Popular methods of creating artist trading cards

Best Review - Top 10 Best Media To Create ATC/ACEO's

I have recently joined the site Best Reviewer, which allows you to make top tens ( eg) for all sorts of things. My top ten was the most popular methods/techniques for making artist trading cards. All in the name of creating backlinks, of course. The top ten is probably quite subjective but based on a wide experience of cards found on the web (I am quite modest with it too), I think the list is reasonable.

I would love to hear from any artists who find the list inaccurate, it would help me to make it more objective. Many of us tend to stick to a short list of favourite techniques and I think that tends to colour our view of things like this. So if you have a view, let me hear it - please.

Mixed Media and Collaged ATC's

Art and Craft has taken a bit of a knnock for me at the start of this year but I am hoping that the issuesa which have prevented me from creating have run their course and I will be able to get back up to full steam. I have four new atc's to show off today. As with many of my creations nowadays three of them were made for challenges on PDA and the last came out of a session whilst I was trying to organise my stuff - which I am terrible at. Not a lot to say about them so I will simply put them up.

Milk Anyone?

This was to have been on a theme of altered photographs, I guess cutting them up and layering them does constitute altering but not in the way I had intended. I have recently aquired a book on altering photos and I was taken with a number of the techniques therein. But things got in my way and so maybe manyana. The building is from a (modern) postcard of a medieval merchants house not far from where I live, the young lady was from a photo of a painting. I added a little gingham, because it seemed rustic and the text across the top to complete the composition.

 Some secrets are hard to keep

Can you keep a secret on the telephone?

The theme here was keeping secret. Lots of bits and bobs added to both collaged cards to tart them up a litttle.

Behind every good man.....

As I said I was trying to instill some order into my stash and thought, ah!!!! steam punk! I ferreted out the bearded man and a slighthly smaller image of the lady. They went together for me because of the direction sof their respective gazes. Just to finish off I found some ephemera and used some distress ink pads I had been given by a good friend on PDA, Jean.

Well time for dinner, back soon.....

A slightly larger multimedia collage

Ok, christmas has come and gone and I am still not active at crafting. All my stuff is packed away in boxes and not available for short sessions. I have done a little painting, have been playing my guitar and of course with my computer. I have had a lovely new laptop as a present from my ever suffering spouse, so it must prove that she still loves me. Or maybe she thinks that at least with a laptop I can play on the computer and be in the same room.

One art piece that I have not yet posted on the blog ( it was posted on Flickr some time ago) is a piece I did for a challenge for the design team on PDA, and I wanted to do something a little different for me. In fact you would not know it from the photo but it is considerably larger than the ATC's I usually do.

Here it is:-

Title: Faded Rose

The image of the young lady was one of a number of images on a collage sheet by Kim Newberg and this was the basis of the challenge. 

 

The background was a piece of matt board covered in torn craft papers. The flower was a gift from Jean Roman and the watch face also from Kim. The metal "frame" is actually a flattened kilner jar lid, an idea from Kim. In fact without Kim's unknowing input, I could not have made this piece. The other element is the butterfly; bought cheaply at a local store it has a spring loaded clip. I purchased three for potential use in future projects, this is the first.

I keep saying this but I do hope to get sorted out at home very soon, and getting back to some crafting. I am getting withdrawal symptoms and snapping at the people ( or person) that I should not be snapping at. The alternative is vallium! Not a good idea methinks.

Steam punk and other fancy ATC's

I have been making one or two heavily decorated ATC's lately. The majority of my collage work is created using paper images. But more and more frequently recently I have been adding 3-D embellishments of all sorts. A lot of this is because I keep getting small gifts, etc with traded cards and other art works. THis is actually fun and makes the epithet mixed media come to life for me.

This first pair of ATC cards were created for a challenge/swap on PDA, the theme of the challenge was colour(s), I was not sure what results this would bring but in the end a great collection of different interpretations was achieved by the entrants, you can see the results on ATC's of  PDA .

The first was called "Autumn" for hopefully obvious reasons and the second "Timeless" for maybe not so obvious reasons; actually the clockface spoke to me.

Autumn was always intended to be how it finished up, a use of a very familiar set of colours which most artists would recognise as belonging to a particular time of year. I simply built up the layers and utilised one or two bits and pieces I had in my stash, mostly gifts from trades with other artists.

Timeless was a different kettle of fish. I originally intended to make a statement by outlining a B&W image on a b&W background with a coloured slide mount.The slide mount was blue plastic covered in pink craft paper. However I was not quite satisfied and added the clock face ( brass, painted with a watery acrylic) and followed this with the large linen flower (Thanks Jean). The key was added for balance. It now seems that the flower is the most important part of the whole but this is because the central image is a little washed out in this photo.

A third ATC I want to look at here is a stab at steam punk. A gendre I often shy away from even tho' i do like the images I see from it.

I found a collage sheet with lots of engineering drawing images on and used this for the background. I edged this with a gree ink pad. The image of the girl is one that I like and decided to use right at the start. This left me to find a number of items which would look good on the piece. A watch face again (thanks Kim), a small key, a metal charm, and a bracket from a VHS machine sort of went together after a little playing around with the configuration. And a card arrow and sequin completed the "mechanism". The word NOW ( which I used for the title) was one of a number of acrylic buttons which I had and seemed to reflect the look in the young girls face, sort of expectancy or determination. Anyway, I enjoyed making this so much I went and ordered a bag of bits off Ebay so that I could experiment a little more with this gendre. Almost gwettingto the assemblage techniques I am determined to get to grips with.

The Wonderland Tea Party: Table cloths on the tables

The Wonderland Tea Party: Table cloths on the tables

I wish I had land in my back garden to contemplate this sort of artwork - take a look, you will not be disappointed

5 year anniversary giveaway by Kim Newberg

Kim has magnanimously agreed to celebrate her 5 years of blogging by offering the chance ( or several chances) to win a wonderful collection of mixed media stuff. If you have ever see any of Kim's packages you will know that she is always very creative and very generous with the goodies. Pop along and get your own chance of winning. The giveaway runs until the 1st of January.

Making money from art and images on-line

Following on from the previous posts concerning Zazzle, I am toying with another way of making a little extra on the internet.


Have you heard of Redgage?

It is a site which pays for views of your on-line work. You can theoretically use work ( images, photos, documents, videos and links) that already exists to earn money. Some aspects ( eg import tool) of the site do not work yet although it has been going for a while but even uploading stuff manually can be profitable. It is obviously not a way to raise a quick buck but over time the income of some of the contributors appears to be very worthwhile. I have been uploading photographs, images and links to other sites. After a few days and only some dozen or so uploads, I have seen income eqivalent to pennies but as always, I will watch the totals with anticipation.

Another interesting development is that You Tube is starting to allow users to monetize their video contributions and will be paying a proportion of the advertising revenue earned from Adsense. I have started to register some of the videos that I have posted on there. Again I expect it to be mere pennies but it will be interesting to see just how many. My thought is that even a few pennies will help to pay for some of my art materials, and that can't be a bad thing.