Autumn PAT ATCs

This Pick-a-Theme (PAT) Swap wis different from a regular PAT Swap in that it is organized by Season (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter), then Media (Hand-drawn/hand-Painted OR Collage/Mixed Media), then finally by specific theme within the season you have chosen. I couldn't resist such a specific challenge, even if my current ATC's are few and far between.

Themes for my group: Group 5 ~ Autumn:Hand-drawn/Hand-painted *FULL*

1) BamaKathy ~ Trees, birds, flowers or vegetables in a basket
2) Luvloz ~ Foliage (not Halloween/Thanksgiving related)
3) Shawncaitlin ~ Acorns or Scarecrows
4) ceejay ~ Harvest
5) bernie712 ~ Scary Witches

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

More ATC's

Here is my King Charles II card to finish out the 8 cards needed for the February PAT swap. It's a good thing this host lives in Australia or I'd never make the deadline!

Card 88/365: King Charles II

I also made up two quickies just for an excuse to play with my Twinkling H2O's.

Cards 89 & 90/365: Moroccan Abstracts

I've fallen 10 cards behind now in Project 365! They're having a giveaway today to celebrate the 100th day of the Project. Head on over the check out the details.

More Feb PAT ATCs

I was meant to do four more cards today to finish off the two groups I signed up for in the February Pick-A-Theme swap over at ATCsforAll.com. I only managed to get three done. The deadline is around the 14th and the host in in Australia, so as long as I finish the last card tomorrow I shouldn't have any trouble. I've left the hardest theme until last though: King Charles II.

Card 85/365: Gnome

Card 86/365: Realistic Bird (Cockatoo)

Card 87/ 365: Lyle (bearded lizard)

Pelican and Clouded Snow Leopard ATCs

A couple more ATC's for the February Pick-a-theme swap. I have to make eight cards in total by the end of the weekend. Luckily, a lot of theme are animal themes which I enjoy doing.

Card 83/ 365: Pelican

Card 84/365: Clouded Leopard

Project 365 - Crimson Rosella in Acrylics

I have no idea how this occured, but I think I may be happier with my acrylic work than with my pencil work. This is quite strange considering that I've been working in pencils for 4-5 years now and only started doing acrylic paint work in the past few months. Maybe it's still just the newness factor that makes me like them more? Anyway, here is another Crimson Rosella in acrlic paints. I really do love these birds.

Card 26/365: Crimson Rosella in Acrylics II

Project 365 - Wizard of Oz and Passion/Love

This is a bit of a catch up post for Project 365 since I've been faily slack this past week. I've done 4 cards for the Pick-A-Theme swap which is due soon. I couldn't decide which reference images I wanted to paint so ended up doing two cards for the Wizard of Oz theme and two cards for the passion/love/soulmate theme. I think I'll be sending the slippers and putting Emerald City up for trade. Let me know which one of the passion cards you think I should send.

Card 22/365: Emerald City

Card 23/365: Ruby Slippers

Card 24/ 365: Passion/Love/Soulmate 1

Card 25/365: Passion/Love/Soulmate 2

October PAT ATC's

I finally got my act together and completed these cards ahead of the deadline. The themes for this one were a lady in a corset; alice in wonderland; whimsical Marie Antoinette; and stained glass window. I'm pretty happy with how the set turned out.

September PAT and a Vampire ATCs

I managed to get quite a few cards finished this weekend! It was good to sit down and create some art again. Now all I need to do is get my craft room organised so I can do it again. :)

Mid August PAT ATCs

So I haven't been doing too much craft recently at all. I only just got these cards done in time for their due date. Themes requested were clowns, vampires, the poem "Winkin, Blinkin and Nod" and Santa Claus.

August PAT ATCs - Second Set

Here are the cards for the second group I was part of for the August PAT over at ATCsforAll.com. Themes were pink poodles, character from Hey Diddle Diddle, flying blue crowned conrue parrot and fairy with a mushroom.

Alice in Wonderland PAT

I was very excited to see a Pick-A-Theme swap for Alice in Wonderland characters over at ATCsforAll.com a while ago. I'm not a massive Alice fan but the book has such a range of fantastic characters that I was looking forward to getting to draw. Unfortunately, what I ended up with was a bit dissapointing in terms of the lack of variety. I'm looking forward to seeing people's interpretations of my two requests: the mock turtle and the dodo.

