Alice and a Pencil Eye

I decided that some of my available cards have been in my gallery too long so gave them a bit of a re-make. The Alice card below I made over so much I decided to count it as a new card.

Card 101/365: New Cup

I think I might try doing a series of these pencil eye cards, they're quite fun and I always enjoy doing pencil work.

Card 102/365: Pencil Eye III

Pencil Eye ATC's

The winner of my blog giveaway requested an eye themed ATC as part of their prize. The card below is the one I created.

Card 91/ 365: Pencil Eye I

I also needed to create a card for the 100 post giveaway over at Project 365 and decided to go with the eye theme again. Tried it on a different paper this time, I think the shading is a bit smoother the second time round.

Card 92/365: Pencil Eye II

Go check out this link if you want a chance to win the above card and 20 other great ATCs!

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

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

Project 365 - More Catch Up Cards

I got so close to catching up with this project, posting card number 74 on day 75 of the project. Then I just lost all motivation. I managed to hussle up some extra cards in case I could find anyone interested in trading at the craft expo I went to yesterday so these will be catch-up cards.

Cards 75- 80 / 365.

Areas of Local Interest Photo ATC's

I've always had a love of photography and thankfully digital cameras mean I'm not wasting as much film as I used to either. It also means that I often jump on the chance to take part in a photography ATC swap. There is one running at my online trading site right now with the theme of Areas of Local Interest. Given that most of the towns in the state I live in count as tourist destinations, espeically the Gold Coast where I live I figured I had to give this one a go.

Card 71/365: Elephant at Australia Zoo

Card 72/365: View of Surfers Paradise coastline from Q1 viewing deck.

Card 73/365: Peace Temple at Southbank, Brisbane

Card 74/365: Surfers Paradise Coastline

I'm now only one card behind for Project 365! I was really hoping to be back on track by 75 but I mis-counted somewhere along the way. :(

Remarkable Redhead ATCs

I am taking part in a 'Remarkable Redhead' swap, as I think I mentioned in my previous post. After the disappointing result using watercolours I tried again with the same lineart using Prismacolour pencils. I'm much happier with the result this time so these will be sent in for the swap.

Card 68-70/ 365: Remarkable Redheads

*Don't forget my BLOG CONTEST is still running*
Just click the picture at the top right of my blog to get all the details.

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

Project 365 - Random Themes

I've been creating some random one-off pieces with no real linking theme for Project 365 the past few days. Stayed in the slightly stylistic vein as the last three.

Card 48/365: Butterfly and Flower

I'd made the background for this one at a stamping samples class. Found it while cleaning my desk and thought I'd trim it down and turn it into an ATC.

Card 49/ 365: Love Quote

And just for something that is a total change of pace I decided to try to do a landscape in watercolours. I think I'm still better using acrylics at the moment, I just can't get watercolours to blend like I want them too. Still, pretty happy with how this one turned out.

Card 50/365: Marsh Sunset Watercolours.

All of the cards posted today are available to trade at this stage.

Watercolour Whimsy ATCs

So I cleaned my desk today and discovered that I had purchased a set of 12 watercolour paints at some stage in the past. I think it might have been just before I decided that acylics were the paints for me. LOL Anyway, thought I'd try my hand at a few quick whimsical style cards. There were some problems before I got the technique right.

Card 45/365: Whimsical Heart

The design for this first one is based on a lovely hand-made card I received from Debby. It was originally all watercolour, but I didn't realise that when you paint a new layer over an old colour with watercolours they actually blend. So rather than a lovely blue colour for the bars I ended up with a murky green. Had to turn to acrylics to fix that mess up.

Card 46/365: Whimsical Sun

The second card went quite a bit better. Ran into a bit of trouble when I mixed the blue with the white in the pack which actually thickens the paint and I wasn't expecting that. The problem was then trying to get the black outline over the top of the paint, I think I've ruined a couple of pens with this piece. Still, I really like the finished effect.

Card 47/365: Whimsical Flower

For this last one I finally had the revelation that when working with watercolours you can do the inking FIRST and just lay the paint down over the top. I'm too used to acrylics where that technique doesn't work. This had the added benefit of letting me erase the pencil lines before painting over them.

Anyway, I figure that's not a bad effort for one day. We're getting closer to the 100th post and the blog giveaway so keep your eyes pealed. Also, don't forget the stop by ATCsforAll.com and see what I have available to trade, I'm getting too many available cards doing Project 365.