ATC (artist trading cards)

A couple of Artist Trading Cards, on watercolor paper with watercolors, ink and joss paper .

inspiration/idea book

 Today I worked on my latest inspiration/idea book. These are kind of like an "old school" Pinterest.  In these books I paste various images that caught my interest.  I might pick something because of the image's content, pattern, or even just for the color of it.  I like to use 6" square books for these.  The small size of the book makes me edit and pare down the images, keeping only the most relevant or interesting elements.

cut paper collage

Supplies:  9x12" mat board (or stretched canvas), gesso, acrylic paint, scrapbook paper (1 sheet per collage), mod podge and brushes (I used a 1" flat brush)

To make:  coat both sides of mat board with gesso (omit if using pre-coated stretched canvas), let dry.  Paint front of board with acrylic in background color of choice, let dry.

 Prepare 1 sheet of paper to be cut by first folding it in half and then folding it in half again. 

Then fold the paper into a triangle along a line diagonal from corner to corner. 

Then fold the triangle in half 

Make a decorative cut through all layers of paper as shown

Add cuts along edge

Unfold and smooth out fold lines with a bone tool

Add a layer of mod podge to the background board, lay paper on top and smooth down - starting in the middle and working out to edges.  Cover with a light layer of mod podge.

collage canvas

A little canvas  with die cut book pages.
 Materials used:

• 5"  x 7" stretched canvas
• acrylic paint (I used a mix of Lukas iron oxide black & Lukas phthalo blue)
• old book pages (mine was a condensed Reader's Digest)
• medium for slowing up the drying time of acrylic - I used Liquitex slow-dri gel retarder 
• gloss varnish for acrylic
• die cutter - mine is of a little hand
• a piece of black  5" x 7"  paper (for layout)

my materials

die-cuts

final collage

1st coat of paint

layout on dry paper

And on an even smaller scale - one of the hands inside a bottle cap: