A Contest for The Readers I Don't Yet Have!

This contest has been cancelled for lack of interest.


Yes, that's right! A Contest!
These three ATCs can be yours! How?
Well beings summer is right around the corner and flowers are a big part of summer, I'd like to hear some summer stories.




What you need to do to enter this contest is write a story about a favorite summertime event. It may be about an event that has already occured that you just can't forget about. It may be about an event you wish would occur. It may be about an event of any kind so long as it occurs/occured in summer.
To enter you must have a working blog of your own and you have to leave your story in the comments section of this entry on this blog. You should also leave me an email address where I can get ahold of you in the event that you become the proud owner of these three colorful flower ATCs. I'll need to know where to send the actual cards to.
So, who wants to try for them????

Where the heck is that muse of mine?

I really don't have much to show you all today. My muse has escaped her confines and is on the loose elsewhere. I really wish she would come home! I have a ton of artwork that needs attention and without her in tow the going is quite rough! And the end-results of the artwork done is a bit rough as well!
I will, however, get a few cards done before the sun arises in the morning!
I thought I'd show you all something today so here's a painting, an available ATC, and three ATCs that have found new homes.



This is a painting...yes, a painting of Omni. (I know it looks like a photograph but it isn't.) This painting was done back in 2001 if memory serves me correctly. It is rendered in india ink, white and brown acrylic paint and red sharpie mixed with acrylic paint to get the pink on her nose and ears. It was done as a Christmas present for the fellow who owned Omni at the time. I haven't a clue where she is today. Bryan was killed in a car accident in May of 2003 and where Omni ended up is a mystery to me. She was a sweet little dog and adored that man!

This is "The Ants' Picnic", an ATC. It is up for trade. The little ants are plastic, a gift from someone I traded another card to. The watermelon slice is painted in acrylics on watercolor paper and cut out with the scissors. The background is another sheet of watercolor paper painted in acrylics. I've not offered this one for trade till now. I need to put it in my gallery at atcsforall.com. Click on the link up in the left hand corner and go visit the site. You'll find gobs and gobs of wonderful artwork there that rivals this pc of art. This is child's play compared to some of the gorgeous artwork displayed at AFA.

"Beverly" is done in technical pen on watercolor paper. I traded her just this morning. She will be heading to England come Monday. She's a Gibson Girl. In that style at any rate. I looked at a picture of a drawing to draw this one. That is kinda cheating, but she is my own rendition.

"Blooming Pinks" was traded yesterday. It is headed Ithaca, New York, USA. It will be headed that way come Monday at any rate. It is sharpies on stiff board. The stiff board is from a game board that arrived in the mail one day. Had I not cut the game board into ATC size pcs, it would have ended up in the landfill. The landfill didn't need another gameboard. I did.

"Maggie's Bouquet" is wooden shapes colored with sharpies, glitter added and glued to a Russian text page from a book about philosophy?, not sure just what the name of that book is even though I was told the name of it and I should remember! But alas, I don't remember so it's a mystery unless you can read Russian, which I can't. It is all mounted on chipboard. The Russian book came from Katie. I traded her something for the book, danged if I can remember what I traded for it though. Maggie liked the card and that's all that really matters aside from me having a good time creating it!

Another Good Fish

This is 'grey fish'. Not a very good 4x4, but its what is going out. I drew the front with sharpies on a margarita coaster. (Says in a earlier post these are beer coasters, they are margarita coasters). The backside is a fish I drew on yellow cardstock with an inkpen and an egg cut from another sheet of cardstock.
Danglies will be added later.


Echinacea aka snakeroot
I took this photograph at dusk on day back in 2003. I've always liked this picture. There is way too much light on the flower in the foreground, but other than that it's a nice picture! I miss going out in the country and digging snakeroot with my youngest son. We spent many an hour out in the middle of nowhere, he with the pic, me with the camera.... We spent awhole lot more hours out there without the camera than with it.

A few good fishes

This is 'orange roughie'. I'm not sure that's the correct spelling of 'roughie', might be 'roughy'....either way, that is the name of this page! "Orange Roughie". This was a rather easy page to make as the frontside is simply a drawing of a stylized fish rendered in sharpies on watercolor paper and glued onto the margarita coaster as its base.
The backside isn't much more glamourous than the front of the page. The coaster was painted black in acrylics, sponged with yellow once the black had dried and then sealed with varnish. The ATC size label is done in glass paints of various colors for the fishes. Black sharpie for the words.
Danglies to be added later.







