Sunday Postcard Art - Graffiti Style

This card is 4X6 and is all hand drawn using sharpies and hi-lighted with the ever elusive sharpie white permanent marking stick with an extra bold tip. If anyone knows if they have a fine tip or ultra fine tip white sharpie, please let me know where I might find one. 

This week's theme for Sunday Postcard Art is Street Art! I was a little stumped creatively at first, but I started doodling and the next thing I know I had a bright colorful card that reminded very much of graffiti. I don't live in a big city, but little bits of graffiti have popped up around my own home town, colorful cartoony characters and puffy words that the city is slowly painting over.  And occasionally when I get stopped at the RR tracks in BC I am able to sit back and admire the graffiti art on passing railway cars and wonder what city the car was in when the artist created such colorful work.

I hope you enjoy my little submission as much as I enjoyed making it. It has really inspired me creatively and I think I am going to spend this afternoon making some ATCs.

Thanks for the artistic jumpstart Sunday Postcard Art!

Collage-a-thon ATCs and a Postcard

This weekend I have really jumped back into creating ATCs and Postcards. I used to trade regularly on ATCsforall and am really excited to get back into it again. I have joined a few swaps that are due in March, but since my nieces were here with me this weekend I spent some time doing art with them on Monday and this is what I made.

This is a postcard I made for my Aunt Mary. It is a little more sedate than most of my other artwork. I did not want to shock my Aunt Mary with the clown cheeks and crazy embellishments of my usual style, I thought I would ease her into it. Even with all the color and embellishments on this one, I really did restrain myself a little bit. My Aunt Mary taught me how to knit, so I thought it would be fitting to create a card that resembled a group photo of a ladies Knitting Society or Guild. This postcard was created using images from a 'Vintage Victorian Ladies" Collage Sheet I purchased from DKMRamay15 on Etsy. Basically I used every lady on the sheet for this group photo.

I think I should mention right away that these cards were made courtesy of some free ephemera I found here on Flickr. Her username is Autumnsensation and you can also check out her blog

Basically I downloaded the Cabinet Cards Images I liked, opened them up in my PictureIt program and printed a sheet of them at Trading Card Size 2.5 X 3.5 on matte photo paper. Then I cut them out and glued them to lightweight cardboard (cereal boxes I had already cut down to 2.5X3.5 ATC size). This gave them a good weight reminiscent of real cabinet cards, and then I sanded them lightly to give them a more worn look and then I altered them as I would a traditional Cabinet Card. It makes it a little more challenging than just using clipped images and piecing them together for a collage. For the Elephant Rider, I actually used an exacto knife to cut around the face and then gently peeled the layer off the cardboard, so the card stayed intact and I just lifted out the face area leaving the backing in place. then I covered it with decorative papers and continued as I normally would in creating a background. The images shown here were printed in B&W, but I also printed them in color, which gives them a more authentic look.

The Elephant Rider ATC

This is an interactive ATC. The elephant and rider are all one piece and it is attached to the card through a slot and then a piece extends over the top and connects to the tab on the back. I glued a big button to the back for easy gripping and you can slide it from side to side and make the elephant and rider move along the card. I really like it and will definitely be making more in this style for trading.

Portrait of a Woman

This one is just a standard ATC. It was made using a cabinet card image and various collage papers, sharpies, BIC mark it pens, gel pens and some ephemera.

This was the first ATC I made yesterday. I thought her facial expression was rather somber and I had some book pages with text that seemed very fitting. I embellished the card in a whimsical way to give it more of a dreamy effect, like she has withdrawn into a dream rather than face a harsh reality. Maybe it is a little deep. But it was what got me started again. My final card was the Elephant, so you can see, the layout and ideas just got better as I went along.

Please check out the links I have noted here and have fun creating your own ATCs and Postcards!

Rubber Stamp Giveaway

Hooray! It is finally here! The beginning of the celebration of my blog's upcoming 1st Birthday!

This is the first of 4 weeks of Giveaways - Ending with a big Birthday Celebration!

As some of you may know, I have become addicted to carving stamps within the last year, so addicted that I started selling them on my Etsy and use them to create my altered art. So it is only fitting that my very first giveaway should be a mix of hand carved stamps and altered art. So what do win you ask, well here it is............

The Grand Prize!

Set of 4 spring themed Hand Carved Stamps!

A Packet of Collage Papers and Ephemera!
(The same items I used to create the cards shown)

And my most favorite of all 4 cards entitled - SPRING!

I will also randomly select 3 Runners up who will each receive one of the following Altered Playing Cards:
.......................and a Celestial Coupon to Receive 10% off on any purchase at my Etsy Shoppe The Star Box!

Since March is the month in which the seasons change I thought Spring would be a wonderful theme for this week's giveaway.

ENTER TO WIN!

To be entered in the drawing please make an ATC, Altered Playing Card, NoteCard, Postcard etc with a Spring Theme and use at least 1 Rubber Stamp. Post the image of your completed Art Piece to your blog or flickr or etc and mention this giveaway in your description or blog post, and post a link to your submission in the comment section of this post.

