TRADER Art TRADER
m a g a z i n e
P U T T I N G T H E A RT I N T R A D E
Issue 6 - Spring 2009
Illustration: Drawing Animals
Interviews with Karen Cattoire Shelli Heinemann
Critique C o r n e r
Beginner’s Mixed Media & Collage Backgrounds
Fabric ATCs
SWAP HOSTING The 101!
Cover background by Karen Cattoire
All About About Tradin ading g ATCs, Altered Art, Art Journals, Chunky Books & Creative Inspiration
Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
Table of Contents 3
Art Trader Contributors
4
Editor’s Note & Letters
5
A Trade Story
7
Design 911: Composition
Spring 2009
Page 13
10
Presenting Your Your Artwork on the Web: Scanning
13
Gallery of Warm Colors: Red, Yellow, Yellow, Orange & Black
15
Fabric Arts 101
18
Artistic Journeys: Watercolor Pencils
23
Feature Interview: Karen Cattoire
28
Gallery: Altered CDs
31
In the Artist’s Studio with Amy Sargent
36
Feature Interview: Shelli Heinemann
42
Gallery: Fabric Cards
44
Beginner’s Mixed Media & Collage: Backgrounds
47
Critique Corner with Andrea Melione
49
Preparing and Shipping of Mail Art
56
Vintage Collage Contest Winner
57
Gallery: Nature Kings
59
Illustration: Drawing (Cute) Animals
64
Petite Artiste: Vivian S.K.
65
Swap Hosting 101
69
What is Whimsy Art?
71
Advertisements
73
How to Contribute to ArtTrader Mag
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Page 57
CHIEF EDITOR COPY EDITOR CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
Dana Driscoll Meran ni Cuill Tracie Rozario Andrea Melione Sal Scheibe Dana Driscoll Amy Sargent Brittany Noethen Shelli Heinemann Sharon Safranyos
ART DIRECTOR ASSOCIATE DESIGNERS
Sal Scheibe Brittany Noethen Andrea Melione ArtTraderMag.com
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[email protected] ag.com Call for Entries: www.arttradermag.com www.arttradermag.com
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
Contributors Brittany Noethen is an artist living in a tech manager’s body. She would rather be decapitated than give up making art, trading A ATCs, TCs, or stop thinking that the phrase “Mufns
or Bust” is hilarious. She currently lives in Iowa with her partner Cat, her 12 year old pit bull, Maggie, and shelves full of art supplies. • www.bnoethen.etsy.co m • arty-iowa-girl.vox.com • www.ickr.com/photos/arty-ia-gir l
Andrea Melione (AKA EraserQueen) has a B.S. in Arts Management and is doggedly pursuing a Master’s in Library Science. She has been involved in Mail Art for ve years ArtTrader Magazine and is the co-founder of IllustratedATCs.com. She is a contributor to ArtTrader
where she is a graphic designer and author. She mainly works in watercolor, colored pencil, acrylics, markers and gel pens. Her work has been in four exhibits, though two were academic and she isn’t sure if that counts enough to sound cool. • artpfunkcentral.blogspot.com • www.ickr.com/photos/littleboot s
Meran niCuill Fascinated by nature and science, Meran ni Cuill attempts daily to translate
her passions into art. Sometimes she feels she even succeeds! And then something else will catch her attention and off she’ll go! Chasing another ideal. Meran enjoys gardening, sunsets, dogs, birds, and just about anything as long as it’s not endless crowds of people. When those present, she’ll retreat to a quiet place and read a book, or cut some glass, both of which she nds therapeutic. • www.meran.etsy.com • atcs2009.meran.fastmail.f m
Dana Driscoll is an experimental artist working in a variety of media including watercolors,
mixed media, oils, clay, book arts, hand papermaking, and altered art. She is currently working on several artistic projects, including painting her way through a 78-card tree tarot deck and combining her love of pottery and bookmaking. When not avoiding the perils of pursuing her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition, she can be found frolicking in nearby forests or hanging out with her nerdy gamer friends. Dana’s work can be found at her blog: artisticjourneys.blogspot.com artisticjourneys.blogspot.com and she can be reached at
[email protected]. • www.artisticjourneys.etsy.co m
Abi Aldrich is a K-6 Art teacher in Wyoming. She sells oil paintings professionally, professionally, makes
pottery because she likes to play in the mud, and generally makes text -based sculptures and installations because that is her true love. Beyond that she loves printmaking, drawing, and graphic design. In all her massive amounts of free time, Abi hangs out with her menagarie, including several rabbits, a chinchilla, a hampster, a cockatiel and a large bearded dragon. She also calls West Africa every night to talk to the love of her life, Gee. So in a nutshell, she is a nut who likes to make a mess in art! www.abigayle.etsy.com
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Contributors Sal Scheibe works as a creative designer for print and web and also as a freelance illustrator. illustrator. Her designs and artwork have appeared in books, CDs and DVDs and posters. Sal is currently working on a number of large canvas paintings for art shows. She also enjoys trading ATCs and is an administrator at IllustratedATCs.com. Sal’s favorite artists and illustrators include Joe Sorren, J.C. Leyendecker, William Bougereau and John Singer Sargent. Her favored mediums are acrylic paint, colored pencils and markers. • www.slscheibe.co m • www.ickr.com/photos/ameras u
Amy L. Sargent is a poet, mixed-media artist, and writing professor living in Roseburg,
Oregon. She trades mail art under the artist ID “amyfaerie” at www.atcsforall.com. She lives with her husband, their three cats, and an old, hand-me-down dog. When not writing, making art, or teaching, she is most certainly at the post ofce or at a thrift store.
Angela Kingston-Smith (aka LemurKat) is an illustrator illustrator,, not an artist. With her quirky, quirky,
whimsical style she can turn anything cute and her art now graces the walls of fellow artists all over the world, from Guatemala to Madagascar. She hails from the lovely south island of New Zealand, and loves to add a “kiwi avour” to her art. Kat is also a dedicated bibliophile.
Her motto is “always bring a book”. When she is not drawing, reading, sleeping or working, Kat is usually writing (or editing). For more information on LemurKat or to see more of her art, pay a visit to her online gallery at deviantart. • lemurkat.deviantart.com
Tracie Rozario Residing on the Sunny West Coast of Australia, Tracie is a self taught
artist and lives with her husband, 3 children, 2 cats and 2 dogs. Her preferred medium is anything she can paint or draw with. Her passion lies in fantasy and portraits and much of her work revolves around that theme: fantasy and whimsical style. She believes that her biggest artistic inuence is the Impressionist movement. The use of vibrant ‘true’ colors,
visible brush strokes and freedom that the movement represents has always inspired her. From taking the step of trading ATCs, Tracie has found herself also creating altered Dominos, art dolls, 4”x4” chunky book pages, 8”x8” journal pages, altered Rolodex address cards and even creating her own line of polymer stamps; things that she would never have known about or even thought about doing. Tracie is a self-taught artist and is a qualied
Parchment Craft Australia Teacher and Duncan Ceramics Teacher. She also paints larger works on commission. • www.purplerealm.etsy.co m
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
Editor’s Letter
by Dana Driscoll
Here at ArtTrader annou nce our new site, shop, and workshop ArtTrader Magazine we have been very excited to announce series! The new www.arttradermag.com site is full of new features that will inspire you as an artist. First, we have opened up an ArtTrader Store! Our store currently features a variety of fantastic collage sheets and books produced by artists artists in our community. community. The current books featured there include Color: A Collaborative Perspective and The Best of IllustratedATCs.com IllustratedATCs.com 2007 , both created by artists at IllustratedATCs.com. IllustratedATCs.com. We look forward to bringing you even more great books, including the ATCsforALL 2008 and the ArtTrader Year 1 Compilation book! We are also very pleased to announce the rst two workshops in our new online series—Whimsy Art Part I and Part II. II. We hope that you’ll be able to join join us for these interactive online workshops and that they bring you inspiration. Because not everyone knows what “Whimsy Art” exactly is, we have included an article introducing Whimsy Art in this issue.
And, as usual, we have a jam-packed issue full of eye candy, techniques, and so much more! This month we feature technique articles on scanning in your art to display online, an article on Packaging your ATCs for swaps and mailing, and an introduction to collage backgrounds. And if that isn’t enough, we also have a look at the studio of Amy Sargent, and interviews with Karen Cattoire and Shelli Heinemann. We also have our regular columns, including Artistic Journeys, Design 911, 911, Petite Artiste, Artiste, and more. So read, be inspired, and go create some art!
Everyone is here on earth as an artist; to tell his particular story or sing her irreplaceable song; to leave a unique creative signature. Leonard Wolf
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
A Trade Story The cards and poem displayed here were created by David Diamond (Morning Walk) and Pamela Vosseller (The Rose), artists who trade at IllustratedATCs.com. In November, David saw a beautiful ower card displayed in the Illustratedatcs.com gallery titled “The Rose” by Pamela Vosseller.. He asked for the Vosseller card in trade, and promised a custom card in return. Pam happily sent off “The Rose” to David just as David’s wife, Irene, became seriously ill due to cancer complications. David’s wife passed away in late January, and David asked Pam for permission to incorporate “The Rose” into a memory tribute card to give to people attending Irene’s memorial service. “The Rose” was printed on watercolor paper and a nd included a poem to Irene on the back. David keeps the card now on an altar in his bedroom dedicated to Irene. Just recently David was able to begin working on his art once again. His rst project was to nish the ATC for Pam. He knew he wanted to create something extremely special, and “A Morning Walk” was the card he created. “A Morning Walk” was chosen as IllustratedATCs.com Card of the Month for February 2009.
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
Design 911h by Andrea Melione
The impact of color is tremendous: Not only does color have an emotional impact, it also has an impact on your design and the composition of your artwork, be it an ATC or a large mural! Color has the power to attract the eye, take attention away from an element in your work, move the eye around the composition, and make the artwork more exciting to look at. In this issue, we’re going to look at how to use this power to enhance the design of our personal artwork.
To Draw Attention Around an Image Color is a powerful tool to move the viewer’s eye through a piece of artwork. You can easily guide the viewer though your composition, using color. This postcard has a lot going on. Though there appears to be an explosion of color, the color is in fact carefully controlled. The text “Peace for All’ is a very light green, and green, of course, contains yellow. yellow. None of the other areas of color within within the image contain yellow; they are either purple (red and blue) or blue. In addition, the light green is also the lightest color in the composition, adding the very important element of contrast. The light green word “Peace” seems to drip down through the rest of the lettering, and on down around the left hand, leading the viewer’s eye completely through the image.
Color Composition Tip: Before adding color to your artwork, take a sheet of scratch paper and test the color you want to use rst. Some shades of color work better together than others. If you do not have experience in color theory, it is a good idea to plan color rst. As you gain experience, you will gradually learn to use color intuitively; but in the beginning itit is best to make decisions based on experimentation, rather than random choices!
Postcard by Andrea Melione
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
To Draw Dra w Attention Attentio n Away You can actually use color to draw attention away from something in your art (such as a mistake!) Use a neutral color for the area you wish to draw dra w attention from, and use brighter, more intense color (this is called saturation) in an area away from the neutral colors. Let’s look at the Peace postcard once more: You will see that the hands are a neutral color. Skin color can be any color; red, yellow, yellow, black, brown etc. But the hands for this image were specically colored a neutral tan/gray so as not to compete with the round Earth! Because a neutral color can so easily fade into the background, the hands are outlined in fuchsia, so as to remain visible to the eye. Fuchsia was carefully chosen, though, so it would remain cohesive with the rest of the purple/blue elements in the design.
To Draw D raw Attention Attent ion To The same principle applies here. If you wish to draw attention to a face, or to text, use color to draw the eye. This postcard has a really difcult composition: The text and collaged hand are almost competing with the cupcake because they take up about the the same amount of space in the postcard. However, you can use color to save an iffy composition such as this. Notice that that hand/text area and the background all are fuchsias, blues and purples. All of these colors have some amount of blue blue in them, and are considered ‘cool’ in temperature. In order to draw the eye toward the cupcake, I used warm colors, colors that would contain some amount of yellow. yellow. The green surrounding the cupcake contain yellow (yellow + blue = green), and I shaded the pink frosting with orange (yellow + red = orange) to warm it up! The cherry girl’s skirt is green and yellow, and the cake portion of the cupcake is a warm brown (which also contains yellow.) I left the collaged ‘pointing hand’ a neutral gray so as not to stand out more than it already does; the gray is tied into the color composition by the silver I used around the border of the card.
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
Contrast with Color Contrast is simply a way to enhance the visual quality of an artwork and make it look more interesting. Think of cartoons in your newspaper: The ones that grab your attention the quickest are not the ones that feature simple line drawings, but the ones that feature a use of strong areas of black, or ones that use ‘half tones’ which are grays for shading. Color can be used for the same eye-catching effect. Thus, tonal value (the scale from light to dark) is very ver y important, even with color, which also has a value of light to dark. Instead of creating a collage or painting with with medium blues and medium purples, shake it up a bit by varying the the light or darkness of the blues or purples. For example, if you are creating a color wash over your y our collage, vary how much paint you mix with the water: A lot of water will give a light colored wash, and less water and more paint will give a more intense colored wash. One thing that can be good to avoid is muddy color and color of all the same value, or color that does not match the mood you are trying to convey. Is your work cheerful? Avoid muddy colors! Muddy color is created when you mix too many colors together, such as mixing purple and yellow, or red, blue and yellow together. Muddy colors, or neutrals can actually convey a mood very well (such as contemplation, or fear) if you know how to use them, but contrast is still important! This card here has a distinct brown/red/neutral scheme but contrast is created with the use of white.
Collage or other media is no different; make sure your work has contrast, with lights and darks. And be careful where you place them: The whitest whites and the blackest blacks should not be added randomly (such in a collage or abstract) but placed with with a composition in mind! For more ideas about composition of elements (rather than color), read the Design 911 column in issue four of ArtTrader ArtTrader Mag .
Color is a crucial component of your design; de sign; try to make intentional decisions on how you use color, keeping some of the above tips in mind. In the next issue, I’ll be discussing how to create a cohesive composition through through Gestalt Theory! (Trust me, it’s much less complicated than it sounds!)
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e Presenting Your Artwork on the Web: Scanning By Tracie Rozario Today’s technology has allowed us to reach millions of people with our art, to showcase our talents to places around a round the world that only 15 years ago was a privilege of a select few. The tools we use to replicate our art for the Web are getting more and more advanced and yet accessible each day. Scanners, digital cameras and editing software are more affordable than ever and make the job of showing our art easier. The way art is presented on the web can help an artist get sales or trades initiated. What potential purchasers or traders see rst is the image on the Web and may never have a chance to see the art in person until after the trade or sale is complete. As the old saying goes, rst impressions count, and that couldn’t be truer for an artist on the web. There is nothing appealing about a badly scanned or photographed image no matter how creative and stunning the piece is.
First Fir st impressions count. The way art is presented on the web can help an artist get sales or trades initiated.
There are a few things an artist can do to help improve the quality of their art’s presentation on the Web. When scanning or photographing your artwork, it is important to do it in the highest resolution possible. This may take your scanner a little longer to create the scan, but the benets far outweigh the additional time it takes. You should always think 'just in case I get published'— which means keeping a highresolution image of your art on le. As publishers require high-resolution images, why risk being rejected due to not being able to provide a good quality image? These high-resolution scans then become your basis for creating your image for the web. Above are two examples of a low-resolution scan that has been badly cropped and a high resolution scan, neatly cropped, of the same image. 2D art is best scanned and allows for the best possible poss ible recreation of your image. So we will look at 'how' to do this in more detail. -10-
Art TRADER m a g a z i n e All scanners come with software to use; this is always the best way to scan your work unless you are familiar with scanning through editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Ensure that your scanning bed is clean. It is amazing how many little pieces of uff, dust, glue, paint, etc., can adhere to the scanning bed. A good way to clean it is by using a microber cloth and a cleaner for eyeglasses. Don’t spray the cleaner directly on the bed, but onto the microber cloth.
Next look at your scanner’s settings. A good standard resolution is around 300-400dpi. Make sure that you have set it to this higher resolution in the settings. Secondly, ensure that your scanner is set for the correct document type. Some of the newer scanners have an 'auto detect' function which prescans your work and sets the scanner to the corresponding document type. Common document types include black and white, newspaper, text, photo, and so forth. If your scanner requires you to manually set the type, make sure you scan all your colored work with a color photo setting, for colored and black and white photo for black and white white images only. only. Shaded black and white images scan better on a colored photo setting. Scan your artwork and save it 'as is' to a le on your computer. This will become your 'record' of your art, a raw un-cropped high-resolution copy.
The next steps occur in your photo editing software. Editing your image this way gives you the best control of how your image appears on the web. Following certain steps each time will ensure that nothing gets missed. 1. Open your image in your editing software. And use the software to rotate the image into a straight position. 2. Once the image is straight, crop the image to as close to the edge of the art as possible. Even go ing slightly inside your design is ok. 3. Once it is cropped, zoom into the image and look to see if the scanner has picked up any bits of stuff from the scanner bed. If it has, use the 'spot healing brush' to remove those marks. 4. At this point, I recommend saving it as another high-resolution copy of your work. Rename the le when you do this. 5. Finally most of the editing software has a 'save for web' option. When you use this reducing your work to around 40% is a good idea and saving it as 'high' or 'medium' resolution. This nal save of your work is the image you use on the web.
Scanning, cropping and editing e diting your image ensures that you are shown to the world at your best
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
PENCIL & GRAPHITE DRAWINGS
Pencil/graphite drawings often loose a lot of detail in a scan, no matter what setting you use.
Couchart at IllustratedATCs.com has a simple solution to retain a precise scan of pencil drawings. She suggests laying a standard clear transparency between your scanner and your artwork before scanning. Adding the transparency diffuses the scanner’s light so it doesn’t reect directly on the graphite/pencil. These images were created and scanned by Couchart (Cynthia Couch). Couch ). The image on the left is without the transparency and the image on the right is with the transparency. The difference is amazing.
Scanning, cropping and editing your image ensures that you are shown to the world at your best. It may require a little bit of extra work, which over time becomes second nature, but it’s a small price to pay to always put your best foot forward.
Artw ork by Artwork b y Tracie Rozari Rozario o & Cynthia Crouch
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Gallery of Warm Colors Red, Yellow, Orange and Black F r o m t h e a r t i s t s o f AT C s f o r A l l . co m
Marlene Koons
Grace Wolf
Margaux Lashbrook
Betty Yeo
Elena Garcia
Joni Owens
Gail Flanders
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Sue Spencer
Charlie Dale
Kati Barrett
Color is the language of the poets. p oets. It is i s astonishingly astonishingly lovely lovely. To speak it is a privilege. privil ege. Keith Crown
Martine Schutt
Paula Perrin
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Shirley Wolfe
Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
Fabric ATCs 101 OrtheDemysticationofFabric! by Sharon Safranyos What makes a fabric ATC ATC different from any other ATC? ATC? Nothing except that the medium is fabric rather than paper, pencil, or paint. So why is fabric art so scary? I guess for the same reason watercolor painting is so scary to me! Fabric art is different different , and you have not used it before. The terminology and sheer volume of terms can also be intimidating: Cottons and man made bres, wool and other bres to wet felt, needle felt, fel t, painting on silk, dying silk, heat distressing, and more. If you are not familiar with fabric and how it behaves it, it can be very scary. scary. Fear not! Read on and see the possibilities fabric has to offer o ffer the ATC ATC artist.
How do I make an ATC base? There are many choices for creating the base of a fabric ATC. Most fabric needs a stabilizer of some sort if you are going to be doing any stitching on the card. Stabilizers can be as simple as freezer paper ironed onto the back of the fabric, or the specialized stabilizers used in machine embroidery. embroidery. One of the stiffest products you can use is the stiffener used in curtain making; it can be purchased from fabric stores and is usually called buckram. Fabric stores also also sell a most useful product known as iron-on adhesive, there are many brands and many can be used in ATCs. Misty-Fuse is another iron-on adhesive produced more for quilters, it is great to use on silk as it doesn’t leave any adhesive marks.
What do I use to make the card? I can hear you say, say, “But I don’t have a stash of fabric!” I admit it, I do have a fabric stash. I have fabric in bins and boxes and drawers, but I have been addicted to to fabric for many many years! You don’t need a huge stash, and you don’t need to spend a fortune in a fancy fabric store to make fabric ATCs. ATCs. You can use clothes the kids have grown out off, cut off legs from jeans, or nds from a thrift store. Even the Dollar Store may have goodies you had never though of: lace placemats, bandanas and tea-towels. Any fabric can be used with a little imagination: plain cotton, printed cotton, wool, lace denim, silk, ultrasuede, and velvet. You can stamp on it, paint on it as well as stitch it!
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But what do I do with it? Although a sewing machine is extremely useful (so useful that I have seven, all the way from my Gran’s treadle machine to a computerized all singing, all dancing, treasure!), having a sewing machine is not essential. You can create a fabric collage card using gel medium on a card car d base (see Collage T Tangled angled at bottom) and add in other media such as paper and paint or stamps. To try this, just think of fabric in the same way you would if you were going to collage with paper. Many printed fabrics can make interesting collages by virtue of the prints themselves, such as the landscape card shown here at right. If you have access to a sewing machine, then the possibilities are endless! You You can embellish the existing ex isting fabric with stitching, either straight stitching or pre-programmed stitches if your machine has them. You can stitch around the existing image on the fabric. This can be especially effective if quilting batting is used under the fabric; it almost makes a sculpted card. Fabric collage can also be done using stitching to anchor the fabric as in this card where the poppies are held down with zig zag stitches. The Poppies card shown here (at right) was done using free motion stitching where the feed dogs have been lowered and the fabric is moved by your hands rather than the machine pulling the fabric through using the feed dogs. For more information on free motion stitching or thread-painting see the excellent article by Cathy Greene in ArtTrader Mag , issue four. Even if you only feel condent enough to stitch in a straight line you can create a lovely ATC using straight stitches, and built-in stitches if your machine has them.
Ribbons can be added as well as fancy yarn and other threads. You can, of course, hand stitch on fabric! Beads and sequins can be added, as well as other embellishments such as rhinestones, fancy threads, and charms. Your inspiration can come from the same place as when you create other cards or it can come from the fabric itself.
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HowtoInishmycard? Fabric can fray over time and even if your card was glued to the base, threads can work their way free and you end up with a ratty looking card after a while. My favorite way to nish fabric cards is to use zig-zag stitch around the edges. You You will have to practice this to nd the best settings for your machine, but as a starting point I usually set the stitch width between 3.5 and 4mm depending upon the card, and the stitch length between 0.5 and 0.2 mm. When the needle is to the right, it should be just off the edge of the fabric. Another way to nish the edges if you don’t want to stitch them is to brush the edges with an acrylic paint such as Jacquard Lumiere. This can give the edges a metallic look too which can be very effective.
Conclusion To summarize, to create fabric ATCs: • Think of fabric as just another art media. • If you are going to stitch on the card then a stabilizer is essential; this will stop the fabric puckering as you stitch. • Gel medium works well on fabric. • Practice, practice, practice! So what are you waiting for? What, you really don’t have any fabric at all? No excuse! To get the novices going, I will send the rst 6 people who PM me with a 4x6 inch envelope with fabric, stiffener stiffener for base, iron-on adhesive, ribbon and yarn to inspire you. Just send a PM to Pippin at ATCsforAll.com. Happy creating!
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Artistic Journeys:
Introduction to Watercolor Pencils by: Dana Driscoll
Watercolor pencils are a hybrid between drawing and painting that are highly transportable and exible. Watercolor pencils differ from normal colored pencils in the sense that they are water soluble (I think of it similar to dried paint in pencil form). You can draw with them as normal pencils, create watercolor washes, or even create whole paintings! They are also rather economical and easy to clean up, making them the perfect addition to your artistic repertoire. Finally, Finally, watercolor pencils are perfect for vacations or outdoor drawing!
What materials do I need to start Pencils If you want good quality pencils, you will have to be willing to pay a bit more. When I was quite young, my parents bought me a set of Crayola watercolor pencils. I had them for a long time, and later purchased a set of Kimberly watercolor pencils. I was was amazed at the difference in quality between the two brands! Then of course, I bought some Faber Castell watercolor pencils and Derwent Inktense pencils—both fantastic brands. I was recently given a set of Prismacolor watercolor pencils by a friend, and these are also quite nice. One of the things you’ll nd is
that different pencil brands have different softness, which affects the application of color on the the page. If you are serious about working with watercolor pencils, it might benet you to purchase several types of brands to see which ones you like. Unfortunately, Unfortunately, watercolor pencils are not graded like normal pencils (graded for hardness, such as 9H) so you just have to experiment.
As a nal note, you should keep
your watercolor pencils stored separately from your regular colored pencils. Otherwise, you can end up with working on a piece you thought was all watercolor pencils, but is really only partially watercolor pencil (and ruin whatever design you were hoping to achieve).
Solvent, Sponges, and Other Blenders You can also have handy solvent (optional for techniques), Q-tips, paper towels, sponges (optional for techniques), and a colorless blender (paper or marker, usually found in drawing aisle (optional for techniques). I’ll cover cover using these in more detail below.
Brushes For watercolor pencils, you’ll want to use watercolor brushes (these are brushes with longer, softer bristles). For ATC ATC sized cards, smaller sizes of brushes work best. If you are doing larger work, however, denitely switch to a larger brush so that you can avoid inconsistencies in your water application. I prefer prefer using the round brushes for watercolor pencil work as the water ows smoothly into the pigment on the page and you can work in softer edges than with the square brushes.
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Watercolor Pencils and ATCs I’ve used watercolor pencils for many of my ATCs, especially the ones I have done for swaps. I nd that since the pencils lend themselves so well to ne detail, I can work in the smaller format with ease with the watercolor pencils. They really are a fantastic resource for ATC creators!
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Many of the techniques I talk about next are not mutually exclusive—you don’t need to stick to only one technique, but rather can do several overlapping techniques. The overlapping of techniques can produce some of the best work!
Colored Pencil Technique An easy way to use watercolor pencils is to simply use them like regular pencils. They give you a very rich color and have a different texture than regular colored pencils, allowing you to create different effects. If you are going to use them as normal pencils, I suggest you seal them with a spray workable xative or laminate so that they don’t come in contact with water and ruin your design. DO NOT seal them with a wet/brush-on varnish! The colors will mix together and your image won’t be the way you want it. Honestly though, if you are only going to use them as colored pencils, you should really just be using colored pencils (oil-based colored pencils give a similar similar look and feel). This allows you to avoid “accidents” such as water drips or using the wrong sealer.
Using the Pencil in Other Ways You can use the watercolor pencil to achieve many effects. One technique is to take a small blade and scrape pieces of the paint off of it in small chunks. Sprinkle these chunks into wet paper (I sometimes sprinkle them into a freshly made piece of wet handmade paper) and they will bleed and create interesting patterns. This quickly uses up your pencils, however! however! If you want to conserve, you can take the pieces from the pencil shavings. A second way you can use the pencil is by grabbing the paint from it directly with a wet brush. So in this case, your pencil becomes nothing but a mini well of paint for for you to use. This is good to use for touching up pieces, but not for large-scale applications! Not just a Wet Brush!
Painting Technique (i.e. Wet Brush) My favorite way to use watercolor pencils is to rst draw in a design as if I’m using colored pencils, then use a wet brush and water to “paint” that design into the paper. I nd that I can get more precise designs this way than having to use watercolors or pencils alone. I can also work on my designs in places that normal watercolors would have difculty going (like the bus station!)
There is a ratio between the amount of color you add to your page and how brilliant the effect becomes. I recommend adding your color in layers instead of all at once, as you’ll get more subtle undertones and an overall more consistent color. color. You can also mix the colors you use for even more complex color combinations. I almost always use at least two or three colors for each color area I am working on. As soon as you apply the water to the pencilling, you’ll nd that the drawing explodes in brilliant color! This is great if color is what you want—but be careful! If you are going for a muted tone, you’ll want to be cautious of how much pencil you apply; the colors could
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You can also use other brushlike materials to create effects. A wet or semi-wet sponge on a colored surface will produce a neat design! You can also use a sponge or Q-tip to remove some of the color when the paint is still wet on the page. You can use solvent instead of water to create a very different type of effect—solvent makes your watercolor pencils very transparent when compared with water. water. I’ve managed to to get almost alcohol-ink like effects with them! For those of you who like rubber stamping—watercolor pencils are a fantastic way to add color to your designs. Because of the
Art TRADER m a g a z i n e ne control you can get with
them, your designs can become very, very intricate!
Layering of Paint and Other Media One of the neatest things about watercolor pencils is that since you can use so many techniques with them, they take well to layering of those techniques. So start with a wash, for example, and then use a wet pencil for bold lines! The techniques will complement each other. I also encourage you to use these pencils with other media. I’m very fond of using watercolor pencils with ink to create more contrast. You can also use both regular pencil and watercolor pencil in a design—the watercolor pencil will turn into paint but the regular pencils will stay put! Crayons or wax resist also produce very interesting combinations. Experiment and have fun!
end up much brighter or deeper than you intended. If you want muted tones, only use the smallest amount of pencil—what it looks like before and after you have added the water can be strikingly different indeed! One of the techniques I like to use is to make your edges darker and your interior lighter. lighter. This is something that is more difcult to achieve with regular watercolors, but is relatively easy with watercolor pencils. You’ll see it on my nished piece on page 21 — simply add double the pigment around the edges and be mindful when you are applying your water to the page. You should pay attention to your brush strokes when applying the color—different patterns can end in different designs. I apply color to one section of color at a time, always rinsing my brush with water before moving to a new colored section. You have to work very quickly—if you let the paper dry on one section, you will get a cloudy line or splotch where the wet and dry sections meet. Its better to keep a section slightly wet as you go along, or to work your way along a complete section. This is more of a problem with larger sections of color than with smaller sections of color. When you are lling in your color with your brush, you may also nd that the brush has too much paint and the colors are getting too saturated. Simply dunk your paint brush back into your water and swish it around and then you will have a clean brush to work with. If you want consistent color in places, this is is a very important technique. I often dip my my brush back into my paint after every two or three strokes or so to maintain my color consistency.
Wet Paper Technique Another technique you can use is the wet paper technique. With this technique, you begin by wetting a blank piece of watercolor paper. After wetting the paper, paper, begin drawing with your pencils. How much water you use will impact how far the watercolor pencils will spread. This will give you soft lines but still fairly bright colors. This technique can be used with the wet brush technique, but only very carefully and AFTER you have done your wet brush work. Once you do the “painting” part of the wet brush technique, your paint is adhered to the paper quite well and could take on a bit more water. water. You might get some muddy results depending on how much pencil you used, however. -20-
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Wet Pencil Technique You can also choose to wet your pencil and apply it to dry paper. You can wet your pencil with water or with solvent for different types of effects. The wet pencil technique produces very brilliant lines of solid color. This technique works very well in conjunction with the wet brush technique. Let your paper dry out completely after painting the color in with the wet brush and then draw with the wet pencil to add deeper, more brilliant hues.