This is front and backsides of 'goldfish'. The back was a really cool experiment with acrylic paint, glitter, modge podge and some really cool paper. The fish is a foam sticker with my information written on it in black extra fine point sharpie. The frontside is a conglomeration of ribbons, lace, rickrack and origami fish.


This one is without its danglies. Those will be added when all the pages are done. I've a long ways to go to get 20 pages done!











This is the front and back of the 'fancy lion' page. I made it out of a beer coaster as the base, painted it with acrylics, sprinkled irredescent flakes on the front side, added some red sequins...I think there are some purple sequins under that fish as well. The fish, coral and starfish on the backside are all made from parts of an aluminum tray I found at the thrift store. It amazed me how easy it was to cut that tray with a pair of old scissors. One side of the tray is gold, the other side silver...which worked out really great for this composition! The fish is simply cut out with the scissors and his fin is attached with a metal brad generally used to secure papers together. I poked some holes in the tail fin with a needle, but I think I probably should have left well enough alone without the holes. The star brad on the starfish on the backside is NOT holding the star to the backing. It is just there for decoration on the starfish. I painted over the back side with acrylics in a royal blue color, then I modge podged the blue paint and added a layer of webbing paper in black and then lastly painted the whole of it with gold acrylic ink. The ATC size label was added lastly. I should of gone a little easier on the gold ink on the label, one could have read the information there more easily. I've yet to add the danglies on the edge.






I will upload pictures of the danglies before they are attached to the pages.

Fishes

These fish are pretty useless fish at the moment but they're the only fish I have to show you all right now.


Page 1 front side

Page 1 back side

Page 2 front side

Page 2 backside

These fishes are useless at the moment cause of what I mounted everything to. I will use them in a chunky book that I have to bind. They are much too thick for Maggie's machine to bore holes in.
I have four useless pages done... the two above and another two. I'll show you the other two next post.
I really wish I could use them in The Chunky Fish Book but it just won't work so I've made more that will work. I will show you all pictures of them in the next week or so. I have only one that is ready for its dangly things. There is one background done and the fish is ready to be glued down. Then the back must be done as well.
I have six that are done on the fronts and two that are done on both the front and the back.
I really like my aluminum fish sculpture. It has an aluminum starfish on the backside along with some aluminum coral as well. I'll show it to you all in the next post.
The other one that is done is a sharpie drawing of a boring gray fish with a colorful background. He's not the greatest fish I ever drew but he will do. The handdrawn fish on the backside goes along nicely with him actually. I'll show you that one eventually as well.
None of them have their dangly things like the two above have. I have made six bead and wire danglies. I'll show you all them eventually as well.
Right now I'm doing laundry. It's 4:46 a.m.

Ghost Tree

Ghost Tree

Acrylics, glitter, glass paint and sealer on watecolor paper.

This one turned out quite lovely if I do say so myself! This is the newest ATC there is to show you all.

Let's Look at Some Cats

Blue-eyed Black Cat
technical pen and acrylics on watercolor paper
I have drawn this cat two times. Both times with blue eyes and a black coat.
One of these ATCs belongs to my sister Jeanny now. I traded her four cats for a box of fingernail polish. I got the better end of that deal! She thinks she did though!
Artist Trading Card


Cat
If you look real close at the photograph behind Cat, you'll see that it is a lot for wrecked cars. That chain link fence is all that truly turned out correctly in that photograph and I kept it 'just because I might need someday'. Low and behold! I did need it!
Cat is made from that plastic/linen/paper-like stuff I was talking about in a previous post. His nose is cork. The buttons down his front are sequins. And his whiskers are wires. He was cut out freehand with the scissors, no pencil involved.
I made him for the March Collage-A-Thon.
He went to live in Austrailia I do believe.
Artist Trading Card


