Birds of the Alphabet: J-K-L ATCs

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The next instalment of the Birds of the Alphabet ATC series, this time featuring J, K and L.

 

 

Java Sparrow

 

King Parrot

Lovely Fairy-wren

Birds of the Alphabet: G-H-I ATCs

Third round of the Birds of the Alphabet ATC swap over at ATCsForAll.com. I stuck with acrylic paints. Pretty happy with the birds, need to be a bit less lazy with the backgrounds I think.

 

Gouldian Finch

Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo

Island Thrush

Birds of the Alphabet: D-E-F ATCs

It is time for the second round of the Birds of the Alphabet ATC swap, this time we are using the letters D, E and F. I wasn't 100% happy with the results of my first set, which I completed in coloured pencil so I decided to give acrylic paints a try this time round. It's still been a long time since I painted anything too but when I was making ATCs regularly I was doing a lot in acrylics so I was kind of hoping it would come back to me a bit easier.

 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results and remembered how much fun I have painting. It is a little bit harder to do than scrapbooking in between looking after a baby though. Harrison decided to wake up just after I'd squeezed out my paints one time. :(

 

Diamond Firetail

 

Eastern Rosella

Flame Robin

ATCs - Kookaburra and Country Stroll

I have had this Kookaburra ATC painted for quite some time now but never got around to matting it on card and trimming it to size. I really like the detail and shading on this one.

 

 

Country Stroll was just a quick landscape, a bit more on the abstract side than I normally work but I figured I was out of practice so wouldn't get the same level of detail as I used to.

 

Bowls on a Table ATC

I've decided that with my extra free time whilst I'm on leave I might try to get back into painting some ATCs. I was really enjoying doing this about a year ago but I only have a limited amount of time to craft each week and when faced with spending a few hours to create a 2.5x3.5 ATC that I trade away or a 12x12 LO that I can keep and look back on I chose the selfish option.

This is my first one for the 13 days, a series of bowls on a table. Again, I really enjoyed doing it. I can clearly see that I'm out of practice but that will only go away by doing more.

I have based the card on the below colour inspiration from Design Seeds. I have only just found this site and it's filled with inspiration. I've also just noticed that my printer seems to alter the colour compared to what I see on screen, will have to try to remember that in future.

Birdie ATCs

I painted up a couple more ATCs for the All-types-of-art-athon over at ATCsForAll. Australia birds are one of my favourite themes to paint and I think I've actually used the lineart for the crimson rosella previously but I had an extra copy lying around so decided to use it. It's been quite a while since I've painted anything but it wasquite fun so I might get back into it.

Landscape ATCs

ATCsforAll.com has a swap running with the theme of painted landscapes. Even though it's been a while since I've done any painting I decided to sign up and use the swap to give me a reason to get messy again. I went with Australian landscapes because I think I live in a beautiful country, even if we're facing way too many natural disasters at the moment. :(

Bird-A-Thon ATC's

I normally trade my ATCs over at ATCsforAll.com and even though I haven't been making too many of them recently I still pop in every now and then. I found out they were having a Bird-A-Thon this week, which involved everyone getting together and making as much bird themed art as they could and then we all go crazy with trades. Given birds are one of my favourite themes to collect I just couldn't pass this up.

Here are the four I've come up with so far:

Castle ATC's

I hosted a Castle themed swap over at ATCsforAll.com. Some of the cards sent in were just stunning! These are the three cards I painted.

Cards 103-105/365 (yes, I am SO behind!): Castles

March PAT ATCs

Back to ATC's again. My March Pick-A-Theme (PAT) cards are due soon, so that's what I created this weekend. It was hard to do actually, as I had my wisdom teeth removed on Saturday morning and I'd start to feel ill if I kept my head down for too long. Rather a mix of styles for this one, which I don't normally like to do but they just didn't all suit the same medium.

Card 97/365: Realistic Turtle

Card 98/365: Colourful Cat

Card 99/365: Happy Clown

Card 100/365: Giraffe

Hen ATCs

Yes, I spent today creating ATCs rather than scrapbooking LO's! It was good to get back into the swing of painting and I'm REALLY happy with how these hens turned out.

Card 93/365: Hen 1

Card 94/365: Hen 2

Card 95/365: Hen 3

Oh, and I also created another ATC while playing around with all the scrapbooking. This one is similar to the Mermaid Portraits I did earlier. Twinkling H2O's, rubber stamps and gel pens again.

