally not my colors or style
but I think it's kinda cute.

Old ledger background with inking thru stencil waste and some old tissue paper.
The woman is an image that I've used before and just love for her
confident expression and soft colors. The jeweled headpiece is from a
Cadillac ad in that 1954 LIFE mag, as is the wording at top. Love the colors in this one.

Watercolor background with stamping and some washi tape.
No idea where the girl came from, prolly a swap. The phrase is from an old book.
I have a bunch of vintage books and just page thru them until I find a word
or phrase that works with what I'm doing. Love this one.

The background is watercolor with old torn paper and some inking thru drywall tape.
The girl came in a swap with little Miss Mischievous above.
The bluebird is from a set of digital images of vintage logomachy cards
I bought from Mary Green. This one cracks me up.
Looks like she was just woken from a nap by that damn bird.

Old ledger background. Cut the wall image from that 1954 LIFE mag.
The girl is a scanned old image. Cut her out so she could sit on the wall
instead of the chair she was on. "The cutest" is from the LIFE mag.
Drew some little circles with a white gel pen.

back to swappin' ATCs

I dropped out of the swap thang for a while. Too much to do moving, etc, but I miss the direction and the deadlines, soa few weeks ago I trolled ATCSFORALL.com until I found a few I liked.

This first set required that you (1) make a watercolor background, then (2) stamp with a stamp that had some open areas. I didn't really have anything like that, so I used this circular month stamp 3 times to create open areas. Then you had to (3) zentangle in the spaces, then (4) shade and highlight the tangles.

For the background, I ran drips of yellow and aqua the long way down a large sheet of watercolor paper, dried it, then ran more drips the short way of blues and greens. Gave it a few sprays of water here and there to help with the dripping and ended up with a sort of plaid pattern. Loved it. My watercolor efforts often usually almost always fall short of my expectations, but I liked this one a lot.

Stamped the stamp, spent a few evenings tangling away, did a lot of shading and a bit of highlighting, and called it good. I'm not the world's greatest zentangler but I enjoy it and had fun with these.


I used more of the same paper for a theme that required you to use a time piece somewhere on the ATC.

put a bit of tea bag over the 'long gone' text to fade it out a little

I stamped a large clock face partially off the card, then pasted a torn piece of used tea bag over it to soften the edges. I had some gel medium transfers laying around and used those. I drew around most of them with markers of various kinds, just sort of playing. Added a bit of washi tape at lower right. Found some text that went with each image. Did a bit of inking on text and edges.

Slathered some gloss varnish over them to protect the fragile pieces.

At first I wasn't real sure about the vintage images on the modern looking watercolor background but now I like the juxtaposition.

the text is part of a label from vintage embroidery thread

no, I don't know why she's apprehensive, she just looks it

This one's a little different in that I auditioned a background stamp of clock faces
before deciding not to use it on all of them. The woman is layered over some paper
from the back of a photo of a dead child that my MIL gave me years ago.
She was the daughter of a grandmother's sister or something. Neat paper.

art ATCs

Another book page background swap came along on ATCsFORALL. I love using text as a background, so I got to work.

Started with 140lb watercolor paper and glued text from an Italian novel to them. I've become infatuated with black stitching on everything, so I stitched up and down one side and across the top.

Then I cut crumpled circles from (Vogue!) dress pattern tissue and trimmed some flowers from a panel of lace. I layered them and stitched in a rough spiral out from the center. Glued those to the card, then cut out a bunch of little pennants from the edge of the book page, stamped 'art' on them, and stitched them along the top.

The black stitching picks up the black text and I really like the simple color scheme.

Kinda vintage, kinda shabby. I'm quite happy with them.
 

misc swap art

I just can't keep up with all the things I'd like to blog about. Gotta take pics or scan the item, tinker with it in photoshop, write the blog, add in the pics. Just seems to take longer than it should.

These are items I've made recently for a few swaps.

postcards for a mail art swap - scan of old postcard for background, image of
vintage ladies, stamped title, stencil B, definitions, old stamp. I quite like the
overall bluish-green tinge of these.

ATC for the theme vintage ladies.
gel medium transfer of  my maternal grandmother Theresa.
painted background, stamped with sequin waste, old tea bag glued down,
a bit of lace, edge of computer paper.
Really liking the turquoise and brown color combo.

ATC for the theme Halloween
background is acrylic paint with vaseline resist, stamped, smudged, gel medium
transfer of two girls, correction pen Boo!, black pen markings along edge

ATC for the theme books
painted book page, stamped with sequin waste, stamped title, definition.
I love this image of the kids reading. I've used it a few times before.