Doob on Cork
I made three cards that were based on this one. This is the first one. I posted it to my gallery and it was gone before I could turn around! Then two more requests came in for it before I had a chance to take it out of my gallery because it had been traded. The heating tool was a new toy to me when this one was made so I said, "What the heck?" and agreed to make two more cards for two more people. Doob sat patiently for her portrait each time. That cat looks nothing like Doob though. It's shape is correct but Doob is actually a gray calico persian without the smashed in nose. She's a mutt if you want to know her true heritage!
The cork used to be a bulletin board that hung on the closet door in the deskroom. The danged thing kept falling off so I took it down for good and cut it up into ATC size. It's way to thick for an ATC though. I did make quite a few cards out of this material before I found some thinner cork out in the antique icebox in the burned house.
Artist Trading Card


Fancypants and Puss
I got a new set of Sharpies. Then I got another set. And then I got a set of Bic Markers and ..... and....I went crazy with the markers! These are the only cats I drew with them so far. I did this drawing from looking at painting that closely resembles my take on it. I've no clue what the original painting's title is. Nor who the artist is that gave me my inspiration. If I did know, I'd give credit where credit is due.
I traded this card.
Artist Trading Card


Fritz
Acrylics on watercolor. Cats are my most favorite subject to paint. Fritz is done from a photograph of a cat named Fritz that I found on the www. Do a google image search or go to kittenwars.com and you'll find more cats than you can shake a stick at! Most of my cat portraits come from photographs found on the internet. If the picture is titled with a name, that's the name of the painting. If it isn't titled with a name, I make up a name for the cat I've just painted.
My cat portraits do not last for long in my gallery. I need to do more cat paintings.
Artist Trading Card

Cave Art

These are the Cave Art ATCs I talked about in a previous post. I am waiting on the due date to get my returns from this swap.

Ebony Man

This is Ebony Man. He made it safely to The Netherlands.
I talked about this card in an earlier post. I've yet to drag the hotplate and crayons outside. Today is the first day of spring and it doesn't actually feel much like spring out there this morning. It is supposed to get up to 73 degrees F today though and that should warm things up considerably.
This was my first attemt at carving crayons on a mounted board. I learned a few things from doing this carving.
1. Black doesn't go well on white paper. That pinkish stain around the carving is bleeding of the pigments from the crayons.
2. I got the thickness of the crayon perfect!
3. The paper should be either of a darker shade or one that does not allow the crayon pigment to penatrate it. I have some plastic/linen/paper-like stuff that would work well for that kind of application.
4. Next crayon carving will be done in a multitude of shades just to see what happens.
5. A cameo would be a real lovely subject-getting the layers the right thickness might be a bit of a challenge but one worth experimenting with I do believe.
6. Cardboard from Brenton's toy packaging is an excellent weight for a crayon carving. These ATCs are rather weighty and they need a sturdy backing.

At any rate, this one was packaged properly and did arrive in The Netherlands quite intact~!

A Few Trees for Your Eyes

I Thought we would look at a few trees. I like to create trees.
Forest Rain
Acrylics on watercolor paper. The paper isn't actually watercolor paper but I don't know what else to call it. The paper came from a box of refills for a photograph album. It feels and acts like watercolor paper and that's what I call it. I bought a box full of this stuff for a quarter at the thrift store in Plainville. It takes a bit of prep to use it but it was a wonderful find!
This painting was done for March's theme. Rain. There was actually a tie for the theme for March and I did do another painting in the tying theme of polka dots. I posted it earlier today. "Almost Home Again".
3 1/2 inches x 2 1/2 inches


Blue Moonlit Tree
It's blue paint from a tube with a plastic brush on the operating end of it. I took the brush off and slathered the blue paint onto an ATC sized corregated paper board that came from the box Brenton's Spiderman Toys came in. (Toys come in great great material for ATCs!)
The paint is made by Crayola. It came free with three tubes of Elmer's Glue Sticks awhile back. I have blue, yellow and red paint. It reminds me of the paint we used when we were kids in grade school. Fingerpaints! I didn't use my fingers as they are too large to work on a canvas this small. I used a small paint brush to remove the tree from the paint.