Card 96/365: Mother Nature

Naked Blue Man and an Elephant

I am SO behind in the Project 365 but they decided that April's Fools Day was going to have a theme of naked blue men. How could you pass up a theme like that? :)

Card 81/365: Naked Blue Man

I've managed to do another card for the most recent PAT swap I'm taking part in. That's 2 down, six to go with a rapidly approaching deadline. Good thing it's a long weekend!

Card 82/365: Elephant

Numbat ATC

My online ATC trading site has a great game set-up called Pay-It-Forward (PIF for short). Basically you claim an offer of a card from the most recent person to post and then offer your own card for the next person to claim. Some of the threads have specific themes, such as one only accepts watercolour painted cards. One that I'm really enjoying taking part in is the Regional Animal PIF, since I love getting to paint Australian animals. Below is my numbat card. The numbat's habitat is a very small area of Western Australia so I've never seen a real one before but it's still my favourite animal.

Card 67/ 365: Numbat

Watercolour Portrait ATCs

I did up the lineart for these ladies expecting to use them for the Redhead swap I've signed up for. Painted the skin tones first though and didn't really water down the paint enough so they all looked a bit too tanned to be red-heads. Decided to finish them up anyway so now I have 3 lovely brunettes available to trade. I copied the lineart prior to painting so will give them another try and red-heads, just ahven't decided whether I'll go acylics or pencils.

Cards 64-66 / 365: Watercolour Portraits

Don't forget about my BLOG GIVEAWAY either. It's still running until March 22, just click on the picture at the top right of my blog to get to the post. Thanks to all my new followers!

Robot ATCs

I thought I'd try my hand at some robots for a swap over at ATCsforAll.com. These guys weren't the style I had in mind originally but they kind of painted themselves last night. I think they're pretty cute.

Cards 60-63/365: Robots.

I'm stil 4 cards behind where I should be on Project 365, but at least I haven't fallen any further behind. :)

Mushroom ATCs

I've signed up for a mushroom swap over at ATCsforAll.com and thought I'd sit down to paint my cards last night. I learnt two things: 1- Mushrooms are hard to paint. 2 - If you try to paint 3 cards in one night your eyes and back really start to hurt.

Card 57/365: Mushroom 1

Card 58/365: Mushroom 2

Card 59/365: Mushroom 3

I also changed the background to the blog, what do you think about the new colours?

Ruby Mask ATC

A while ago I took part in a masquerade themed swap. I really liked the lineart for the cards so I took a photocopy. The original designs I did in Prismacolour pencils. Decided to give one of them a go in acrylic paints. I think the shading of this one is a look more realistic, and I fixed some things about the mask patterns that had been bothering me.

Card 56/365: Ruby Mask

All-Types-Of-Art-A-Thon

ATCsforAll.com is having an All-Types-Of-Art-A-Thon this weekend, which is basically just an excuse to get everyone creating whatever kind of art they like and going crazy with the trading. Normally when an "A-Thon" is hosted there is a theme, either a medium or a product type, like a Collage-A-Thon where everything you make that weekend is collaged or a Chunky-A-Thon when you can use any medium you like to make 4x4 chunky pages.

I like to participate in these when I have time because it's good to have a thread with lots of activity and you can do a LOT of trading in the weekend. I didn't find out about this A-Thon until Saturday night though, so have only had Sunday to create art. Was really productive this morning and got 5 cards done but then went shopping and have been fighting with the internet to get these loaded since then. I still have ironing to do tonight so not sure if I'll get any more done or not.

Card 51/365: Marsh Sunset Acrylics

I received a very positive response to the Marsh Sunset piece I did in watercolours so decided to try it in acrylics. I'm not sure which one I like best. Ben thinks the watercolours looks like a sunrise and the acrylics like a sunset. I think they just reflect how badly I paint from reference pictures. LOL

Card 52/365: Oranges

I had a 6x6 page drawn up with the theme of 'Orange', basically a lot of images that were orange. Drew it in 2007 but then the other person didn't want to trade so I never actually coloured it. Decided I was sick of it sitting around so picked out the oranges above and the flower and butterfly below and turned them into ATCs.

Card 53/365: Orange Butterfly and Flower

Since I was doing the A-Thon I thought this would be the perfect chance to catch up on the 5 missing cards for Project 365. I'll be very happy if I go into month three only a couple of cards off target! This folk-house card is based on a lovely notepaper design someone sent to me, I think it's adorable.

Card 54/365: Folk House

Last card from this morning is a cute little flowerpot. I'm not sure what kind of flower they are exactly. :)

Card 55/365: Flowerpot