Tuesday 23 March 2010

Small pieces of art to share
















Although an enforced rest was put upon me for 6 weeks after major surgery, I am enjoying the rest and time for creativity.


And an art form that I think is really me! Oh to use up all those little scraps of paper, lace, to use my hundreds of sets of pens, pencils, crayons, paint brushes, inks, chalks, beads. It might take me forever but hey, it's fun! Sitting in the sun overlooking my garden filled with birds, sun and light streaming all around is an inspirational setting in our lovely autumn.

I discovered ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) at the Newcastle Craft expo in February and I'm loving them! Small pieces of art to share...These little wonders are very inspiring, 2½ x 3½" using any medium, style, flattish i.e not too 3D so they can fit into a plastic sleeve, ready to swap with other ATC artists. I find I can incorporate all the crafts that I have loved for 20+ years - stamping, collage, knitting (well photos of my knitting!), photography, stencilling, painting, calligraphy, pergamano, scrapbooking, embossing, creating... playing...
I have met some fabulous people all over the world, read some inspiring blogs of kind, helpful wonderfully creative artists - all fellow addicts to altered art and ATC's. I joined two ATC swap groups and have been very productive, trying to keep up with swaps. I met a warm and friendly Canadian lady who puts out a wonderful journal quarterly with news of ATC swappers all over the world http://www.atcquarterly.com/. I subscribed to her journal and love to use this journal as a reference.

ATC's go way back and a good description with links is on wiki to save me reinventing the wheel:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist_trading_cards

I have uploaded my ATC photos to Flickr, and of course at this stage, they are fairly basic, but give me time, give me time!!! LOL! http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelebellechic/ will display a photostream.