Group One: 2 caterpillars, cheshire cat and artist's choice (mad hatter)

Group Two: gothic Alice, gothic Queen of Hearts, cheshire cat, caterpillar.

Inchies and ATCs

This post has a lot of pictures since I've done a lot of work recently. First up is a set of Pick-A-Theme Inchies I recently completed for a swap. The themes were sunflowers, coffee, flowers and oriental. It's been quite a while since I've done inchies, but I'm happy with the way they turned out. I will be receiving 24 ladybug inchies in return. :)

I offered to make a custom ATC for a lady I had requested a trade with and her chosen theme was mother and son. You can see the card below, done in watercolour pencils.

Finally, while I was once again trying to tidy up my craft desk I decided to try to turn some of those stamping technique samples into ATCs. You can see the results below. The teddy card was a combination of playing with stamps and playing with coffee for the inchies.

May Pick-A-Theme ATCs

Here are the latest set of ATC's I've been working on. The top set had to be hand-drawn, while the bottom set had to be hand-painted. The majority of ATC's I've created since 2005 have been hand-drawn but I really enjoy painting and have recently started to spend some more time practicing. I think it's starting to pay off as I think this is the first time that I've prefered my painted cards over my hand-drawn ones. What do you think?

Finally Some Craft!

It's been a while but I have finally created something crafty again, mainly because the due date for the swap is looming. :P So I managed to create 4 ATC's today for the "What's My Style?" Pick-A-Theme swap over at ATCsforAll.com. I was probably a bit nasty of me to sign up for this since I don't really have a style of my own. Rather than picking an individual theme for this PAT, each player received cards in an approximation of their style. I signed up for a very cool group!


Short explanations from top left:

Janet (crafter412) - I felt a lot of pressure for this one because her cards are just so beautiful. I've collected her landscapes from when she was a newbie at ATCs. While most of the cards I have of hers are watercolours I noticed that she's doing a lot more work in acrylics so that's what I went with. The card is based on a photo I took at Cape Byron Lighthouse. When I showed Ben this one he actually told me to hang onto it because he thought it was so good. :)

Acacia.rose - I was originally going to make a card with chalks and a thick black border, but then saw a more recent set of jungle animal cards she had done and I just had to go with that style.

TotollyOzSome - She has such a cute and simple style. I don't know how she managed to get so much character into her cards, but I struggled to copy that. Anyway, I just couldn't go past a flying monkey since I know she loves them. It's loosely based on one in her gallery.

Lemurkat - I have watched Kat's art for years so I hoped this one would be easy. Wrong! I chose to draw a Golden Pheasant, as Kat loves birds and I thought this one looked strange enough to take her fancy. Unfortunately, it's not endangered like most of her subjects but I'm sure the bird thinks that's a good thing. ;) I tried to get the colouring and background right, plus didn't forget her stylised sun.

March PAT ATCs

Here is the results of the project I've been working on today. At my Artist Trading Card (ATC) online group they run Pick-A-Theme (PAT) swaps. Basically, you sign up into a group and select the theme you want to receive. In return, you need to make one card for each other group member in their requested theme. It's quite a challenge sometimes, but also a good way to get cards on themes which wouldn't normally get enough interest for a whole swap. These are the cards I did for group 5 of the March PAT, which had to be hand-drawn or painted:

The request was a realistic landscape with moutains. I am well aware that landscapes are not my strong point so this was a challenge. I think I do them better in acrylics, so will stick to that from now on.

This request for for a celebrity portrait. I based this off a photo reference of Edward Norton, my favourite actor. While I'm happy with the picture itself, I don't think it looks like him. I didn't manage to capture his distinctive smile.

The request was for skulls for this one. I actually really like the end result.

This last card was a request for an Art Nouveau Queen or Goddess. The lineart is referenced from an image by another artist who put it up as a colouring-in picture.

That's it from me for now. I have to go catch up on some research, so I'm not sure if I'll get any crafting done over the weekend. Hope you have a good one.