ATC ....

A new little ATC from The Wild Gypsy ... a gal named Carolyn in New Jersey. . It stands for Artist Trading Card if you are not familiar with the term. Take a peek on ebay sometime.... under ACEOs.... (which stands for Art Cards, Editions and Originals) .. you will be amazed at the art work people are doing on such a tiny scale. The cards measure only 2.5 X 3.5 inches.










.....and look at the card it arrived in... aren't they both cute? almost like two purchases in one really. I thought it very generous of her. I love the little kitten pic... I would have bought that one for sure..... but didn't check her listings for that particular week until too late. You really should put sites on your ebay favs if you want to keep abreast of new listings and check them regularly.
I have a small collection of ATCs and add to it every so often. The cats in the mosaic at the bottom of my blog are some that I really admire; have a few of those. As a matter of fact... one is in the mail from Russia right now. There will then be 3 to put into an elongated rectangular frame. I think I will just do it myself... like I do my cards... picture on top of coloured paper that shows like a thin piece of mat behind...then another... til I get the colour and look I want.













like this..... one of my cards.

I will post my framed cats down the road... when it is finished. Probably difficult to imagine...but here is a pic of another ATC, matted and framed... with 2 different coloured portions of paper showing behind and then placed on a large piece of heavier mat board.













This is an ATC by Tatiana Oles that was a purchase. But.... then didn't I just need to see if I could do one too? First I drew her in pencil, then pigma pen over..and just used some cheap acrylic paints .. I borrowed Mr. Bumblevee's art brushes..which he hasn't used for years. Hope he gets back to doing some artwork some day...he is pretty darn good at it.






















so, I guess I am okay at copying.... ..sort of.... but... the inspiration or imagination for the idea in the first place.. that is the tough part. Obviously I am not nearly as adept with my use of colour either, yet. .... slightly tentative... .. but perhaps with practice......
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In other news.....
Arora found some sea glass to play with....

ACEO's... ATC's..........

If you find a little gem that you wish to display rather than stuffing it into a box or putting it in a seldom viewed album.... here is an answer.

Find a pretty frame ... it does not even need to be an expensive one .... mine is a special find that makes me grin .... a deep burgundy with a hint of brown..rubbed with gold on the raised ribbing. I really like it and it fits perfectly with other decor in the room where I display this little girl. The outside measurement is 7 X 9 ..... the inside is 5 X 7 .....

If you are into paper things, I bet you have literally pounds of paper hanging around to choose from ... as a matter of fact ... it is sold by the pound at scrapbooking shops .. Michaels'... etc.

Try several sheets of coloured paper behind your treasure... Of course, you may use any colour you like ...but I suggest some of the actual colours used in the painting ...different hues but still the same colour often make colours within the work itself really "pop". I have one of those small cutters (they call them personal cutters... lol) .... and just place the piece of coloured paper behind my little ACEO... place it onto the cutter and decide how much of a margin I want to see .......... then, cut. Sometimes it takes a few tries for me to decide on which colours I like best on a particular small painting, but paper is pretty cheap compared to matting and actually having it framed professionally ..... so, no big deal.

On this little gem by Tatiana Oles ...I used two small pieces directly behind ... one of deep forest green and the other of the brightest mustard gold; then placed the whole thing onto a sheet of the palest custard colour . Sadly, the pale colour does not show as well as it could on this pic and therefore does not look as good here as in "the flesh". Trust me ...it is lovely... and by the time you are done... yours will be lovely as well. It will look almost like it was triple matted. It gets a lot of attention from everyone who sees it, which is a surprise to me and therefore the reason I am letting you in on my little secret. It is such a shame to have these little beauties and not be able to showcase them, but who wants to pay to have them framed?

I don't like to put glue on my originals .....so I use tiny bits of double sided tape. It holds it perfectly flat. For the other sheets I just use a glue stick. Surprisingly, it stays put really well. If you want to change colours at a later date.... just take it out of the frame and play with different colours!

Here are the great ATC's that I received in a recent swap in which I was involved. A lot of effort and care and attention went into each of them and it shows. Plus, pics of each of the artist's own bears .. which I love. Next best thing to having the bear ...!

There was going to be the group I received and the group I sent out. ..but .. somebody forgot to take pics of her own! Arrggghhh! Well, I think I forgot. I know I had out the appropriate colours of fabric to place them on ... know I was waiting till I got them totally finished .... know I had the camera at the ready ... but for some unknown reason...I obviously didn't take the pics. Either that ... or ... I uploaded them onto some obscure file in my computer and now.. ...for all intents and purposes.... they are lost... or at the very least, totally misfiled.
Sigh....