Friday, 4 August 2017

My First Ever ATCs: A & Z

I can't believe I left it this long to create my first ever ATCs (Artist Trading Cards).  These 2.5" x 3.5" mini works of art were created for a swap hosted by Junk Journals Junkies and Mindful Art using the letters A and Z.  I immediately had an idea for the topic and a way to theme them across the three that I made.  I have used both the Wee Africa stamp sets as well as the silhouettes from the African set and the Zebras stamp and mask from the Giraffes, Lions & Zebras set by Claritystamp.  I have always enjoyed building up scenes and this was really fun to do on a small scale.  I am also entering these in the Emerald City Crafts Challenge #2: Anything Goes.
Having cut three cards 2.5" x 3.5" from Sheena's stamping card, I followed the same steps for all three cards.  I kept to the same colours and a similar layout so that the three ATCs would look as if they belong together.  Having decided which stamps that I wanted to use, I ran into my first problem; the Zebras wouldn't fit onto the card portrait, but they would landscape.  Having never made an ATC before, I decided not to worry about that and used the stamp anyway.  
First I stamped each stamp in Versamark ink and heat embossed it using Detail Black embossing powder.
 


For the next step I used the Mountains & Hills Mask by Claritystamp and a tiny moon mask.  For the sky, I worked with Stonewashed Adirondack ink and Midnight Blue Artistry ink, and for the landscape, I used Dry Weed Artistry ink in the foreground and Fossilized Amber Distress ink for the additional hills. I moved the mask up each time for the hills, working back over the previous layer with my stencil brush so the hills are darker in the foreground each time.  
The Zebra mask was used for this stage to keep them black and white.


I then added stamping to each ATC.  The grass stamp is the teenie weenie version from the Tree Grove outline stamps and mask set by Claritystamp and the Moon Clouds is from the Stag Outline stamps and mask set from the same company.  The grasses were stamped using Fern Green and Saffron Archival inks with appropriate masking and the moon cloud was stamped using Majestic Blue Versafine ink.  Finally, the appropriate letter from the Claritystamp Word Chain Alphabet was stamped onto each ATC using Jet Black Archival ink and the rest of the saying added using a black Staedtler Triplus fine
liner pen.




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