Watercolor Pencil Painting Walkthrough
The following is a walkthrough using some of the the techniques I described above. The image was a fantasy piece I created for my signicant other for a Christmas gift—two fairies, myself and him, playing our musical instruments!
1. Pencil Drawing: First, I started with a pencil drawing of the nal image I wanted to produce. The drawing was done on watercolor paper with a little bit of roughness, but not too much.
2. Watercolor Pencil Application: I have started to apply the watercolor pencil to the gures in the center. center. You can already see how I’ve added more pigment to the outside areas to get shaded edges.
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3. More Pigment: I applied water to the two gures in the center and have now begun to add in the colors for the owers. With watercolor pencils, it really doesn’t matter if you do your background or foreground rst.
4. And Yet More Pigment: I’ve lled in the details on the owers and added the paint. Now I’ve begun to ll out the trees, grass and tree trunk.
5. Water applied! The rest of the pigment has been lled in and the watercolor pencil has been applied. Notice the difference in color from the earlier images to this one.
6. Adding Finishing Details: Watercolor pencils are wonderful on their own, but I decided to go back in and add some white acrylic for highlights and also some ink on the edges to make them more dened. The nal result is on page 21.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this issue’s Artistic Journeys column. Watercolor pencils have much to offer offer the mail artist, so have fun and experiment!
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Karen Cattoire Interviewed by Andrea Melione
Karen Cattoire, a ber artist, paints with her thread, adds sparkle with beads and uses mirrors to create her magic. So much emotion can be expressed through pure color. color. Her art can evoke the joy joy of sunshine on the skin, the mystery of the ocean depths and the exotic scent of spices at a Middle Eastern marketplace. In this issue, Karen shares with us her experiences and inspirations.
Tell us a little about yourself. Karen: Well... I am French, 40, and I live on a wonderful, peaceful, paradise-like island in the South Pacic Ocean, in the archipelago of Vanuatu. I settled there last year in November, and before that, for 15 years or so, I was a kind of globetrotter! I have been living in Sri Lanka for 3 years; before that, I was in Malaysia for 7 years, and before that again, I was in Taiwan Taiwan for 3 Years. I am married to the most adorable husband I could ever dream of, with no children, and happiness all around me! Two Two years ago, I created a company dedicated to gift wrapping made of fabric (mostly raw silk and organdy), organ dy), but the political disastrous condition of Sri Lanka led us to leave the country before the company really took off! off! So, here I am, dedicating all my time to my new passion, creative contemporary ber art, and I just love it! Have you had any formal training in art? Karen: Not at all! Would you believe me if I told you that I was “stapling” my tro users’ hem 4 years ago? Never touched a needle in my life before creating my company. And I was an absolute beginner in the beading eld when I started the challenge called Beading Journal Project inspired by Robin Atkins in June 2007! Everything I learned was from the Internet, even my very rst chain stitch! I got it from the “In a Minute Ago” of Sharon B.! Then, after getting into this eld of bead and fabric, I attended training in France for one week, and that was that! Surng on the Web is just a marvelous trip where you nd all the answers to your questions. It is just limitless! I am seeking new techniques on the web every day, and I really enjoy experimenting all these new techniques and materials on my own. I think it is the best method for me to learn by myself in a remote place where only coconuts and seashells are available for creating! Anyway, Anyway, I think I would be a very bad pupil, as I am reluctant to any reproduction of a model, or copying an existing design! It would work for 3 minutes... and then, I slip away and do it my way! Of course, to learn on my own is time consuming, but I guess this way I got less inuenced by “the way it should be.” I am not too fond of the standards and traditional ways of doing things, and this is why I feel so at ease with art and mixed media; I can get all the freedom I want!
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e You You have traveled a great deal. Where have you been and how have these places inspired you and your work? Karen: Traveling has been my rst passion for more than 25 years! I just love disc overing new cultures, new faces, new landscapes, new colors and smells, new habits, new sounds from the languages and dialects. Every single trip gives me a lesson of humility, and enlarges the spirit. I have been traveling in every single country of Asia, from Japan to the Philippines, China to Indonesia, Nepal to Australia and New Zealand, South Korea to Thailand, and I kept from these wonderful trips some feelings, some images that, for sure, inspires my work today! I guess the most obvious inuence I got from my traveling around Asia was India. I felt in love with with this country, country, so rich in colors, fragrances, ancestral culture; such a rich heritage! When you see all the colors, the embellishments and embroidery of the saris of the women, the traditional outt, it brings you into another world of wonders. The 1001 Nights, Ali Baba and the Magic Lamp, the grandeur of the Marahajahs, and the Taj Taj Mahal. All my series of Shisha embroideries have a direct link with my last trip to Rajasthan; it is obvious! This is the most specic inuence I got from my intense traveling. Other than that, I keep in mind a much more blurred, diffuse feeling from my trips that also inuences my art. I am thinking about the colors in general, the brightness of the landscapes and owers, the traditional Dances from Bali or Thailand, the terric sky’s density after a tropical rain. All these visual elements make me want my pieces to appear bright and alive! This is why I make a lot of use of glass beads and sequins that reect light. As soon as you make a move in front of my work, it changes because the reection of the light gives a movement to the whole piece. We cannot see it in pictures because they are static, but my ber art is very much alive when you can approach it. I like this idea of the observer having an interaction with my work, playing with the light together! Color and composition play a really important role in your art. Do you plan these carefully, carefully, or do you work with them more intuitively? Karen: As I just said, I like the idea of interaction between the observer and my work. In the same way, I like my work to stimulate the imagination of the watcher. How? I only do abstract art, where, off course, composition andcolors are everything! I like to think that when looking at my work, people will be lead to imagine their own little story, they might slide into sweet memories and dream to something that makes them happy. happy. I am myself very much sensitive to colors, especially warm tones. They make me feel good, they move me or hypnotize me depending of my mood! I am very intuitive in my work, work, to answer your question! I never know what it will look like at the end. So, let me tell you how I proceed exactly when I start a new piece.
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e First I choose a color, or a two-color combination; very seldom do I start with a theme, an image or an idea. I put on my table everything related with this color, beads, threads, fabric, paper, paint, appliques, and I start playing with it. After a while, I leave the room, do something else, then come back, have a look to my work, arrange the elements differently, add new ones, remove some others, get out of the room, and this process can last for half a day d ay,, or more! Then, when I have an idea of the background and the emotion that comes out of it, I start to think about what kind of sense, signicance, feeling or direction I want to give to this piece. This time of thinking (giving a signicance to thepiece and also nding the title) is stretchable from one piece to another. Sometimes, the elements “talk” to me very clearly, they just lead me and show me the way; sometimes, they just keep quiet! And that can take a very long time to make them talk, sometimes, weeks! I look at them, try to see through the lines, just like when you try to guess somebody’s secret thoughts, I get patient, then lose patience, then get angry sometimes, then start another piece! And come back once in a while to see if the reluctant piece has nally something to say. It happened once that the piece never talked to me! Then guess what! I chopped it into ATCs pieces, embellished them and traded them all! Tell us a little about how you create your work: How many methods of embroidery do you incorporated into one piece? And can you explain what “Shisha” is? Karen: My rst pieces of work were the rst pages of the Beading Journal Project. I was a real beginner and had not much knowledge on my side to create. So, I was stitching newly learned stitches in front of my computer, pulling my tongue out of my mouth! I made a lot of use of laces at the beginning, which brought me a very nice design that I could embellish quite easily. Then, with the time and my many search results on the web, I got many different techniques I could use to achieve my work. I started to incorporate paper, silk bers, paint, glitter, seeds and everything that could t on the piece. I started gluing the the beads on the round metallic metallic plates that I use for creating my Bubbles series. That was last
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e week! Who know what I will be experimenting with tomorrow? One thing is for sure in my method to create, is that time is not ever taken into consideration to achieve a piece. I take time to make things nice and detailed. No matter how many days it takes. I like the watcher to come very very close to my work to discover how many details he can nd, and stay a long, long time to enjoy all the tangled elements. I make it impossible to see everything in one glance! As for the Shisha, this is an Indian traditional embroidery e mbroidery.. A little bit of history rst: Most of the Banjaras tribes living livi ng in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pardesh provinces (North of India) were using mica or glass cut into different shapes in their embroideries. The slightly convex silver glass used in the past for this process was thought to frighten away evil spirits who were terried by the sight of their own image! Today again, the Shisha embroidery with small mirrors is very popular, and it is still in use to embellish the garments of the Indian ladies. However, in the more commercial items such as cushion covers, wall hangings or purses, the ladies now use a big silver plastic sequin instead of the mirror, mirror, and the effect effect is quite amazing too! I give a contemporary interpretation of the Shisha embroidery in my Shisha pieces. I mix silk bers, which I spread on a raw silk background, free machine stitch over it, and then embellish with lots of beads, bead s, Shisha mirror embroidery and traditional stitches.
Please tell us a little about your materials: What is your favorite thing to work with? What types of fabrics, beads and threads do you use?
Karen: Natural Fibers! No synthetics! My favorite fabric is raw silk. I have tons of it! I especially like its fantastic sheen, and double color thread is the best of all, because as a s you pass by in front of it, it changes of color! Once again, it adds some alive feeling to the material and interaction with the viewer! I have one stunning pieceof raw silk, that shifts from violet to orange, and another exquisite one that changes from sunower yellow to shocking pink! Really R eally amazing material. And I also like the unevenness of the fabric, with sometimes big extras from the cocoon that makes you remember it comes from a worm! I also like t batiks, and I try to avoid any synthetic bers as much as I can. Same thought process for the beads: I prefer glass beads, clay beads or terracotta beads instead of plastic beads. I guess this is a side effect of the deep respect I pay to our planet, and it can show in my choice of material, preferring natural non-pollutant materials instead of an “all plastic way of life!”
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Doyoundtheworkofanyotherartists inspiring?
