Project 365 Days 197, and 198,

July 16, 2010
July 17, 2010

These two cards are from the Suddenly! series.
They are collages with acrylic paint.

Artists' Trading Cards

Artists' Trading Cards or ATC's for short are gaining popularity across this continent of ours. For those of you who have never heard of ATC's, they are cards the size of sports trading cards made by artists. In the ATC movement there are only two rules: 1. The ATC must be a card the of a sports trading card that is size must be 2 1/2 in. x 3 1/2 in. 2. ATC's are traded, never sold! Otherwise anything goes. Any art techique and genre is acceptable. This is an ideal hobby for kids, grown ups, seniors, artists, non-artists, in short it is a hobby for anyone. The small size is great for beginners because they do not have to spent hours on end to complete the work. ATC's are intended for trade not for sale.

Originally, ATC's were made by artists to exchange with other artists and to get their work out there into the world. These days it's a hobby for people. Hobby that is quick, gets results fast and ATC's are collectables. People like the fact that one can build a fine collection in relatively short time. There are groups created just for thyis purpose. If you want to check out ATC's in greater detail go to http://www.theatcexchange.com/ . This is a small group of ATC enthusiast actively trading their creations. Or you can visit http://www.atcsforall.com/. This is a very large group and there is always something going on for everyone.

NEW HOUSE SHAPED ATC's

I'm taking part in a swap on Yahoo Group "ATCS for All". This is a swap where people create a house shaped ATC and fill it with whatever strikes their fancy. I have created 3 house shaped ATC's. My first ATC houses. I fist cut out the shapes and then gave the cards a background cover. I chose blue because it is the most un-house color. I was contemplating fire engine red color but that seemed too wild to me. Then I put some collage pieces on the cards and gave it several uneven sporadically placed coats of acrylic color. Some thick, I was thinking about stucco; some thin washes as in paint on a house that is at least 100 years old. And voila, house shaped ATC's are here.


The first ATC has some sad clowns on it. The idea occured to me when I was reading about the bad housing market and foreclosures. People who overextended themselves will probably lose their houses unless they do something drastic hence the sad faces of otherwise happy people.

The second card has big window on it, or is it a glass door? In any case it's the way to get inside the house. I put a big cat in the house and some goodies and spices for the people who live there. Goodies so they don't go hungry and spices so the house smells nice. The cat is huge because cats usually rule the house and do pretty much what they want.


The third house is a picture of an old house, maybe 200 years old. To me it looked like one of those houses that should be in Gotham City so I titled this ATC Goth House. The house itself is now probably an apartment house because no single homeowner today can afford an upkeep for such a house unless, of course, that person is a corrupted government official of some obscure Third World country government who can afford such houses because their people pat for them although they cannot afford their own houses. Sort of like government pensions here; people are forced to pay lavish pensions for government workers yet these selfsame people cannot afford to pay their own pensions. This house personifies that kind of situation to me.