Black and white atcs

Here are the 3 atcs that I finished for Susan K. for our swap. I really hope she likes them. They will be going out in the mail tomorrow. As you can see they are a totally different style than her's. These are pretty simple in composition, but that is the way mine usually are. The top 2 were both done from beginning with an image out of a magazine picture that is gessoed. This is a technique from Bernie Berlin's book on ATC's. With the middle one, I didn't do much more than add the central image, the heart, and some ink lettering and drawing. On the top one, I did use more gesso to blur the image a good bit, pencil and ink to re-emphasize the parts I wanted to and then watercolor pencil to add a light touch of color here and there. For the bottom one, "2", it was kind of the same technique, except the beginning was a black and white map image which was gessoed, the the central image added, and then swirls around the outside are some of those "tattoo-look" decals, not sure what the technical term is for those, flocked sticker swirlies, and again a little more ink drawing to fill in details. On all 3 atcs, the edges are finished with a black ink stamp pad. For the butterfly atc, the entire wording is "in her mind's eye...she was a butterfly". It's completed on the back side.

When I finish a swap up and get ready to mail, there are always those moments of self-doubt about whether what I've done is really just crap and I suspect sometimes it is, but then you just have to take a big breath and just send it on its way and hope for the best.

BTW, I linked to Bernie's blog and if you have not visited it before check it out. I visit it frequently to see the remarkable animals she saves. If you are at all tender-hearted, prepare to cry, because she shares amazing stories and pictures of her animal rescue work. She has a side bar where the book I'm talking about is mentioned.