Karen: I see thousands of creations from Flickr’s artist galleries and there are a lot of very skilled, impassioned, impressive, creative artists, but if you want one name, I guess it will be Arlee Barr! She fascinates me! I don’t think her art inuences me, but I really admire her creativity, the signicance she gives to her art, her sense of humor, and most of all, I am really amazed by the amount of work she has sustained for so long! Never a lack of inspiration, and very skillful! Absolutely original! As for creation, I draw inspiration from every single thing I see in my daily life! It could be a fallen leaf, a bizarre tree, the association of colors on somebody’s clothes, a printed fabric, a left-over on a plate after dinner, but most of the time, it comes from colors.
How did you learn about ATCs? Karen: Surng on the web! I saw these cards were traded from one artist to another, and I found it funny! It is a good way to get a nice artwork from someone who has mastered a technique that you ignore, and the idea of exchanging suits me very well! I wanted to try this tiny format, to see how it feels, and I must admit that I had fun at the beginning, but I felt very quickly short in space on a 2.5 x 3.5 inch surface! So, I sometimes do some 4x4 art squares or postcards, and it is only for trading. I prefer a bigger space to express myself!
Karen Cattoire on the Web! Email:
[email protected] http://www.ickr.com/photos/14552556@N06/ .com/photos/14552556@N06/ Flickr online galery: http://www.ickr
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Altered Altered CDs CDs Collage is the twentieth century’s greatest innovation. - Robert Motherwell -
Darlene Mariano
Eileen Grobeck
Linda Ann Brunton
Tina Jones-Patrides
Lynne Turnbull
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Geraldine Gezza
Rona Kelly
Helen Campbell
Martha Cohen
Joni Owens
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Marilyn Tuley
Shirley Bell
Patricia Walsh
Victoria Holdwick
Shirley Bell
Rona Kelly
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A Look at the Layered Art of Amy L. Sargent and the Studio Space Behind Her Process By Amy L. Sargent
Part I: Developing a Studio Space When my husband and I decided to pack up our household and move to Oregon in the summer of 2008, I had one wish for our new home; I didn’t want my art space to be in the basement any longer. In Pennsylvania, my art was created on a cramped workbench in a corner of a damp, centuryold stone cellar. cellar. In the winter, winter, it was so cold in my little little art dungeon that I constantly dragged projects up into all other rooms of our little house, just to stay warm. My husband had his own wish for our new home—that he could have a spare bedroom as his own space, for workout equipment, video games and our second television.
So, when we landed in Roseburg, Oregon, in what seemed to be an otherwise perfect house, we realized we were stuck— there was only one spare bedroom, and the house had no basement. My husband didn’t care where my art supplies went, as long as he was able to claim c laim that little extra bedroom as his own. So, it didn’t take much discussion—in lieu of adding a table and chairs to our dining room, it became my art studio. The windows along one wall let in ample natural light, and I was able to furnish the space from scratch. My largest piece of studio furniture is the white wooden countertop countert op that lls one wall—it was found in an architectural salvage yard, already painted. I added the trim, made of a salvaged board, and the calico skirts to give myself a little hidden storage. Underneath the skirts, I store scrapbook papers, ephemera and vintage book text. -31-
Art TRADER m a g a z i n e An architectural salvage yard is an absolute treasure to any community that has one—I frequented one when I lived in Pittsburgh, and there are two near my new home. With an open mind and a few dollars, I can leave with a box of rusted switch plates, hinges and knobs, assorted gauges and electrical boxes perfect for use in larger altered art projects. The “Create” sign that hangs on my studio wall is mounted on a piece of board bo ard that was bought for fty cents at the Roseburg salvage store. It also incorporates several old fuses that I bought in the same place. One of the best features of my salvaged countertop is that I have the space to do “prep work” for my collages. I like using transparencies that have been colored with alcohol inks to add a nal overlay to my work, and I’ve recently been incorporating paper towels into my art after I’ve painted them with Lumieres and watercolors. I also like altering vintage book pages with an acrylic-paint laden brayer and using the resulting pages in backgrounds. Often, I’ll I’ll spend an afternoon just creating a stockpile of one or more of these components, so that they’re ready to use at a later later date. So, this countertop is rarely as neat and clean as it is in these photos. My tall green cupboard traveled with me from Pennsylvania—I found it in a shop that sold primitive antiques and knocked out the door’s existing screens to add the fabric panel, which doubles as a makeshift note board on the inside. Inside this cupboard, I store my markers, pens, chunky book & altered art components, and my jewelry supplies. I use the bottom shelf to organize mail art swaps I’m hosting.
On my work table, I have a small book shelf that I use to organize tools I use often—regular writing pens, sketching pencils, my stapler and Xyron machine. Also, a set of vintage metal paper trays (found in a thrift store) is kept here to sort certain ephemera that I use most often—one tray holds painted papers & transparencies, one holds odd scraps of vintage book text, and one holds the blank leaves of paper that one nds at the beginning and end of vintage hardback books. This paper is always yellowed and brittle and usually has a great tooth to it, so I like to rubber stamp on it. Whenever a person sends me a bit of vintage book text, either along with a trade or as a RAK, it gets added to these trays. So, gifted text usually gets incorporated into my artwork faster than any pages from the 100+ “tear-up” books I have stashed around the house. Most of my salvage books come from thrift stores—but I keep an eye out for foreign language books in the dollar bins at used bookstores, too. -32-
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My rubber stamps take up much less room in my new studio than before—I removed all mounted stamps from their wood blocks, and all of them are organized and stored in empty CD cases in a single drawer now. They’re easier to nd, and I nd I use them a lot more often now that I don’t have to dig through several storage bins to nd the image I want. In addition to what hides away in drawers and the cupboard, a lot of my art supplies are on display in the main living area of our home. I’ve worked slowly since the move to replace many of my plastic storage bins with vintage jars and tins that have more v isual appeal. Many of these pieces seem to have their own stories, which I cherish. My favorite piece is a painted lard bucket that holds my alcohol inks. I also collect old coffee and tea tins—these tins—t hese have been collected from thrift shops and charity shops, mostly, but I have found inexpensive containers at antique malls, too. I regularly make the rounds at local thrift shops, usually browsing the aisles at my favorite stores once a week. I have found everything from an unused packet of transparencies to old Scrabble games to antique cabinet cards and vintage German glass beads. I am always looking to add to my art supplies and components of future mixed-media works, and I am paranoid that the week I don’t go to the Salvation Army shop will be the week that they have something amazing that I cannot live live without owning. It takes a little little time, but I am rewarded over and over again. Part Two: Creating a Card in My Workspace
To walk through making an ATC ATC in this space, s pace, I thought I’d make a set of cards. I begin all my cards the same way; I cut recycled re cycled chipboard to size, then cover it with a random layer of scrapbook paper. This is just a base paper—and sometimes very little of it shows through in the nished card. I use a Darice glue runner to adhere the paper in almost all my projects, because the rells are inexpensive, and I can buy them easily at any craft store. On top of the rst full layer of scrapbook paper, I add one or two torn strips of a different printed paper, again with the glue runner. I don’t really worry about matching the papers—everything always works out, and it’s usually the mismatched papers that make my best cards. These torn layers add some visual interest and texture to the card; I like to have something going on behind the card’s focal image—torn papers are an easy way to achieve that. 5
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e Before moving on, I use a permanent paint marker in black to edge my cards, and I draw a crude border on the card with a Caran d’Ache watercolor crayon. Again, I don’t worry about matching the colors. I have been on a kick of using pink or lavender crayon lately, but it rarely matches the paper I use. I smudge the crayon with a dampened paintbrush and let it dry d ry.. Edging a card, especially e specially a collage, with marker and crayon adds a nished, framed look to it that I really like. While cards dry, I select a few pieces of painted paper towel or vintage book text to add to the cards. I paint paper towels towels ahead of time, in batches of 6 or so at a time, to that I have them handy when I want to use them in ATCs ATCs or chunky book pages. I also cut out a few images and run them through my Xyron. For these cards, I am using anatomical hearts I printed from an anatomy book I own. I center each heart on a small torn square of painted paper towel, then use a zigzag stitch on my sewing machine to edge the heart. Again, this is just to add some textural interest. A note on the images I use—I own a large number of antique and vintage photos, which I try to purchase as inexpensively as possible. Occasionally, Occasionally, I’ll nd a handful of photos at a thrift shop, but I’ve bought shoeboxes of photos at ea markets, too. I’m always compiling and making my own collage sheets from these snapshots as well as from copyr ight-free online images. While Google Image Search is often valuable when I need to nd a particular type of image, I try to avoid using photography from the Internet, so that I’m not violating any copyrights. I try to avoid using a lot of purchased images or collage sheets/CDs, just because I feel that I can nd weirder or more unique photos and images on my own. Like with my painted and altered papers, when I’m not in the mood to actually make art, I’ll often watch television or a DVD while cutting out a small pile of images from magazines, scans or rubberstamping sessions.
At this point in making my cards, I adhere the paper towel square to the card that has been drying. To this, I add a few scraps of vintage text— for these cards, the text bits are taken from a French/English medical dictionary—I’m always pleased when I can use seemingly random text to make a statement, or add an additional meaning, to a card—and it’s a bonus when I get a laugh out of it! I then often add stamped images to my cards—in this case, I added a set of wings to the heart and some typewriter keys around the edges. I often lightly color the images with Prismacolor pencils and gel pens. I love to add brightly-colored stars with gel pens and spiraling swirls with metallic marker in random places on the surface of the card, too.