All entries must be posted by Friday February 27th to be considered. I will select the Winner and Runners Up randomly and will post their names on Monday March 2nd when I give the details for the next giveaway.

Thank you so much for participating and I can't wait to see what everyone creates.

Happy Stamping:)
Debi

Saturday Art-a-Thon!

I have devoted the entire day to the creation of ART! I have many trades going on at AFA and I haven't really been able to free up any time for art lately. So Today is the Day! I am not answering the phone, I am keeping a pot of coffee at the ready, I have pencil, paper, and scissors at hand.....so I am off to create:)

Here are just a couple examples of what I have accomplished so far today.

The front of my 4x4 Halloween Chunky Page

The back of my 4x4 Halloween Chunky

A Cat themed Matchbox Shrine for PIF (Pay It Forward) trade.

FEEDING MY MUSE with some Halloween Spirit

I have decided, since recapturing my Muse, that I must feed it daily with activities which promote creativity and imagination in order to keep things flowing and keep artist block at bay.

During my blog searching this morning I happened upon several creative blogs which post a daily art challenge. Today's challenge is from www.createdbyhandchallenge.wordpress.com and requires that you use a coffin shape (they provide a template) and make a piece of art using the coffin in some way and themed toward Halloween.

The photo above is my submission for today's challenge. It is an ATC sized (2 1/2 X 3 1/2 inches) Diptych. It features the coffin shape on the front which unfolds to reveal the inside of the coffin where my own original hand drawn vampiress rests in peace and solitude, surrounded by all hand drawn elements of webs and spiders. On the left hand side, I have used my own hand carved "Happy Halloween" rubber stamp. I really enjoyed this challenge.

To take the challenge yourself visit www.createdbyhandchallenge.wordpress.com and FEED YOUR MUSE!

Recapturing my MUSE!

I have been in a sort of funk lately. Dealing with all the issues of home and family, my art has taken a back seat to everything, and when I would finally find some time to sit and create............I drew a blank!

Well, thanks to a LIVE TRADING SESSION with some women on my ATC trading site AFA, I have successfully recaptured my MUSE. After spending this past Saturday creating and socializing with these wonderful women I returned home renewed , my creativity revived.

Here is an example of the cards I have made over the weekend......and I am pulling an all niter tonight to finish up some cards and other mail art for swaps that I have been putting off.

Since Saturday I have been spending a lot of time on the AFA site and I stumbled upon a thread by one of the members showcasing her very first Video Tutorial. It is wonderfully made and interesting to watch. Check it out below. I have added a video reel of her Youtube Channel under Tutorials in the Menu at the top of my blog, so keep checking in for new additions to her video library.


I have a lot of plans to add much more interactive and informative links to my blog that I find interesting and I hope you find them interesting too.

Steampunk!

I just finished making ATCs for a swap on ATCsforall and wanted to share them right away. I really enjoyed making these cards. All the while I was thinking how my nephew Jacob would just love these cards and then I thought they would make wonderful covers for some mini notebooks and maybe some note cards. I am going to see how they scan and print and maybe offer them for sale in various ways on my Etsy. I think I will make a whole series of these cards. I will have to post a pic when they are finished. I am going to print a definition of STEAMPUNK and post it on the back of the card, and make an envelope with some parchment paper, faux finish it to look aged and put a label on it describing the card stored inside. Kind of like a small artifact.

tHe BiG EyE BiRd

I recently joined a Collage Bird Swap on my all time favorite site for trading ATCs, and the cards shown above are the result of a day filled with inspiration. I made the first card and thought, let's put a BIG EYE on the bird's face, and so I did. And I loved it so much that I put BIG Eyes on all my birds. My mother says I must have a certain fascination for the BIG EYE since alot of my art recently includes a BIG EYE or two. I think I might make another batch of these birds in a different theme, like maybe a circus theme, and make them into clowns and have them riding elephants and walking the tight rope:)

Rubber Stamp Madness

First I should begin by telling you that I am crazy about ATCs (Artist Trading Cards), and so I am a member of a couple of different sites where I trade cards in both one on one trades and themed group swaps. Well.... as a result of joining the Printmaking ATC Swap at www.atcsforall.com, I worked until the wee hours of the morning drawing and hand carving my own stamps. The only thing I can say is that I am in LOVE with stamp carving. It is so much easier than I thought it would be and it is very satisfying to have an idea and be able to make it into a reusable stamp. I have always hesitated to buy rubber stamps because I felt guilty spending money on something I knew that I could probably draw myself (even though I never attempted to make my own stamps until now).


Since I have been infected with the stamp carving bug, I will be making many, many more stamps and most likely adding them to my Etsy store, as well as using my own stamps in my original art. It is all very exciting.

Since I had only purchased one carving block at Hobby Lobby, I had to go back today and buy another. In the future I will have to buy them online since Hobby Lobby seems to only keep one of each size in stock. While I was out buying my new carving block, I also stopped off at Wal Mart and grabbed a pack of pink erasers so I could try my hand at carving them too.


Well, I must get back to the craft table ( or I should say my dining room table which is currently invisible under all my stuff).