What are Artist Trading Cards (ATC)? They're little bits of hand made art, 3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches, just like sports trading cards, or bubble gum trading cards, or Garbage Pail Kid trading cards. The idea is to make a series or multiples of a card, then trade them with other people for their cards. There are trading card groups all over the country that meet and swap on a regular basis, and you can find ATC swaps on Swap-bot. There are lots of people who reproduce their art, or just sell the originals, on Etsy too, though that technically violates the spirit of the endeavor.
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I have a series of cards I made called Celestial Bodies, and I show you how I put my favorite one together here. Many people use stamping and collage on their ATC's, but I have some beautiful examples of hand drawn and painted ones. If you'd like to give it a try yourself, grab one of our ATC kits and get started!
I start with a blank card and grab my favorite ink spritzers.
I spritz my colors on and let them mix and blend.
I do a bunch, I actually go a little crazy, this process is addicting!
Once it's dry I add a smear of glitter paint.
I die cut some circles then spritz them with a coordinating color.
You can see how much I flood the piece.
Once they are dry I glue them down randomly.
Then I collage my image over the top.
I add some stars, this is what ties the card to the others in the series.
Then I add a little glitz by outlining the elements with my gold Jelly pen.
And then I'm finished!
All the cards I made in this series.