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The card is basically done, but I’ll sometimes add a transparency layer. I cut a piece to size, and I staple it to the face of the ATC ATC with colored staples. I like this technique, because while the ATC stays relatively at, the transparency on top of the paper towel adds a weird “shadowbox” effect to the card— and with 4 or more layers of paper and images underneath, the transparency layer gives the work a little depth as well as an antiqued nish. Occasionally, Occasionally, I’ll use copper foil tape to hold down the transparency instead of staples, but I try to mix it up. In this set of cards, I’ll use machine sewing on two, and copper tape on the other two so that the cards have one technique that’s a little more time-consuming, not n ot both. Despite all of these steps in my card making, I really do love other artists’ distinctive style. Sometimes, the simplest of collage cards appeal to me, and sometimes a watercolor really knocks my socks off! I trade for all sorts of ATCs, but when making my own cards, I like the satisfaction I get from making such a tiny piece of art as layered and detailed as possible. Every once in a while I’ll have a fellow artist tell me that she can recognize my style without turning a card over to nd my name—and this is the greatest compliment I could ever receive. I like to think I have my own distinctive style, and that is also what I nd most appealing in the cards I collect from other artists. Art is a vital, empowering part of my my life. What I love most about mail art is that anyone can nd the condence to embrace their own talents and create their own style, and I enjoy the inclusive nature of online mail art trading communities and art blogs. Now that my studio space affords me the room and natural light I need, I spend more time creating—which relaxes me, challenges me, and entertains me. I host more mail art swaps, I make more ATCs, and I am starting to branch out into creating larger works of altered art. It’s wonderful to have no more spiders in my art supplies or paint aking off cellar walls onto my projects. Regardless of where my little family ends up in the future, I don’t think I’ll be willing to relegate my art to the cellar ever again. The artist, Miss (on ATCsforAll.com), is hosting the aforementioned medically/anatomically-themed ATC swap at www.atcsforall.com. www.atcsforall.com.
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Shelli Heinemann Interview by Andrea Melione Shelli Heinemann, an award winning soft sculpture Teddy Bear artist, has taken on the Mail Art world and blessed it with her luscious French patisserie aesthetic. Her work reects longings for the past combined with the excitement of modern tastes, and her art is sure to thrill a diverse and discerning audience. In this interview she discusses her inspiration, her materials, and how Mail Art has had an impact on her life.
Can you tell us a little about yourself? I’m a mom and a wife rst. My sons, my family, family, are the center of my world and my priority. priority. Art comes second. I couldn’t live happily without either.
I’m also California born, schooled, and raised, and a nd very proud of that; it’s a great state, very progressive and open minded — like me, I think. In the late 80’s and then again in the early 90’s, I attended UCLA, and earned a BA (Psych) and an M.Ed and credential, so I could teach elementary school if I chose. But in 2004, after many wonderful years as an at-home mom, I stumbled inadvertently into a surprisingly rewarding, creative niche making high-end, original teddy bears for adult collectors. Selling from my website and occasionally through eBay is where I earn my wage — for now, now, anyway. anyway. We’ll see how our faltering economy supports that niche going forward! I found Mail Art and ATCs a few years ago now, and I’ve been hooked — and wildly distracted by them, and loving the incredibly incredi bly cool, interesting “art people” peopl e” I’ve met online in this hobby — ever since. I think of myself as an optimist optimist and a seeker, and I love to learn. I hope I’m still learning, still still growing, when I’m 98 and drooling and bedridden and maybe smelling kinda poopy. poopy. No matter how dire things can get sometimes — and things do get dire, at times — I see beauty all around me, and nd magic in surprising places, every single day of my life. life. This makes me one of the luckiest people on earth, I think. So life is good. Have you had any formal art training?
No, none at all. Not a single class; not in elementary, elementary, junior, junior, or high school. No one-day workshops. And no college courses surveying art history, although I admit to one highly specialized class in “Greco-Roman Art and Architecture,” which involved involved a lot of sepia-toned slides. slides. Can you say AMPHORA?!? But I never learned or studied technique. In short, I am art-ignorant, I admit. admit. But I make up for that with with intense curiosity and wide-eyed enthusiasm, and a willingness to try just about anything! -36-
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Whatthemes,artists(visual,performing,etc.)oroutsideinuencesinspireyou? I’m drawn to oddness: to textures, layers and ephemera; to antiques; to romance and owers; to erotica; and to moody, moody, soulful, mystical, or dark objects. I get excited about rich fabrics like mohair, mohair, brocade, velvet and silk, and always nd inspiration in the sweetness of a child’s face. Venetian masks masks inspire me, as does a beautiful piece of vintage satin lingerie or ornate, antique costuming. I am enamored of all things European, particularly France. Japanese themes — pop culture, cherry blossoms, beautiful geisha — are a recent inspiration. And I own that, like so many others, I’m not yet over my drooling infatuation with Soa Coppola’s bon-bon-and-gilt vision of Marie Antoinette and her 18th century life of luxury.
Lately, Lately, I’m absolutely vibrating with excitement about Santos, especially antiques. They have a wonderful patina of age; a spiritual glow that really captures me. And I love that they’re mixed media, media, with glass eyes and plaster heads and metal halos and wooden bodies, their legs replaced by a skirt-shaped cage. I’m sure their inuence will show up somewhere in my art, very soon. Maybe I’ll make a doll. Your bears are exquisite, what materials do you use to make them?
First of all, thank you for the very kind compliment! It never gets old to hear that my bears appeal. Seriously. Serio usly. Tell me again. *smile* *smile * Regarding materials: I’ve dabbled in synthetics and (vintage, repurposed) mink, but most of my bears—99.9% of my bears — are ar e made of mohair, which comes from the angora goat, just l ike cashmere. But while cashmere is basically animal hair — goat wool that’s been gathered, then spun into yarn— mohair is created when a woven fabric backing (usually cotton or linen) is dotted with tufts of hooked-in wool to create a hairy pile.
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e It’s a pricey fabric, to be sure; I spend anywhere from $50 to over $200 per yard on material, which is partly the reason artist bears are so pricey. pricey. But mohair makes the most beautiful bears in my opinion, and it’s relatively easy to work with, and it’s traditional, so it’s my fabric of choice. My bears also feature leather, suede, or wool felt pads and premium glass eyes, which I custom color and lid to suit each bear, plus embroidered noses and shaded features. They’re pretty time-intensive to make, truth be told. Making one leaves my hands hurting, for days. How has being a soft-sculpture artist affected your 2D work?
My bears have a winsomeness to them; I’ve been told repeatedly that they have “heartbreakingly soulful” faces and that people feel compelled to to just hug them, and make them feel better. better. I consider that high praise, because it means my work is is evocative. That soulfulness is what my hands and head and heart want to create when they get busy working; it’s not really the the outcome of intent, I’m afraid. In a weird way, my bears make themselves. Most of my original 2D art has those same qualities; a certain sweetness, alongside a kind of “lostness.” I’m jonesing to create more somber ,provocative and edgy at art, though — something more depthful and adult and alive — in a voice that feels authentic. But I’m frustrated to nd I don’t really have anything serious or provocative or edgy to say! I keep circling around themes of love and innocence and clarity and optimism, all things bright and beautiful, but there’s a part of me that really wants to let loose in a different direction with something grungy and damaged and blackened and profane; because those things are in me, too. I don’t feel I’m repressed or anything; hell, I even have a tattoo. I just can’t make ART of my darker aspects, accessing those shadowy places. Yet, anyway. anyway. Maybe I need to join a biker gang or something; to roughen up around the edges a bit. I’m laughing here...
What is your process for creative brainstorming?
Sometimes, when I’m watching a movie or reading a magazine or viewing someone else’s art, something about it — some quality, some color, some subject — will just sorta fall out of the sky and hit me on the head like a ton of bricks, absolutely out of the blue. And when that happens, this fever will grow inside me, almost instantaneously, to do something with that new inspiration — and I mean RIGHT NOW! I sometimes get to where I can’t stop, can’t sleep, until I’ve started (and often nished) some new art, in those moments.
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e What is your preferred media for your 2D work?
Hmmm. That’s actually a tricky question. I’ve focused on ATCs ATCs and small mail art in my 2D work, and haven’t done anything over 8” x 10” in terms of large pieces, so I’m still nding my “preferred media.” I think I’m an oil painter at heart, though; I love the softness of oils, and their romance, blendability, blendability, and history. history. There’s a sensuality to them, a smeary-ness, I relate to and admire. And every time I play with oils, I surprise myself with — can I say this without sounding obnoxious? — how good my results are. I “think” in oils, perhaps. I can wrap my head around them much more easily than I can watercolors, or markers, or ink. But oils aren’t practical for ATCs ATCs in most cases — they take forever to fully fully dry and require an undercoat. Oil paints eat time. So I’m still still playing around with with mail art media, to nd the best t. I recently received a huge Prisma marker set as a gift, so that’s my my current area of experimentation. Any tips or tricks you like to use or a favorite supply? I can’t live without a white gel pen and/or gesso, and I nd myself using really skinny black neline markers to outline a lot. My paper cutter is a must-have. If I use colored pencils, I must have thinner or spirits to blend them. You’ve also branched into digital work, and have created some really lovely pieces. Can you discuss your digital art a little? What draws you to creating work digitally?
I’m such a hack with my digital stuff! stuff! It’s actually embarrassing. I have no idea what I’m I’m doing. But I can move past that self-consciousness, because it’s so darn fun to draw with a magic, electric pen! And it’s fairly easy to create the kinds of soft effects I like so much with a pen and tablet, and to incorporate photo collage bits into art pieces, and to do and re-do and redo again, because the technology allows those things so readily. readily. For a new 2D artist like me who hasn’t yet learned how NOT to rip holes in watercolor paper when erasing, a digital canvas which can be repaired to perfection is a Godsend. So, you know—I’m hooked. I think, too, that I have an untrained, undeveloped, underlying talent for graphic design, which nowadays is a nearly entirely digital industry, and I’ve done some paid design work with reasonable success in the past, so all that connects the idea of “computer” to “art” for me, too. I guess if I’m intellectualizing things, I can acknowledge that I know more about digital drawing and Photoshop than most laypeople, for sure. But it’s such a complex program, and I have so little experience with it, and no training, and I just play around like a giddy dork and hope for a good outcome.
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Which of your art pieces is your favorite? And how would you describe your personal style and aesthetic?
Like many creative people, I’m self-conscious and critical when it comes to my work, and tend to believe my “favorite” piece will probably be my NEXT piece. Because, you know, know, that’s usually the case! So it’s hard to pin down a “favorite” whether we’re talking about my bears or my 2D work. I guess in terms of original 2D art, a rt, my favorite piece is my Gothic Alice Triptych. Triptych. It’s kinda weird and scary and totally not what you’d expect the characters from Alice in Wonderland to look like. I was proud of my imaginativeness here! And while there’s a fang-y aggressiveness to the imagery, it somehow retains a certain softness, too. I like like that. A close second place nisher is a reproduction I did in oils; part of a Yevgenia Yevgenia Nayberg poster. The beautiful corset and white shoulders of the model are so feminine, and I think I did pretty darn okay with the palette, and with blending, too.
In terms of personal style and aesthetics, I tend to create art that’s soft and gentle and feminine, and I know I admire art created by others in that same style — although I also admire work that’s darker and stranger and more intense than my own.
