Steampunk ATC

OK so it is back to atc's again, but I do find them to be so relaxing. You cannot go wrong with them. It is always possible to see what they will look like before you appply the glue and finalise the composition. I explain how I go about creating ATC's in an article I wrote on Squidoo; select the background and the elements for the collage, move things around on the base until the composition loooks right and then use the glue. Easy as falling off a log.

In fact, I have a page highlighting all the ACEO/ATC based articles which I have written on Squiddoo, I called it Everything I have learnt about Artist Trading Cards. Why not take a peek and you might even learn something, even if it is only how little I really know about ATC's :)

This steampunk card was actually for a challenge in a new group on PDA (Paper Digital Art) which is all about Steampunk and related stuff. Although I am so busy with so many things at the moment, I couldn't refuse to learn a little more about this fascinating genre. You can read more about the steampunk movement on Wikipedia 

I should be making two but since I am not sure of completing the challenge here is the first anyway.

I called it, The key to my heart. As it is supposed to be about valentine's day.

In a few words, steampunk is probably best deined as a mixture of Sci-Fi using victorian technology. Lots of steam-driven stuff, cogs and gears and clocks. Oh yes and headwear which seems to have been inspired by diving helmets. A very strange genre, but one that is great to play with. 

Hope to have the second card available soon.

Time To Submerge Myself In New Waters

Since christmas I have been very busy and my blogs have slipped but coming back I realise that I have fallen into a sort of rut. I have been creating art cards and painting but the subjects and techniques seem to have become very samey, almost stale. I feel that I have to open up a little and try some new things to "get my mojo" back again. I need the change to recover creativity. To some extent writing on-line and writing poetry has kept me going but I am an artist first and foremost so I need to induce a little variation in my work to keep it exciting.

I will be tackling this issue on all my blogs (have you noticed the tabs below the banner, above) but the different subjects require different approaches and I am thinking hard about all seven blogs and the subject matter.

This is really just a very quick note to say that I will be developing the blogs to accomodate these changes. BUT I can say that I have at least made some small changes, for instance, I have joined a number of groups on PDA, here I am concerned with one which is aimed at Doodling or Zentangles. I have just posted the first drawing in this style which I have done for a very long time.

Maybe not a brilliant example of the genre, but at least it is not a mixed media collage. Oh, I will still be doing these and many of them but at least the die is set to make those changes.

Two older attempts at this art form are:-

These next three sketches are examples of doodles where I was trying to sketch an "idea". The first is to illustrate a "story that tells itself".

 A "story without an end"

 The idea of "structures"

More examples of different genres,  etc, to follow in the near future - I hope!