Tag: ATCs

Artist’s Trading Cards Run Amok

Dear Liza,

I started making these little Artists Trading Cards last week and now I can’t stop!!

I started with collages of soft backgrounds and black and white photos. The words came mostly from the J. Peterman Catalogue.

Then I used the same soft focus backgrounds for some neurographic art, which seems to be just lines which cross and create negative space. I like how the flower shapes play with the flowing black lines. I gave some of the spaces dots, and some a wash of color. they don’t say anything, but they’re pretty.

I love so many things about ATCs. They are small, just 2.5 by 3.5 inches, so you can make them out of next to nothing. When you get bored with one medium, you can switch and not be stuck with a whole canvas to cover. And you can share them! I’ve mailed some, but I’m also making some to take on our trip.


Just before my hand gave out for the day, I picked up some scraps from the cards I’d made and a page from an old, old book, and made three more.

Who knows what I’ll make next?

Love,

Grandma Judy

Another Way to Share ATCs

Dear Liza,

You know how creative people are… once they get an idea, they follow it to the next, and the next. That’s sort of what is happening with my ATCs, or Artist Trading Cards.

Once I got the right size figured out, I laid down some floral bits of art from a donated calendar. To make them a softer background, I brushed on some white acrylic. I cut them to the proper 2.5 by 3.5 inches.

Then, to contrast with that lovely pastel, I searched the calendar again and found black and white photos or darker images to add. I really liked the way each one told a story.

But I’m a word person, snd I wanted words. I found them in Auntie Bridgett’s ‘French Phrase a Day’ calendar. Taking our current national situation into consideration, I added phrases. (I will let you look them up…) These were really coming along!

Then, to top it all off, Ruthie Inman suggested punching a hole in each one and keeping them on a ring! A portable, share-able art gallery! I am having fun imagining when I might share these on a train traveling through France, or sitting in a park. Of course, they have my information card on the back so folks will be able to find me on the ‘net.

Ain’t art grand?

Love,

Grandma Judy