A Walk In The Park
Black gel pen on white copy paper. You can see traces of pencil in there as well. It used to reside in one of my scrap books. It was a tad bit larger then and a tad bit younger as well. It is covered with clear packing tape as that is how it was secured in the scrapbook. This picture survived a house fire. About 85% of what was contained in the three scrapbooks did not survive the fire. I ran across this little drawing that three years ago I had stuck in a box and decided it had spent enough time in the box of other survivors and I cut it to fit an ATC. Sometomato now calls it hers. I was happy to give it a new home and even happier that I know it found a good one.
The picture was drawn, I'm guessing in 2001 or so. I'm really not sure.
3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches


Coming Home
I cheated on this tree. I like the outcome of it, but it really isn't MINE. I changed up the scenery and I changed up the tree a tad, but that tree is photocopied onto watercolor paper. My print cartridge was almost dead. The copies came out perfect for altering them. I did six trees from that printing. All of them with different backgrounds surrounding this tree. Summer. Winter. Spring. Fall. Sunset/Sunrise-you decide.
I rendered this one in technical pen and sharpie. The other five trees are done in different mediums-perhaps you'll see them in another viewing of trees.
I also traded it.
Artist Trading Card


Money Tree #2
I made four money trees like this. I thought the money trees would go like hot cakes on a cold morning at a church social. They didn't. I gave one of them to my sister Susan. I eventually traded the other three. This is one of the traded trees.
All of them are different backgrounds with an original tree sitting at the foreground as this one does. The trunk for this rather dainty money tree is a tumbleweed stick. The shredded money came from a 5 year old's field trip to the Dane Hansen Museum in Logan, KS where he recieved it as a gift from the museum along with a whole bag of goodies. I asked if I could have some. He said, "Yes." And I made trees. That foil behind the tree is from a baked sweet potatoe I ate at Golden Corral.
Artist Trading Card

More Carpet ATCs

Carpet Pink Swirls

Carpet Doughnuts

Carpet Brown and Orange Maze


Carpet Pink, Orange and Yellow
These are part of the carpet series from the next post.

Carpet Inspired ATCs

Guess I can only download five at a time....

These are from the carpet series. All are rendered in sharpies on stiff board. The stiff board is actually from a game board that came in the mail. Very nice paper that would have otherwise gone to the landfill or sat in my trailerhouse shed in the back yard collecting dust. I like it much better this way!

I made a dozen of these cards...I'm pretty sure it was a dozen. I'd have to check to be 100% sure though.

They were inspired by casino carpets found in a google image search for the word carpet.

I have traded three of them thus far.

Each is 2 1/2inches x 3 1/2 inches

These five are up for trade still.

Orange Cat

This is the third time I have drawn this particular cat and each time this cat has been a shade of orange. He was actually quite YELLOW before this drawing was completed. Ronnie said he was 'way too yellow' so I added a layer of orange sharpie on top of the yellow sharpie and he's now a tad too orange for my liking but he's born now and that's the color he will remain.

2 1/2 inches x 3 1/2 inches

sharpies on watercolor paper

Four Leaf Clover Carving

Good Morning All~!

That's an ATC the carving is attached to. The carving itself is made of soap. The label on the soap said it was made in India. It smelled real nice. Some soap stinks badly when you carve it. After using my long nosed tweezers, a toothpick and my very flexible steel pallete knife my hands were as smooth as a baby's bottom! Then I stunk up the house by painting that little chunk of soap with fingernail polish.

The background is a pc of chipboard covered in pink body glitter and very fine green glitter. That was achieved with a layer of modge podge to adhere the glitter.

I made it yesterday. It is one of four good luck charms that will be made for the Good Luck Charm Swap at atcsforall.com.

I'm pleased with the result.

Almost Home Again

Hey you all! Here is my newest painting. It is a copy of another painting I did a few weeks ago.

Painting my fingers off!

hello

The day has been going on since yesterday for me! I've been awake since about 12:30 p.m. yesterday. It is now almost 10 a.m. Monday. I have been busy in the hours I've been awake! This painting you see on the page is one of my creations for the day.

I did some organizing in this deskroom of mine too. I found a set of glass paints I forgot I had. Paint to use on glass. I only follow the rules if I am forced to and I didn't paint on glass with these paints. I painted on thick paper I cut from a greeting card and painted white with acrylics. I know now why those paints had never been used before for anything that I can remember! They aren't very good paints! I have two paintings started though and I will finish them later when I've had some sleep! I'll show you them when I get them done and scanned.

I am not familiar with the way this blog works and I can't get my pictures where I want them. This picture should of been at the top of the page but it appears that it will end up at the end of the post instead. I suppose it really does not matter where in the blog the picture is. I just wanted to show you all one of the paintings done in the last twenty four hours.