More Art

I've been busy doing art lately. I've been working on Artist Trading Cards (ATCs), small little works of art the size of baseball trading cards. I love the art form as it's so freeing. Absolutely anything goes as long as the size is right (they MUST be 2.5" x 3.5") and will fit inside a plastic protector sleeve. So, I can collage (my personal favorite), paint, draw, rubber stamp, or photograph to my heart's content. Embellishments are welcome, as long as the finished card fits inside the protective sleeve. Some people have a challenge working so small, but I truly enjoy the scale. The last large piece I worked on (20x26, I think)was just overwhelming to me. I even painted the canvas first, so I wouldn't be faced with a blank, white canvas. Even so, the canvas was just too big, and I had trouble coming up with enough elements -- and large enough elements -- to fill the canvas. I'll probably never finish it, as I never got impassioned by it. Other people liked how it was starting -- and I did, too -- but I never could get into the size; it just seemed too large from the beginning. So, I've abandoned that canvas and gone back to the smaller size of ATCs.

The first thing I did was add some cancellation rubber stamps to an ATC that I worked on a few months ago. It just didn't seem complete to me, but I couldn't decide what it needed. The image in the middle is cut from a postage stamp scrapbook paper, so the cancellation stamps seemed like a good element to tie it all together. Shame I didn't cut the "stamp" out with postage stamp scissors, but I didn't have any at the time; I only bought a pair this last week. See the original here.