HollyDeanArtist: Often Medieval in Mood: ATC Play

Friday, December 16, 2011

ATC Play

I love creating ATC's, or Artist Trading Cards. They can be a lot of fun - especially if you have no expectations for the outcome and just play.

Painting, mark-making & writing words into the wet paint.
I started by using painter's tape to fasten a long piece of primed, unstretched canvas to my table. I then applied Golden Fluid Acrylics, followed by Golden Open paint in Titan Buff and Titanium White. All paint was scraped on with a palette knife - no brushes. The Open paint makes it possible to manipulate the surface for MUCH longer than regular acrylics. I had to wait 24 hours for it to dry!

The ATC's cut to size: 2.5" x 3.5"
I chose the section I wanted to keep from my long canvas and cut the rest into ATC's. Here you can see the marks made with a wooden skewer and words written with rubber-tipped "pens", which scraped away the wet paint to reveal the layers beneath.

Painted arches outlined in black india ink, red paint dots & white gel pen lines around edges.
I decided to add gothic arches to each canvas card, painted with a transparent paint - Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold Fluid Acrylic. I love this paint. It allowed the background to show through each arch, creating the look of a tinted glass window. I had originally planned to sew around the edges, but instead chose to draw sketchy lines in white gel pen to get a similar look.

A closer look.
I love how precious each card becomes once it is cropped from a larger background. When I looked at the cards as a collection, a wintery theme became apparent - caves of ice, snow on boughs, the aurora borealis...

Fifteen cards were made for the CBBAG-OV (Canadian Book Binders and Book Artists Guild - Ottawa Valley), affectionately pronounced "cabbage-oh-vee". We have an annual Swap at our December meeting which is always a wonderful event. We all come away with a beautiful handmade piece of art or book art!

11 comments:

  1. These turned out beautifully, love that they are done on the unstretched canvas. Course it helped when it comes to the mark making that you have a wonderful calligraphy hand!

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  2. Okay...now I just have to make some new ATC's...these are very cool indeed!!

    I send you one of mine if you send me one of yours....

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  3. @Deb: Thanks!
    @Bren: Thank you :D
    @Dave: Deal! Email me your mailing address...

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  4. Lovely... care to swap?! :]
    artistaprilcole@gmail.com

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  5. Wonderful Holly - we could start an international swap!! Will think about it over the break!! Are you closing studio until April??

    Cheers and here's to a great Christmas and New Year for you and fam and friends!!

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  6. @Julie: Thank you! :D
    @Wyn: An international swap is a brilliant idea! Dave is thinking about it too... We're taking the week off between Christmas & New Year's, probably to play in the studio :) Then it's back to Cirque Wirque & fighting for time with my own art! Thanks for the good wishes - right back at you :D

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  7. Great post! I'm going to do ATCs with my art students soon, and I will totally show them this post. Thanks for sharing your process!

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  8. Thanks, Julie! I love to share and your students will love making ATC's :)

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