How did you learn about ATCs?
You know, know, oddly enough, I don’t recall. Isn’t that terrible? Probably while browsing the art/craft/hobby section of some bookstore; I spend a lot of time with my husband drinking soy mochas at Barnes & Noble, while reading cool books. I remember buying a paperback on how to create ATCs ATCs early on, then afterward, afterwar d, nding a trading site online. I think the book chicken came before the trading egg.
“I tend to create art that’s soft and gentle and feminine, and I know I admire art created by others in that same style...” -Shelli Heinemann
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e Has Mail Art had an impact on you as an artist?
What a question. It’s more like: How has Mail Art NOT impacted me as an artist—and a person? I never considered myself an artist at all until I found success and acclaim with my bears, after which I slowly let in that I might, possibly, possibly, be good at soft sculpture. It took me a while to really embrace the idea that I might be an actual “artist” in that realm. The idea that I might someday be an artist in another realm, in a more traditional sense, never even occurred to me until I found mail art. I recognize that I’m still nding my legs, my voice, in at art; I don’t think I’m as far along the 2D artist path as I am with my bears, even after several years of trading and practicing. But even taking baby steps, I’m progressing, and I can feel it unfolding in front of me. I can see the growth potential. I can look at my ickr and see how far I’ve already come, even though I think I have so far left to go. Here’s a telling admission: I used to do pencil sketch portraits of my friends back in college. But I literally never put color to my drawings, ever, in my life, until I made my rst ATC. ATC. I kid you not. I love the people I’ve I’ve met, trading art. I love their varied visions: their unique voices, their divergent histories. I love learning new things, and stretching myself. It’s amazing, but truly, truly, I see things with new eyes! I’ve discovered so many things I never knew I could do, talents I never knew I had, which is so afrming. I’ve had opportunities to write and publish articles and participate on jury panels since becoming a part of the mail art community. community. And I’ve made real friends friends who send me real artworks which make my world more beautiful, and more broad. I even wrote a book, COLOR: A Collaborative my involvement Perspective, which I self-published on Lulu. All these things are direct outgrowths of my with the Mail Art community. community. It’s been absolutely life-expanding. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to credit Mail Art with making my world measurably happier, bigger, and better be tter.. Long live the ATC! ATC!
Find Shelli on the web at: www.potbellyarts.com eMail:
[email protected] Blog: www.potbellyarts.typepad.com Etsy: www.potbellyarts.etsy.com -41-
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Fab FabicA T Cs
jaie usl
ca gn
jd ho -42-
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Fab FabicA T Cs
ka mori
cid vaqz
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
Making Mixed Media Backgrounds: Backgrounds: A Beginner’ Beginn er’ss Approach Approach By Sal Scheibe
I’m a fairly new artist to the world of vintage images; pointy hats and collage and much of what I’ve learned is the result of trial and error. I’ll admit that my rst efforts were really poor, embarrassingly so! But through some research, lots of inspiration and a handful or two of practice, I’ve come up with some simple background techniques that serve me well when making a collage/mixed media piece. Now, I’m not Jane Professional Collage Artist here — I’m warning you in advance. I’m basically a simple artist who enjoys mixed media art so this article is geared toward my fellow newbs [*waves hello*], so this is not for you super pro collagers… though I hope you enjoy my beginner’s article too. I like my collage backgrounds to be at for a couple of reasons. The rst one being that it’s really hard to glue elements to a bumpy surface! And the second being that it costs money to mail out mail art so the bulkier my art, the more I pay in postage. I also want to consider our dear swap hosts in this semi-at decision too. Sending Send ing bulky art to multiple participants can add extra costs to their hosting duties. Plus at art ts nicely into penny sleeves and 9 pager sleeves for my ATC ATC binders.
Starting Paper
My background paper is usually a somewhat sturdy cardstock — about 40 - 80 lbs. I nd that by the time I glue on my paper backgrounds and all of the design elements, plus a cardstock and label for the backing, my ATC ATC is fairly thick and quite qu ite sturdy.
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Materials • • • • • • • •
Colored pencils Markers Watercolor or acrylic paint Colorful scrapbooking papers Textured paper Tissue paper Newspaper or old book pages Tea bags and ground coffee
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Technique 1: Tea and Coffee Cof fee
Materials • • • •
cardstock tea bag coffee grounds colored pencil
I rubbed the wet tea bag on the cardstock and an d tried to rub the grounds into the paper. That doesn’t work so well but it does tear up the paper surface a bit which looks cool. Use very warm water to get the coffee loose and the tea dripping! Once the paper was completely dried, I added a dark brown colored pencil shade around the border for extra denition.
Technique 2: Shredded Papers
Materials • cardstock • a bunch of torn scrapbooking papers
I glued the paper pieces to the cardstock (and each other). I didn’t use any real pattern—anywhere they t looks good. I added a very simple bright pink marker to the edge to dene the card.
Technique 3: Textured Paper
Materials • cardstock • oil pastels • deeply textured paper
I glued the textured paper to the cardstock and then lightly ran some oil pastels over the top of the paper. I say lightly because you don’t want to cover everything. everythi ng. Use your ngers to smudge it all around and get into the grooves while leaving the raised parts of the paper free of pastel colors. color s. I used a lightly shaded black colored pencil on the edges for denition.
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Technique 4: Tissue Paper
Materials • cardstock • bright scrapbooking paper • tissue paper
I glued the scrapbooking paper to the cardstock. While that was drying, I crumpled up my tissue paper and ripped it into pieces. I glued the tissue pieces, overlapping, on the cardstock but not so much that the paper pattern didn’t show through. On this card, I added a dark red border with marker and then used a black Sharpie to draw whimsy circles around the edge.
Technique 5: Book Pages
Materials • cardstock • old book page or newspaper • acrylic or watercolor paints
I glued the book page to my cardstock and then quickly brushed over everything with my red and white acrylic paints. Nothin Nothing g too fancy— just a quick wash so the text shows nicely underneath. I added rub ber stamping to my edges. I used a star and a swirly. You You could use anything, really, since I overlapped and wasn’t worried about the actual stamp showing. I just wanted a design-y edge. And there you have it—5 very simple and quick techniques for making mixed media backgrounds. The longest part of these backgrounds was waiting for the glue to dry! Finishing your cards
Since I’ve just used the plain white cardstock as a base, I normally like to add a matching color cardstock to the back. This adds an extra layer of sturdiness, plus it looks go od too. Once I’ve glued it all together along with my ATC label, I let air dry until there is no surface stickiness and then I leave my card between heavy books for at least 24 hours. In the next issue, we’ll nd even more ways to make inexpensive and easy mixed media backgrounds.
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e
Critique Corner! With Andrea Melione
Welcome back to Critique Corner, where readers can submit their artwork for a friendly and helpful evaluation. Email us at ArtTrader Mag (
[email protected]) if you’d like your work to be critiqued! First is a card by Nora Lundquist. She writes, “I know it’s not working, I just can’t gure out why.” why.” This is a common problem: The artist likes what they have done for the most part, but can’t determine why the whole piece isn’t coming together. together. It is obvious from looking at the card that effort was taken in the various techniques: the embossing; the selection of the image stamp image, and metal charm,: the beadwork: and the painted details of the border. border. All of which obviously took some time, as the the colors coordinate very well!
However, this is a good example of the artist focusing a lot on the selection of materials used, and applying the materials, but less attention to how those materials will work together. together. Nora has made a good rst step thinking about how it all can work together in terms of color, but you should also think about how they will work together in terms of texture, placement, and how they will work with the background; meaning the card/canvas/fabric used as the surface to which everything is applied. The rst thing that strikes me about this card is the background: It appears to be either a white white or cream cardstock. There is little tonal (dark/light) or color variation going on. When creating a mixed media card, it’s a great idea to create a background rst. Use paints, scrapbook paper, tissue paper, melted crayon etc. to create a background to place your visual elements on. This will will help your elements and images to look grounded, part of the background, rather than just lying on top of it. Nora’s images have no connection to their background.
In a card that is completed like this, however, one could take watercolors and color the embossed stamp and surrounding areas. This card is also a good example of tangents. The fairy image is right next to the embossed moon and the wing is touching it. To achieve a sense of depth, the fairy wing could overlap the moon, to indicate that the fairy is closer. c loser.
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The next card (above) is by Catherine Drazkowski. In this vintage mixed media work, Catherine has a great color scheme and her composition is good. Pumping up the contrast a little could enhance this card; she has excellent lights, but the card needs some more darks and/or shadows. We all know how scanners and the computer can wash out a card, but using all the values in a value scale, from light to dark in your work can help a scanner read more value and scan a greater contrast! In this case, Catherine could add some shadows around the girl, the chair, and under the table (in a warm burnt orange, blue or purple color.) Outlining the “Tea “Tea Time” text with either purple or blue watercolor would also help bring the text forward.
In closing, both artists have demonstrated talent by creating appealing cards. You can take your work to a further level if you like by keeping the three principles of composition in in mind: color, placement and value. Color choices are crucial, and both artists used color well. Placement of elements in your work is very important, especially when creating a sense of depth and space. Value creates greater visual interest in your art work: Try Try creating a value scale on your own to keep with you while you work. Image Google “value scale” for more information.
Thanks for submitting your work for critique; keep it coming! If you have any specic questions on how to create more visually dynamic work, feel free to ask us about them as well!
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Preparing and Shipping Mail Art By Shelli Heinemann With thanks to Sarah Zamora and the artists of IllustratedATCs, for their contributions
You’re excited about Mail Art. Art. You’ve become educated about all things ATC. You’ve even made a few cards, and you’re eager to send them out into the wide, waiting world. Amidst the bustle of excitement and anticipation, though comes a hiccup. Cards in hand, eagerness on full throttle, you nd yourself stalled, wondering, wondering , “Now what? You’re You’re asking yourself: • • • •
What can I do to adequately “nish” my ATCs? How do I protect my cards during shipment? What do I need to know about shipping costs and timeframes? How should I address and ll my envelope?
Below are some tried and tested answers to your questions (plus a whole lot more) offered by seasoned Mail Art traders. Their suggestions, borne of experience, will rescue you from your uncertainty and guide you toward efcient, polished card preparation and shipment—and ultimately, toward a satisfying, successful Mail Art exchange.
