ATCs or Artistic Trading Cards are meant to be traded for other cards rather than sold although they are now auctioned regularly on e-bay. Their popularity has increased enormously as it is an inexpensive way of acquiring a piece of original art.
Their size is fixed at 2-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches and they can be produced in as little as 10 minutes or considerably longer, depending on how meticulous you are and the medium used. They can be drawn, painted, collaged, stamped or digital or a mixture of some or all of these elements. Full sized collages can be reduced in size, using a photograph editing programme, to the required size.
Objects of desire started life as an A4 sized collage which I then scanned and reduced to the correct size.
Different supports can be used from stiff card, old playing cards or the new magic trading cards which are just the right size and are strong enough to bear multi-layered collages without becoming too deformed. They can also be made from fabric. Usually the backs are not decorated and the artist puts his/her name, title of the card, indication of whether it’s part of a series, date and e-mail address. It is quite easy to produce your own labels for this, if you want.
I first started by cutting out my own cards from stiff card but have now graduated to using ordinary trading cards. I usually start by glueing several trading cards on to a sheet of plain white photocopy paper. I then cut each card out and paint, stamp, collage on top of the white paper or glue a piece of coloured paper on to the card to form the background and then continue collaging on top, as well as rubber stamping, image transfer, layering and adding embellishments. Mostly I use collage to produce my ATCs.
The first ones I ever did were illustrations of opera titles. This one is Madam Butterfly
I then joined a couple of Yahoo groups and participated in a number of swaps on such divers subjects as “eyes” (collage)
“women” (collage and transparencies)
and “goddesses” (collage and rubber stamping)
and “an ephemera challenge” where you had to produce an ATC using bits and pieces of ephemera that someone else in the swap had sent you.
I also experimented using different media. This one is embossed metal and is a detail from the Gundestrup cauldron
http://www.cedarseed.com/air/atc.html has lots of information about how to make them as well as a picture gallery.
Recent Comments