Black and White Swap on Zuzu's Forum - Artists Trading Cards

Splish, splash, splosh - well that is what it felt like with this very watery messing about playing with black and white watercolours.
But I actually like how it has turned out.

Just think all these ATC's are smaller than they appear on your screen!




This one is a black textured card for the ATC backing. I stamped the butterfly image onto tissue paper and layered it on top.

A very sticky and tricky task indeed. Thank goodness it did not entail super glue or I would have been in a real mess!





A different medium - black and white watercolours. A freehand painting, sitting in the garden relaxing by the pond. (The is the proper size 3.5 inches x 2.5 inches for an ATC - I scanned the card in though so it is on the hough but in real life it is rectangle!

It was nice just painting with two colours and not to a particular theme as such.




Textured black card onto which I glued layers of tissue paper and mounted a stamped butterfly on plain white paper.

‘Shoes that you wore in your childhood’

The theme of a swap I am going to enter is ‘Shoes that you wore in your childhood’.

So here are the shoes I always dreamed of wearing - but never ever got to even try a pair on!




The trouble with dreams - no matter how hard you try - you can never make them as good in real life as you can in your dreams.




But these do look better with the naked eye than the scanned photos.

Just one ATC - which took me hours to make. My practice one!

Firstly I drew a pair of pink ballet shoes on pink paper, with swirly drawn ribbon ties, and fancy pink pattern in the background.

Then I coloured it with pastels - but it didn’t look right to me.

So I just cut out the pink ballet shoes - and painted them red, then darker, then darker still. I dare not tell you how many times I had to paint them to get them to match the ribbons.

I stamped some black card with swirls, and embossed them, which gave me a subtle shiny arty background on which to mount my dream shoes.

Gosh it was hard to put ribbon ties on each shoe - and the one on the left I have tied into a bow - but you can’t really see it in the photo.

Onion

It was very difficult to photograph. It does look better in real life though


This is for a 'shape of things to come' swap

The task was to make an ATC sized cut out shape and decorate it.

I sketched the onion with pastels first - sealed it - then dipped it several times in onion skin coloured enamel to get the smooth shiny finish, then stuck it onto thick card.

The white is just the paper it is laying on for the photo shoot.

Butterfly

Trapped for all time in 'amber' enamel

It is ATC size - and very tactile - the top is pointed but the scanner has 'cut' it off

The white is just the scanner page and not part of the ATC

Architecture Swap - ATCs received in exchange

Thankyou so much to Kay who made the one on the left and to Shary who made the one on the right - I am thrilled to add them to my collection.

A Copper Egg

I tried out a new technique today - and this is the result - an ATC size but cut into an egg shape - 'right up my street' with a chicken theme so perhaps that is why I had fun doing it!

Again it doesn't photograph well. But with the naked eye it looks like a piece of thick beaten copper.

I stamped it with a couple of the new stamps I bought from the USA and heat treated the paper with a heat gun to get the dull effect.



Along part of the edges (bottom up to right top) I melted plastic film so it actually looks like an amber coloured solder or melted toffee texture and one big mass rather than the individual bits you can see.




In different lights it looks all different colours - I am going to try and make another to keep for myself.

Shape of things to come

I have had a bit of a famine arty crafty wise - due to lots of commitments - both family, friends, chickens, and allotment - but as rain forced me indoors for a couple of days I managed to make these for an ATCards swap entitled 'Shape of things to come'.

The idea is that you take an ATC sized card and change its shape - so long as it is within the ATC size of 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.



This triangular one was made by painting a sheet of paper different shades of green - limes mainly.

When dry I mounted it on thick card, cut out the triangle and stamped on the face.

Next I textured it with glue and then clear embossing powder heated with a heat gun. The top of the triangle I used distressed style yellow embossing powder, then a fine dusting of UTEE.

With the naked eye it looks and feels like leather, with smooth and rough surfaces. To finish off I ran an ink pad along all the edges.