THE BACK STORY Mail Art may pass through many hands during its lifetime. In fact, that’s the very essence of ATCs—they’re meant to be traded and shared. So be sure to add a unique and informative backside to your art cards; one that identies you, the artist; provides information about your card; and creates a nished, professional look. Your trading partners will appreciate the extra effort and enhanced aesthetic. And as a bonus, you’ll stay “top of mind” as a potential swap partner with those who hold your work.
The Five W’s: Who, What, Where, When and Why At a minimum, ALWAYS ALWAYS include: include : • Your Your username (I’m “potbellyarts” on every mail art forum I visit) • Your Your real name (preferably rst and last)
Other artist info you might include: • email • City/State/Country • Website • Blog • Trading sites (e.g. IllustratedATCs.com) IllustratedATCs.com) • Gallery sites (e.g. ickr, Deviant Art) • Signature
Information about your art: • Date • Edition/Series/Number • “For:” / dedication • Swap Title (if applicable) • Card Title • Media used • Copyright notice • “Not for sale | For trade only” reminder
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Stickers, Stamps and Ink There are innite paths to an attractive,
informative ATC backside. I dabble in Photoshop and graphic design, so I like to create custom backsides and print them at home, either on name badge stickers (perfectly sized!) or on cardstock trimmed to ATC ATC dimensions and run through my Xyron, to add adhesive, then attached.
Several more great ideas for creating ATC backsides:
Hand write info on each card back individually Create a custom rubber stamp containing general info, and hand-write specics • Design a graphic, and print or copy onto ready-made stickers • Design a graphic, print or copy onto paper or cardstock, hand-trim to ATC ATC size, and attach with adhesive • •
A custom backside, attached to your ATCs, ATCs, also allows crosspromotion of your other sites, talents and interests, if you reference them in your design. For example: In addition addition to being an ATC ATC trader, I also create high-end teddy bears, so I feature my bears in some of my backside designs. designs. This brings the full scope of my art offerings to the attention of the ATC community, and hopefully, helps spread the arty goodness around.
WRAP IT UP You worked hard on your art, right? To guarantee safe arrival, protect it during transit.
Plastics Start with a clear plastic sleeve. Sleeves aren’t mandatory, mandatory, but they ARE appreciated and usually, usually, expected. Certainly, Certainly, their use is currently the norm. You can buy protective plastic sleeves on eBay, through online retailers, at WalMart, or just about anywhere trading cards (like baseball or Pokemon Pokemon cards) are sold. Costing roughly a penny each, sleeves protect cards from scratches, unintentional color transfers, smudges, and sticking. For a stiffer, stiffer, more protective option, use a rigid toploader. Available in a variety of weights, toploaders can be especially useful for fabric ATCs and cards created on thick paper or canvas. They’re pricier than clear sleeves and add weight (and cost) to your envelope, so they’re not for every card and every trade. I use toploaders for ACEOs (art cards that are sold vs. traded,) and for the rare “masterpiece” ATC; for cards I worked especially hard on, am especially proud of, or that were purchased by my wonderful customers and need guaranteed safekeeping during transit.
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Traders sometimes use plastic nine-pocket pages, trimmed to match swap parameters, to store and protect ATCs during mailing. Although perfectly acceptable, this practice is relatively rare, probably because sleeves are so accessible, cheap, easy, and affordable.
Special Handling Bulky or fragile art (such as glass or scratchboard ATCs) requires special handling and extra protection. These materials are likely to fracture if they process via automated machine, so encase such art rst in plastic sleeves, then in bubble wrap, then in thick, rigid cardboard—or maybe even box it!—so that machine processing becomes an impossibility. impossibility. Write “DO NOT BEND” and “HAND CANCEL” on the packaging, too. Extra bulk/thickness, hand canceling, and weighty protective materials will add to your shipping costs, so be sure
to verify postage before sending, to avoid delivery delays.
Paper and Envelopes A thick piece of letter-sized paper, folded into thirds, makes a nice wrap for your art. Junk mail, scratch paper, and scrap cardstock work too, and are environmentally-friendly ways to use handy recyclables to to protect ATCs for mailing. If you include stiffer materials, like postcards, in your packaging, you provide even more protection. ATCs are frequently mailed inside #10, “Legal,” or “Business” “Business” envelopes. This type of envelope measures 4-1/8” x 9-1/2” and is the most common business envelope size, designed to hold standard 8-1/2” x 11” sheets of paper. Other envelope sizes can work just as well. However, you might pay extra postage when using envelopes that deviate signicantly from #10 dimensions (see “Cost” section, section, below, below, to learn why.) why.) Regardless of size, thicker, “premium” envelopes provide more protective cushioning than imsy envelopes will.
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e Greeting Cards Consider mailing your sleeved ATCs ATCs inside greeting cards. An easy and attractive alternative to plain paper and business envelopes, greeting cards are available at dollar and discount stores in bulk; they’re cheap; and they make an especially pretty —and functional—folio for presenting your work. You might even purchase greeting cards from a favorite charity organization, such as Unicef. You’ll spend a bit more per card, but your buying dollars will land somewhere meaningful. Add a quick note of thanks for your swap host inside, and voila! —a near-perfect shipping solution.
Tape It’s so easy to secure your ATCs ATCs to one another —or to a greeting card or sheet of paper —with tape. Doing so prevents your cards from slipping and bunching up, both of which increase the likelihood they’ll be damaged in transit. If you’re sending just one card, a piece of scotch tape rolled back on itself and stuck to the backside of a sleeve works the same as double-sided tape, but is much easier to remove. If you’re sending multiple cards, rst stagger them, then tape across the seams in spots, on the front side only.
There IS such a thing as too much tape, by the way. way. ATCs can bend or scratch if they’re taped over zealously, and extricating them from their tape-mummy bondage can be difcult, not to mention frustrating and time-consuming. When it comes to tape, experienced traders agree: Less is denitely more!
BON VOYAGE Con te partiro, art cards; it’s time to say goodbye. A little foresight foresight on your part will get your art to its destination, perfectly addressed and right on time.
Timeframe Seasoned traders take due dates very seriously, and don’t like to wait for swap returns when they’ve fullled
their end of a trade agreement and submitted work timely. timely. You risk negative feedback, a blemished reputation, probation, or even banning if your art is tardy. Carefully note the “due by” date for all your your swaps. Finish and mail your art accordingly. accordingly. Allow plenty of travel time. If need be, choose an expedited shipping shipping option. In the US, that might be Priority Mail (2-3 days domestically) domestically) or even FedEx (overnight) if you’re really close to a deadline. Every country processes “regular” mail on a unique timetable, so please consult the appropriate postal service online or by phone, for specics. On average, however, three weeks should be enough time to ship First Class letter mail between most countries. Domestically, most countries average letter mail delivery within ve business days.
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Addressing “Address”-ing Every country has specic rules regarding how mail is to be addressed, but those rules don’t always make sense
and they aren’t always obvious, so do your homework. Even though my own handwriting is particularly legible, for example, I’ve had my envelopes “returned to sender” when I didn’t scribe the recipient’s address using ALL CAPS. Hmph! Another time, just one wrong zip code digit was all it took to turn my mail around and land it back on my doorstep, instead of my swap host’s. A comprehensive listing of domestic and international mail regulations and address formats is beyond the scope of this article, so let me instead suggest that you simply ask your swap host or trade partner all address formatting questions before shipping. Foresight will prevent your envelopes from U-turning en route; a circumstance that might render you ineligible to complete your your swap. And that’s an outcome nobody wants.
Cost Postage is generally determined by a rate-per-weight formula. At the time of this writing, for example, US Postal Service pricing for First Class letter mail is 42 cents (rate) per ounce (weight). Be aware, however, that packaging dimensions add a layer of confusing complexity to pricing formulas and MAY MAY increase postage costs. For instance, in the US, First Class letter mail is dened as: • Rectangular • At least 3.5 inches high x 5 inches long x .007 inches thick • No more than 6 1/8 inches high x 11.5 inches long x 1/4 inch thick • Maximum weight is 3.5 ounces • Letters considered non-machinable are subject to surcharge • Length is the dimension parallel to the address
Meaning that, in the US: • If your envelope is less than 5 inches long, even though that’s smaller than a standard size envelope, it will
cost more to send than a standard size envelope • Hand-cancelled mail can cost more to send than machine processed mail • No matter what the perimeter dimensions, envelopes thicker than 1/4 inch are considered “packages” and not “letters,” and will require extra postage And so on. As you can see, determining correct postage can be tricky. tricky. So consult your local postal service, service, or go online, for specics. Or even better, better, hand-deliver your envelopes to a post ofce near you, where a knowledgeable employee can determine the correct postage for you, without any possibility of error.
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Art TRADER m a g a z i n e IF YOU PLEASE Yes, there’s an etiquette unique to ATC ATC trading. When you respect that etiquette, you enjoy seamlessly smooth swaps while earning a glowing reputation and positive feedback within the Mail Art community —and you form lasting friendships with incredibly cool art people in the process. Any way you slice it, it’s win/win!
Must-Sends Almost without exception, every swap host will require that, in addition to your art, you send: (1) Sufcient postage to cover mailing your returns
(2) Your address Most often, you’ll be asked to include include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or “SASE” along with your art. But sometimes, depending on host preferences, swap needs, and mailing considerations, you might instead be asked for variations on this theme, such as: • A sticker with your address (your host will provide the envelope) • Cash or stamps sufcient to cover postage on your returns • Postage payment via PayPal • An email communicating your street address
Ensure your package meets swap requirements before sealing your envelope and shipping your art. art. Although most hosts understand the occasional “oops,” it’s still a nuisance and a chore for them to chase down missing or forgotten items (postage, addresses) addresses) after the due date. Worse, the entire swap is held up as a result.
“Extra” Credit In addition to the necessary “must-sends,” swap hosts appreciate a short note of thanks. It’s a huge responsibility to host a swap, requiring constant communication and monitoring, and awless organization. While the rare host occasionally requests “No extras in your envie, please;” more commonly, it’s sincerely appreciated when you make a special gesture of a gift in the form of host extras, which might include: • A swap-themed ATC (make one extra, for your
host) • ATCs, bookmarks, or journal pages in a theme the host collects (check the host prole) • Pre-cut ATC blanks or art-ready paper • Patterned paper bits, bers, and ephemera (for mixed-media-friendly hosts only) • Loose stamps (or their cash equivalent) to cover postage shortages and the added cost of international returns.
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