Ah, it's ATC (Artist Trading Card) time in the ol' town tonight. I squeaked these in under the wire. What with the polymer clay shrines, working at the yarn shop, designing knitted stuff and everything else in my life, I put off making the cards until the weekend before the swap. Oops!
Actually, I'm glad I did. The themes this month were Flying Things and Steampunk. This time, I thought they'd both be easy. Wrong! But... Last week I had a chance to attend a class taught by
Susan Pickering Rothamel. She used techniques and media that I've never worked with before and was, frankly, a little scared to try. When I got home, I wanted to practice the techniques before I had a chance to forget, but the two kittens decided to join us that evening and the studio had to wait. I had to work Saturday, but on Sunday, I took my courage firmly in hand and decided to tackle a technique I'd never tried before to produce seven Flying Things ATC's. I've never been known for sense.
And here they are!
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| Leaves Fly, Too |
Each is a little different. They're each based around a Japanese postage stamp with a bird (flying thing) on it. Because I love this time of year, I wanted to use fall themes and colors. So... I started with an acrylic underpainting in fall colors. I adhered the postage stamp to the middle of the card and a black-paper cutout of tree branches on top. Then I adhered maple leaf motfs from paper napkins and overpainted them with acrylics. After the whole thing dried, I embellished the leaves with irridescent paints. A coat of sealer and they were done! Here is a detail of one of my favorites:
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| Leaves Fly, Too Detail |
The Steampunk card should have been easy. I have two kids who thoroughly understand Steampunk. I did a memory book for my son that was totally Steampunk. I get this concept. And maybe I'm getting a little tired of it. But a thought kept niggling at me. How about a totally Steampunk card, complete with a mechanized view of life, with a little bit of color and nature and light? So I took a stamp I dearly love, a woman made of clock faces, found two Steampunk backgrounds, and found a gorgeous butterfly from a Dover clipart book. I stamped the woman onto a shaded, almost flesh-toned paper and embossed her in black to create a sharp, almost harsh image. I cut the image out and adhered it to a dark, paper printed with gears and all that Steampunk sort of stuff and then adhered the butterfly to the card. I embellished the butterfly with irridescent paints and tiny crystals. And here it is:
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| Juxtaposition |
I have to say, I'm glad I did the swap. The one thing about scheduled ATC swaps, it forces me to create art on a schedule. Now that may seem kind of mechanized and soulless, but let's face it, if Pope Whichever hadn't kept on his case, Michelangelo probably would never have finished the Sistine Chapel!
