Legs

Recently, I hosted an ATC swap on Paper Traders with a "Legs" theme.  The backgrounds on my cards were all hand drawn and watercolored.

Imaginary Garden

This is the last spread for the current round in the Paper Traders Round Robin Journal swap.  We'll be starting a new round after the first of the year.  This last book that I worked in belongs to Heather and she chose a beautiful theme: Imaginary Garden.

For this page, I used the watercolored paper she had included in her book, sponged ink around the edges, and glued a printed floral napkin over the top.  I then added dimensional aspects with silk flower petals and punched paper flowers.  Finally, I used my fingertips to spread glitter glue to highlight certain flowers.  The butterflies and birds were actually rub-ons.  Since hummingbirds are a rare thing for her to see up in Canada, I think she thought it was a real treat to have them in her book.

Surfer at Sunset

I am really loving being back in San Diego again and am enjoying the beautiful Spring we've been having.  I know that Summer is just around the corner and then I will be complaining about the heat (ugh!) but I will enjoy this cooler season while I can.

Next month, I am hosting an ATC swap on our Paper Traders group.  The theme is "By the Seaside" since I am really feeling the love of living in an ocean-side community.  I made this ATC as an inspiration for the participating artists.  I used my watercolor pencils to paint the background and added some sandy texture at the bottom by combining acrylic paint with some resin sand texture gel.

Water Journal

This is the spread I did for Joanie's "Water" themed round robin journal on Paper Traders. The scan really doesn't show how sparkly this page is... it has received a generous shot of Starburst Stains spray as well as some turquoise art glitter.

Beauty's Eye

I have been wanting to practice more techniques out of Bernie Berlin's ATC Workshop book. The background here was made using her Leafing Pen Resist technique. I had a little trouble with my first attempt - the acrylic paint on the stamp just pulled the leafing right off the page... so I tried a new piece with graphite black archival Brilliance ink instead and it did the same thing! But the rest of the stamped image came out nice so I used it anyway =) There is a lot of gold on this card - in the background, on the bottom edge, the circle around her eye, around the words, and the german scrap - but I like the feel of lots of gold on this card... even the lady is wearing gold bangles on her wrist! On the german scrap, I rubbed black acrylic paint over it to give a distressed look... I also used some Tim Holtz Distress ink around the card and the edges after sanding everything down a bit. The only thing I'm not happy with are the word blocks... but once they were glued down, they weren't budging - LOL!

The Artist's Palette

These are the pages I did for Connie's round robin journal on Paper Traders. Her theme was "The Artist's Palette" and she asked us to use paint and try to expand our abilities by challenging ourselves. Since I am still in the early stages of exploring my drawing talents (as in, do I have any?) and I am not very inexperienced at watercolor either, these pages were definitely a challenge. I found the water especially hard to do. I'm not sure if you can really see all the details in here or if the scan washed them out but there are swirly white places to give the suggestion of foam and spray.


I should have taken the quote to heart and exercised a little more patience in writing it out... my lines tended to slant upward and the handwriting is sloppier than I would have liked.

Zetti Newbie

Connie is hosting a zetti ATC swap on Paper Traders. This is my very first attempt at this quirky genre. My mom, her friend, my sister, and I all went in together to buy a couple of grab bags of rubber stamps from zettiology rubber stamps, which I used on these cards.

I really LOVED my backgrounds even though they got pretty covered up by the images and pen art. I took colored card stock and attached some vintage german text and then applied a light coast of gesso, then smeared some watercolors over the top; finally, I distressed everything. I also used some very lightly inked rubber stamp images to add a little depth to the backgrounds. You can't really tell from the scans but the pen lines are opaque, glossy, and raised - I used Souffle pens for them. The images are simply rubber stamped in black ink on white cardstock but I like the contrast between the stark imagery and the other colorful elements.

The most fun thing about zetti is that it seems anything goes... it's just fun and funky!

Go Fish

Awhile back, when I was doing the intuitive watercolor, I made this background but just couldn't really see an image there... so I decided to add the fish instead. I used souffle pens to add the gills and speckled scales. The letters for the words are rub-ons and the air bubbles are "crystal" stickers.

I'm putting this card into the monthly Winner Take All lottery drawing on Paper Traders... wish me luck!

More Intuitive Watercolors

I made a whole sheet of splotchy watercolor and then cut it into ATC-sized pieces. Sometimes it was really hard to see something and other times it was easy... but it's always hard to draw them in because I am not very talented at drawing. If you want to see some really good results with this technique, check out Connie's cards on her blog: http://stampgram.blogspot.com I think mine may have been a little better if I hadn't left the watercolors quite so dark.










This last one was actually my second attempt... not part of the "big sheet" I made the above cards from:

Intuitive Watercolor

I recently purchased Bernie Berlin's Artist Trading Card Workshop and am hoping to try out each technique. Below is my first "intuitive watercolor."