My favorite book growing up was “The Littlest Witch” about a little witch who wanted to go out and fly around on a broom like her older sisters. 

Today I have more Halloween decorations than Christmas decorations.

So, I had to participate in at least one Halloween ATC swap.  I also wanted to do something special for my partners, so I came up with two hand-drawn ATCs to send off – one to each partner.  The witches remind me of that favorite book from my childhood.  Both are outlined with a Sharpie Pen and water colored.

This piece is a collage that I’ve called “The Coven”.  I made it for a swap in my Swapping Artist group – “Spooktacular”.   I started with canvas board and adhered several pieces of torn paper from an arabic text and some music.  I liked the way the characters looked and I didn’t want words in particular in the background.  Music seemed appropriate because my coven would be singing naturally.  Next I painted the background grey using a dry brush and quick swipes.  Enough for color but still leaving the text showing through.  Then I found the images of my witches and glued them on top of the background with gel medium.  Once they were in place, I used gesso and covered their modern attire and gave a very light thin touch to their faces to soften their details.

Next came painting the robes and then the hair and the facial features.  The robes were done using more acrylic paint and the features and hair was done with a variety of materials – colored pencils, watercolor crayons, micron pens, pencil, etc.  I added the pentacle around the central witches neck – but I made this subtle because I didn’t want it to stick out too much.  Lastly, the back and grey were added around the coven and the moon was added too.   These ladies are standing together under the light of the full moon – illuminated only by the moon’s light.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, but I really need to take a class on drawing faces so I can be more confident in highlighting and drawing facial features.  I will make that a new goal for myself.  I’m sure it’s practice – practice – practice. 

Anyway, Happy Halloween!

I’m in a great swap group on Swap-bot called Artist Trading Cards – Swap Your Art.  The group is dedicated to artistic ATCs – mostly hand drawn, definitely original, little works of art.  I am nearly always stunned by the ATCs that arrive from my partners.   More so than not, I’m pleased with how this group helps me get beyond my comfort zone.  This month we did a swap called “Shall We Collaborate!”  The first seven people to sign up had to list an element that must be present on the ATC.  Every ATC must include EACH element to meet the swap requirements and we ended up with quite a challenging list:

1. Must contain 3 circles
2. Something tactile (but not smooth)
3. An element – Earth, Fire, Water
4. Something metal or metallic
5. Graffiti or Marks
6. An element that moves
7. Something ripped, torn, or shredded 

I’m proud to say that everything on my ATC is recycled, except for the gear (which spins!)

To begin, I simply painted wonderful graffiti backgrounds onto both sides of the junk mail circular ads that come to my house weekly.  I use JoAnn’s cheap acrylic paint and splash colors across the pages.  This is a great way to try out new color combinations and most importantly, to have messy fun.  Once everything is dry, I sewed them together with funky fibers I’ve been saving.  I just used simple book binding stitches found during a google search of how to bind a book.  My journal is really one signature sewn together with the fibers.  This picture shows the cover and fibers, plus some of the pretty color combinations I did on my pages.

Once sewn together, it’s time to journal.  I just started journaling inside recently and have only one completed page – but here it is.  The main theme of the page is “THINK” before you run out and buy something new!  Why not use what you have???

Enjoy!

Anyway, this is a skinny (3 x 5) done for a swap called “That’s Trash” which was held in the Artist Trading Cards – Swap Your Art group on Swap-bot.  The elements were supposed to be made from trash collected from one area.  I chose to collect trash during one of my walks in the park behind my house.  My park turned out to be surprisingly clean, which is really cool.  So I ended up with just some wrappers and pieces of rubber, and a bottle cap.

I just got back from a weekend in Sister’s Oregon where my family has a house and when I started looking at the wrappers, they reminded me instantly of mountains, so I glued them down onto a painted background to look like the Sister’s mountains.  I didn’t change the shape or folds in the papers at all from the way I found them.  The bottle cap became the sun.  Once everything was glued down, I covered the entire thing  with gel medium for some texture and then finished with touches of silver ink and white ink.

In case you are wondering, here is what the real Three Sisters look like, (well at least two of them):

One of the biggest obstacles for me as an artist has always been confidence — hence the theme of my inspiration piece.  It has been the fear that has kept me from creating for years and I still occasionally experience it even now.   I used to approach art timidly, fearing that I just wasn’t good enough - that anything I would create wasn’t art because no one had dubbed me an artist.  I’m happy to say that I’ve grown enough that I am confident – but this is a self – confidence.  It’s not pride, but rather a calm attitude that, like all of life, art is a journey and I’m a traveler.  I don’t need to lead the pack.    The crown signifies the inner strength I’ve developed.  The butterfly, often seen in my creations, represents transformation (naturally) and the little key represents confidence.  Confidence is the key and it is beautiful because it comes from within.  Be confident!

I used masking to create this combination of images.  The color was added using Prismacolor Pens – one of my favorite tools.  The ink of those pens acts very similar to alcohol inks.  I love the mottled result.

This ATC features one of the new products I’ve been playing with — Embossing Paste.  The kind I’ve been using is made by Dreamweaver Stencils.  It’s great stuff.  You place a stencil on the surface and using a pallet knife or other straight edge scraper, spread the paste so that it fills in the stencil design while scraping away the excess.  It dries in a few minutes.  The only color I’ve played with so far is gold, but the paste comes in lots of colors.

I am an officer of a fabulous art swapping group on Swap-Bot called “The Swapping Artist.”  When I stated thinking of swaps I wanted to host, doing a tarot swap was the first on my list.  We’ve got a small amount of people swapping right now, but would certainly love more.  While I can’t wait to see what I get in return, making this card was indeed one of the most rewarding processes I’ve been through in a while.

My design is really simple, but to me it captures the essence of “The Fool” – that youthful self-confidence where nothing stands in your way.  The feeling that you “know it all.”  And finally, the abyss of reality that waits you when you “fall,” rather unexpectedly, off the cliff of life.

I will be hosting swaps for all 22 major arcana cards.  Watch for more!