Art Journal Inspired ATC's

Colorful Artist Trading Cards

I was so inspired by finishing up my art journal for The Sketchbook Project, that last weekend I decided to play with my art supplies before putting them away. I grabbed a pile of blank bristol paper Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) and went to town.

I made two sets of 3 cards, starting at 11pm, before I finally petered out at around 2am. The beautiful thing was that I didn't have to get up early the next morning...Yay!

To create a background for the first set of cards, I used Portfolio water-soluable oil pastel crayons. I love their rich colors and I just randomly grabbed some colors and rubbed them on the ATC's. Then, I used a soft damp brush to move the colors around and get them to penetrate the paper a little and blend. Next I grabbed my box of Derwent Inktense water-soluable pencils and scribbled on the surface just to add my artist's hand to the cards. I had many scraps of paper around my desk from The Sketchbook Project leftovers, so I tore small pieces of papers that interested me and used regular gel medium to glue them to the ATC's after they had dried.

I have a large collection of stamps from around the world (about 2000 that I bought in Paris a few years ago) that always come to mind when I have projects like this, so I grabbed out about 50 and found 3 that matched the background colors that I had already laid down. I added texture with acrylic inks and paint both under and over the stamps and adhered the stamps and some 3-D elements with regular gel medium.

I finished off these cards using a soft charcoal pencil around the edges of the card and/or stamps and in some of the texture created by the paints and papers.

It felt so good to get these 3 little works of art done, that I continued on to make 3 more ATC's with a different theme.

Flower ATC's

I started the two cards on the left with acrylic fluid inks; one blue on the bottom and gold on the top, then the opposite on the second. The third card was an experiment with sticky grid tape that I painted over with acrylic paints. For the two left cards I used scrap tissue paper I had painted left over from The Sketchbook Project, glued it down with regular gel medium and stamped words on after dry with StazOn ink. The third card I glued a piece of scrap paper to and added a word torn out of a children's book.

I am a crazy woman for having elements that pop off my artwork, so I went to my canister of colored Prima Flowers and started auditioning the different color combinations with the ATC backgrounds. The flower on each card is a combination of 2 or 3 paper flowers I adhered to the ATC and to each other with WeldBond glue. I found at scrapbooking stores some really cool multi-colored flat-backed plastic DewDrops embelishments that I also WeldBonded to the center of the flowers, then layed a light book/object on top of each card overnight to help the flower and dew drop stay in place while the glue dried.

The flowers were fully set in the morning...and I was In Love on the big reveal. <3

I hope I have inspired you to make your own small works of art...just for the sheer joy of it...and remember, ATC's are for sharing! Anyone out there want to trade with me? Leave me a comment. :)

Happy Art Making,  Tristina

Submitted Today to Broward Art Guild Show

Wow! I was up till the wee hours last night finishing several pieces that I took today to submit to the Tri-County Art Show sponsored by the Broward Art Guild. Below are pics of the 5 pieces I submitted and some of the folks helping me to sign my pieces in, Nancy and Marlene.

"Serene Repose"

This is painted in acrylics over a photograph I took in San Francisco. I hand painted and colored the paper on the right. The dot in the middle of Buddha's forehead is a massive sparkly Swarovski crystal. Size 18x24

"Sunset Harbour"

I loved the way my acrylic hand colored paper came out, so I mounted it straight to canvas...very powerful. Size12x14

"Enchanted Forest"

My acrylic paint hand colored paper gave me the impression of light in the late afternoon playing between the trees. The trunks and leaves are textured acrylic. Size 16x20 See the detail below. 

"Mad Balloons"

Here my acrylic hand colored paper was punched out into circles and embedded in layers of encaustic wax. I love how bright and happy this piece is! Size 5x7 on wood panel.

Detail of the sides showing the wax drips is below.

"Daffodillia"

Another encaustic wax painting using a real US postage stamp and my own acrylic hand colored paper. There's lots of texture and depth in this one! Size 8x8 on wood panel.

Side view showing the wax drips is below.

The common thread among the artwork I submitted today is all have my acrylic hand colored paper in them somewhere...I hope at least one of my pieces is accepted for the show!

I have rarely seen encaustic wax paintings in Florida because the extreme heat can melt the wax, therefore encaustic paintings here have to be very carefully kept in cool temperatures and out of direct sunlight. It only takes 160 degrees or more to melt the wax, so no leaving them in the car either!

I have been reading a lot of the "Encaustic Art" book in an effort to have it done before I go up to R&F Paints this coming week to take a 3 day mixed media and oil paint stick workshop in Kingston, NY. R&F is famous for manufacturing a large line of encaustic wax paints and oil/wax paint sticks. I'm going to learn so much there! I'll be sure to share what happens there...

Tristina

Encaustic Art HeyDay!

Usually Wednesdays are my studio day. Today, however, I did not go to my studio and stayed home instead playing with my new R&F encaustic paints! Last night I had used R&F's Encaustic Gesso (a much more high solid gesso with much less binder than a typical acrylic gesso) to prepare a bunch of artist's boards for encaustic painting. I just couldn't keep my hands away from them this morning...

I had fun experimenting with the encaustic medium, impasto medium, and colors Azure Blue, Warm Pink, Naples Yellow and Zinc & Titanium Whites, all that I heated in tins from R&F Paints on my pancake griddle. I added to the encaustic paints my own acrylic hand-colored papers, postage stamps and images printed on tissue from my Epson printer. I played around with some of the techniques from Lissa Rankin's book 'Encaustic Art' and found out which worked as stated for me and which didn't! Here are some of the results:

The painting with the flower I call "Daffodillia" and the spatter paint one I call "Taverna".

Daffodillia is made using Patricia Balldwin Seggebruch's amber shellac wet burn method. I'm such a pyro...love to watch the fire coming off the panel and the wax floating around in a random pattern - fascinating.

Taverna reminds me of a Greek tavern where fun and frivolity reign supreme among a close knit community. Think I'm going to have to keep this one in my private collection!

I'll be working on arranging and organizing my home studio over the next few days. It'll feel so good to have a place all set up with my supplies easily at hand and my sewing machine set up and ready for regular use. :)

Inspired Hand Colored Paper Paintings

Lately I have been inspired to make bunches of hand-colored papers with tissue and acrylic paints using a technique I learned in one of Edyi Lampasona's classes at the Boca Raton Museum of Art School last year. The mixing of colors on the paper is very organic and the colors come out so juicy once dry! Here are some of the papers I made this week drying in the hot Florida sun:

I decided to try a landscape dyeing technique I read about in Mickey Lawler's book 'Sky Dyes' with the papers I was making...and really like the results. Here are 2 of the paintings I have done so far by simply adhering the papers I made to canvas (love the crinkly texture that remains in the surface once the soft gel meduim drys).

 Wish you could see the shimmer of metallic on these paintings. Very exciting!!! <3