ATC's - Artist Trading Cards
WHAT IS AN ATC?
ARTIST TRADING CARDS are miniature 2 ½” x 3 ½” works of art.
The Rockport Public Library in Maine and I are partnering in a series of Artist Trading Card Workshops and Swaps. On the last Wednesday of every month, we will meet in the Library from, (NEW TIME!), 6:00 to 7:45 P.M. to learn about ATC construction techniques and participate in a voluntary swap.
We now also have a Saturday time: on every second Saturday of a month, from 2:30 - 4:30 P.M. This time will be less structured so that we have lots of time to make ATC's! Artist-Mom-Librarian Iris Eichenlaub and I will co-facilitate the afternoons. We welcome all ages and all skill levels.
ATC’s were modeled after baseball cards in a project initiated by a Swiss artist in 1997. Since then thousands of artist all over the world have brought their own skills to the cards: sewing, wood work, painting, photography, metal-smithing, printing, clay work, and certainly collage of every conceivable kind.
Every month when we meet at the Rockport Public Library on the last Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7:30 P.M., we will give attendees a new technique to try or a theme to consider. Please do come join us! Old hands and newbies alike!
February 27: Let’s Leap into Collage. Bring a pair of scissors and a gluestick. We'll have the other stuff.
March 26: A Secret Wow Technique for Spring. Nope, I’m not telling, and Molly, the Librarian, won’t tell you either. And we’re the only ones who know. We’ll provide all of the very simple materials for this very, very cool look. Except that you could bring your favorite, SHARP, scissors again. And glue.
April 30: Excuse me, but there is poetry on your ATC. (Celebrating National Poetry Month) We'll ransack, (gently), the stacks for other people's verses. Or bring a pencil and write your own. (Don't forget your scissors and glue.)
May 28:Rubber stamping: We’ll carve that image that keeps bouncing back into your brain. If you happen to have an x-acto knife, will you bring it along? With your scissors and glue.
June 25: Recycling: Check Out Your Junk Drawer. We will practice designing with repeating objects, (nails? matchsticks?...), kid's toys, leftover bits of stuff, and ephemera. (Isn't that a great word? ... ephemera) If you have acrylic gel meduim you can bring that too, or whatever you might imagine would hold that ephemera onto your card.
July 30: Favorite people in Maine History: Photocopy multiples. Bring a picture of a famous, or famous-to-you, Mainer and a couple of coins to make copies on the photocopier. Bring your scissors and glue too, of course.
August 27: The Rockport You Love: 3-d photos: bring 3 copies of the same color photograph of your favorite place in Rockport. (And scissors. And glue.)
September 24: Let’s Get Political: the Reds, the Whites, and the Blues. Design a campaign ATC. Bring little, itty, bitty copies of your candidate’s material. Bring your regular sized scissors and glue.
October 29: Memorials and Ancestors: Bring small copies of pictures of your loved ones and fore bearers who have passed on. And your S&G.
November 26: Gratitude ATC’s – You were expecting this, weren’t you? Put these little feasts on your dining room table. Yeah, yeah, bring scissors, bring glue. Oh, just for fun, bring a needle and thread/floss too - we can practice stitching together our Gratitudes.
December 31: The Goal Oriented ATC. You’ll not only not forget, but you’ll look at them and enjoy remembering whatever it is that you are promising yourself to do! Maybe we could swap goals??? Or make Support ATC's for each other? (Bring S&G)
Blue copy ATC's
Now here is a fun idea. I am not through exploring this yet. It came about when I color copied a "skinny book" page for a copier based swap, (26 copies!). So for these cards I lay a bunch of interesting, (blue), papers down on my scanner in layers. I printed it out on cardstock. I had cut a 2 1/2 x 3 1/2" window in a scrap paper so that I could move the window around looking for interesting views. I traced out the card shape, added other cut outs, brads, rubber stamps, a little gold pen here and there and Voila! An ATC! An interesting thought here is that if you print out more than one sheet then you could cut out multiples and test out different ways of decorating each one.Here are two more that I got out of that sheet: (Don't forget to use the scraps!)
valentine red copy ATC's
These are in the same construction technique as the blue ones above, except that they are ready for Valentine's Day, and they have clear packing tape - one of my favorite finishing methods. Stickers, cut outs, tape, then brads.
and then...
If all of this seems like fun to you I hope that you will visit my blog http://sunnespot.blogspot.com anytime and visit the Rockport Library on the last Wednesday evening of each month. I can't wait to see you there!
This ultimately cool technique is sooo easy!! Tear long strips of masking tape lengthwise and cover a piece of cardstock with the torn strips. Holes, gaps, and raggedy edges are all a part of the look. Rub the edges down. Rub just a bit of shoe polish over the whole page. You will be amazed! We were. We tried cordovan, and also brown, which both worked really well. You could try any color.
Here I have used one of those art materials that is almost too much fun. It is metal tape. At the hardware store it is called heating duct repair tape or something, (back in the painting aisle near the masking tape), and a friend said that at the automotive store it is called muffler tape. It is basically aluminum foil with sticky backing on a roll.
On this card I cut out short bits in odd shapes and covered the surface of the card. Then a friend at an art day gathering gave me this picture of a dragon. We put mountains into the scenery, (cut to shape in metal tape), and I used a blunt-ish pencil to "etch" in the sky texture. I glued the dragon on with acrylic gel medium. Later, when all was dry, I colored the mountains and sky with permanent markers. We like it.
