My life has been a bit busy in August. We have been finishing up some house projects as well as getting ready for my daughter to return back to her second year of college. Bittersweet it will be. As much as I love having her here and will miss her greatly when she returns, I do feel anxious for a few things to return to normal.
Which is .... a quiet house, a clean bathroom, and food and beverages that stay in the refrigerator for more than a day. Only one more week and this will be the scenario. I can then hopefully relax and focus on my artwork again.
Since my home life has been so busy and I did not have energy (nor the time) for too much of my sculpting projects. As mentioned in my prior post, I decided to fill in what small bits of time I did have in the world of ATCs.
Some of my trades have already started to come to my mailbox. When I received my first few cards in the mail it was very exciting to hold another person's artwork and see their intention, thoughts, and creativity expressed on such a small work space of 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 size. They are like little miniature masterpieces. I cherish each one that I have received so far. I plan to get some ATC sleeves so that I can store my beautiful collection of traded cards.
Wow, what fun! Here is my ATC business card which gets sent out with each of my traded cards.
I have had paints, markers, inks, stamps and stamping pads, embossing powders, heat guns, oil pastels, water colors, pencils, and lots more stuff all over my art table!!
Everyday was a new experiment or technique to see what I liked. I created all sorts of cards using as many different techniques as my supplies could offer. From sweet to spooky.
I did some collage, mixed media, abstracts, plants and trees, and some illustration and drawings. This piece was actually made for Mom for her birthday (along with some other goodies I sent her). It is a photo of her as a baby with her Dad. The old family photos are certainly fun to incorporate into the cards.
I wanted to try it all! My art table looked like a hurricane of art supplies. I was trying not to stress that my clay was buried under all these new and different supplies that were suddenly everywhere. However, I had to relax, and not worry. The clay will just have to wait. So for two weeks I just let my creative instincts do whatever felt good at the moment.
So after trying many different types of cards, textures, glues, paints, and fixatives, I came to realize what I enjoyed the most. Drawing and illustrations and my favorite medium was watercolors.
Each day I will attempt at least one card to make sure I keep learning and participating in the forum and have ongoing successful trades. Eventually I would like to join a forum for trades that is geared more towards hand-drawn illustrations and paintings.
You may visit my Flickr Photostream to view all my cards so far.
So here I am, two weeks later, having thoroughly enjoyed my creative excursion with the ATC's. I have cleaned up the hurricane mess of art supplies. They are all neatly put away in there designated locations in my art room.
.........and what did I find after cleaning up my mess?!! I found my Prosculpt clay! YEAH! It is still here and it is ready for me! I am now ready to get back to my sculpting and the clay.
The little clay babies are calling to me, along with more spirit dolls and fairies and who knows what else! Halloween is also coming up soon and I want to start some fun holiday pieces. So much to do and never enough time to get it all done.
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