ATCs

....or "Artist Trading Cards"... these are always 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size and you make them to swap them with people. You can pick any subject and use any media- you can sew them, quilt them, paint them, draw on them, attach stuff to them, whatever you like. The only rules are (1) you have to stick to that saize and (2) they're to be traded, not sold. On the back, you put your name (plus contact details if you like; I'm going to just put my email on mine), and info. re the picture e.g., title; media used; and if it's one of a series, it's number. Why not chop up some bits of card to 2.5 x 3.5" and have a go?

Whilst coming up out of my deep blue funk (!) last week I pootled these ones over a few late nights..... what do you think of them? They were relaxing to do....

I used my Letraset ProMarkers on all these. I love the way you can blend these pens. They don't leave 'lines', just blocks of colour. When you go over other colours you get interesting effects. When you use the blender pen it washes out the colours like with a water-brush, but you don't know the full effect until it dries, so there's an element of risk and suprise :)

"Sunny Poppies"
The edges on this first one were done by just rubbing a dark blue ProMarker round the edge whilst the inks on the cards were still wet, hence the nice bleed effect....
"Silver Breeze"
-not a good photo :(
It's more colourful than this, and those lines are sparkly.
"Flutterboxes"
"Amazing Space 1"

Not sure what an Art Therapist would make of these last 2 :)

"Calm Before the Storm"

Is she being swallowed up by one of those flesh-eating plants? ...or waves? Are they petals? ...or the layers of an enormous dress??? I've no idea! It's just where the doodle took me!

"Mute"

hmmm....

What do you think?

More info on ATCs and some yummy examples here: Art In Your Pocket.