2012/365 - Day 61 -- part two

my other tarot card


Oooh -- I didn't think I'd be able to call this post "part two"...but I made it before midnight!

I am going to print out the smaller versions of this card and hand color each one differently.

I drew these elements free-hand and carved them separately.

I am pretty pleased with the way my cards turned out!

2012/365 - Day 61

tarot to trade

Whoa -- I was so intent on working on my tarot cards for the ATC Exchange group that I might've missed my midnight deadline if I hadn't come in to the printer to see if I had worked out the size correctly.


The cards I am making for the trade are The Hanged Man and The Lovers. They are the cards that I got at random when Leann dealt them out.

These cards are artist trading card sized -- 2.5" x 3.5" but I was having a lot of difficulty working in that actual size with the methods I wanted to use.

I photocopied the back of a Magic: the Gathering card (my "normal" base for all of my atc making) and enlarged it to twice its size. That gave me more to work with...5" x 7". When I was done I cut the border off of another enlarged M:tG card and set it over the artwork. Then I came back in to printer and reduced it by 50% and day-um...it worked!



For this card I made a free-hand drawing of my interpretation of The Hanged Man and then I cut out each element from paper and collaged it all together.

For The Lovers I did carvings of all of the elements and I will stamp them out onto the enlarged blank and repeat the border and reduction process. I will blog that tomorrow because I won't have time to do it before midnight for this post.

365 Day 285

making my cards for trading...and the ones I got in trade

Today I actually made my cards for trading with the local Artist Trading Cards group I belong to.


You may remember the pumpkin I carved.

I stamped it out on two different patterned papers that were mostly orange.










Twink helped for a short while. He left the table pretty quickly when I uncapped a Sharpie marker a little later.














I wanted to add to the color a bit, so I grabbed this set of colored pencils. I originally bought the pencils set because I liked the box/tray they came in.









I didn't even know it said "eeBOO" on it...what luck since these are Halloween-y cards.












I added a bit of color to each pumpkin.














Then I "carved" the pumpkins into jack o' lanterns and made the white interior edges yellow.











I added yellow mulberry paper to the back of the card and covered it with the paper I colored with alcohol inks yesterday.

Then I trimmed all of the cards to the proper size. I almost always just build my cards on Magic: the Gathering cards that I won't be playing with, but today I used stiff, patterned paper that I was cutting into and I didn't need the mtg cards.






These are the nine cards that I made. I am keeping one of them for myself because I screwed up when I was cutting it and it isn't straight.














These are the backs of the cards. I stamped more pumpkins on them.



















This is the messed up one I kept for myself.



If you hold them up to a light source it sort of looks like they are lit up inside. Sort of.










Here are the wonderful cards I got in trade!













Leann also made a bunch of larger cards for us to color.












Ingrid let us look through her binder of fabulous cards and choose a few that she has made for other swaps.









The group will be making a tarot deck...our due date is maybe sometime in February (so far).

We are using only the Major Arcana and to get our assigned cards Leann shuffled and dealt out tiny Rider-Waite cards.

Guess what -- I couldn't believe it -- my first card was The Hanged Man. This is my all-time favorite tarot card and it is one that usually comes up in my readings when my friend Juana reads me (reads me, reads me). (That is what I say when Juana agrees to a reading: "Read me, read me, read me!") On the second pass around the table I got The Lovers. No trading (I tried) -- actually, we had previously agreed to take what cards we were dealt. Leann runs a tight ship (thank goodness)...LOL.

I am looking forward to designing these two cards. I will have to make 18 cards total, 9 of each design.

Oh -- and the Northville Art House accepted ALL of the pieces I took in for consideration today (my drop-off day) for their Holiday Art Market. I am SO excited! Three prints, four collages and 9 Tooklets (so far), as well as a pair of Tooklets as my donation for the raffle basket. AND I heard back from Paint Creek Center for the Arts, too -- they are taking Tookies for their Holiday Gift Gallery...wow!

What a great day!