Latest Artist Trading Card (ATC) Series: Dare to...

Gosh. It is the last day of August, almost the last hour, and this is only my second post. Lucky for me tho' -- I have spent LOTS of time in the studio this summer month!

Every month I make a series of ATCs to mail to my mother, Jeanette, for a ATC swap. She got hooked making ATCs about the same time I did, in August 2009 (that is another good story/post). The thing about getting hooked is once you make so many cards, you have to do something with them. Hence, Jeanette started a monthly ATC swap via the mail. The way it currently works is: the participants each send six ATCs to her; she sorts them into seven bundles so the participants each get six cards from six different artists; and, then she mails them back to us. WHAT FUN! And - it gets us making new cards every month.

This month I created a series of nine ATCs entitled "Dare to. . . ". which featured an old photograph of a woman which I hand-tinted. Ahhh - it was so much fun! I went to an antique paper show in San Francisco earlier in the month and bought many old, sepia colored photographs of people for about $1 a piece. For this series, I chose nine different women's photo, scanned them, reduced them and printed them on my laser printer. Then I cut them out, chose a 7gypsies® background paper to paste them on, hand-tinted them with watercolor and Derwent™ Inktense pencils. Then I rounded the corners, mounted that piece onto a backing paper from Soul Expression's vast selection of precut ATC paper, and inked the edges with Tim Holtz's Distress Ink™. I then typed on my old antique Underwood typewriter a word (which completes the phrase "I Dare . . .) on vellum paper & pasted the word onto the ATC. And, for the final touch, I used a gel metallic pen to accent some of the card images. Below are some of the cards.

I like how the words typed on the vellum appear faded and don't stand out too much; especially on some of the others. "Vintage Photo" is my favorite Distress Ink™ which I applied on the edges with cosmetic sponges that I buy at the local dollar store.

I tried not to get too carried away with using the metallic gel pens  (Sakura™ Gel Pens are my favorite).  I drew with watercolor pencils and by taking a slightly wet brush to the colors, I was able to get the color density I wanted. The quality laser paper which I printed on was very tolerant of wiping and getting wet (a few times).

This is probably the oldest photo I found. Gosh!isn't it great! 

Cutting small objects are tricky with either an exacto knife or small scissors. Yet I think more detailed cutting makes for a more interesting image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Derwent™  Inktense pencils are like watercolor pencils - yet they are much brighter and when dry are no longer watersoluble. Notice how bright the yellow cloth is with an Inktense pencil.

ATCs are great fun
and great for experimenting with different materials to discover their unique qualities.
I dare you . . .