I've been creating business cards for my niece, and she requested a QR code for the back with a link to her FB business page. I found a "free" site, qr.io, and created a QR code that we liked the look of. I slapped it onto her cards and printed quite a few. Awesome! Then I got an email that told me I needed to pay in order to "reactivate" her QR code. I'd been lured into a free trial. This really sucks, because then I had to go looking for a truly free QR code generator. Vistaprint has one, and it's really free, and the codes never expire. I realize that no one reads this blog and I've been absent for years, but I thought this was important! Thanks! 😁

Foreign (non-English) Language Collage Cards

This is the second of two recent ATCs for All swaps that I signed up for.  It was the Foreign (non-English) Language Collage Cards swap, and the idea was to use foreign language book pages as the background.  All else was up to the designer.  For all of these cards, I started with a page of text that I colored with watercolor.  Then I cut out random pieces to lay on top of it, and colored those a different color and outlined them with a watercolor pencil.  For each card, I drew a different image that reminded me of the country where the text originated.  Then I found various images online and printed them either on copy paper or vellum, cut them out, and arranged them on the cards.  Some of the extra images are drawn or stamped, but most are printed.  Since this was a collage theme, I didn't see any issues with cut-and-paste.  I added some colored pencil in a few places to bring out the color in the images.  The last thing that I did was to add a focal piece of text that says "Earth" in each language, at least as close to it as I could get by using Google Translate and searching the interwebs.  That's just about it!  Here are the cards.

 Russian

 French

 Japanese

Egyptian Hieroglyphics

Thanks for stopping by!

ATCoins Series: Monochromatic (Brown)

I signed up for a couple of trades on ATCs for All so that it would force me to do something creative.  This is the first set, which was the ATCoins Series: Monochromatic (Brown).  It's actually a mail art swap, which is something I don't normally do, but it was fun to try something different.  Speaking of trying new things, I drew all of the images for these from reference photos.  I'm relatively pleased with how they came out, so I guess it's all cool.  Ha!  For some reason, I decided also to stick with a "Texas" theme.  The backgrounds were all done in the same way, with many layers of distress ink and watercolor, and splatters of brown acrylic here and there after the drawings were done.  Before I started the drawings, I put down some watered-down white gesso on top of the backgrounds so that the images would show up better.  I sketched the main images first in pencil, then I did a light watercolor and went over that with colored pencil.  Here are the coins.

 

I've seen these in our yard, but they are "flittery" and really hard to catch in photos.

 

This freaking armadillo makes me laugh every time I look at him.  He's all hairy and ready to scrap.  Ha ha ha!

 

Sugar coma.

 It took me forever to figure out how to depict an open pine cone. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Dragons ATCs

This is the first of four swaps I've signed up for lately.  These were done for the Dragons swap on ATCs for All, and they were challenging for me, because I don't really "draw" that much.  I want to improve my drawing ability, and I thought this swap was good motivation.  I enjoyed trying to get the poses right.  In the end, they turned out almost like I wanted them.  All of these cards were sketched in pencil first, drawn over with a Micon 01 pen, and then colored with Artist's Loft Sketch Markers and/or colored pencil.

Norm

 

 Aqua Dragon

 

 Newly Hatched

 

Fiery Foe

 

Bookworms ATCs

Here are my cards for the Bookworms ATC Swap on ATCs for All.  The theme was books, obviously, and I took that a few different ways.

 

 

Imagination Wings

This is the first card I created.  The first thing that popped into my head was flying books, for whatever reason, so I drew it up pretty quickly.  I used a pencil to sketch it out then went over it with a Pigma Micron 01 pen.  The books I colored using some random markers, then I went over them with a Copic atyou Spica Micro Glass Glitter Pen.  You can't see it here, but the book bindings sparkle a little.  Instead of putting in the background first, which I should have done, I went over the background with Scattered Straw distress ink on a cotton swab.  It came out OK, since I wanted the books to "glow."  Then I decided that the card looked right either way I turned it, so I wrote the sentiment both ways, one way in gold and one way in silver.  The silver was a little bit light, so I went over it with my Micron pen.

 

Library

Here is the second card.  When I started it, I didn't realize how many...um...lines it was going to require, but I stuck to it and ended up liking the result.  I sketched it with my pencil then went over it with my Micron 01 pen, as I did with all of the cards.  Most of the card is colored with Artist's Loft Sketch Markers (various colors), but I did use some Sharpies and Tombow colored markers or whatever else I could find.  There were a lot of books to color!  Then I used my Copic glitter pen to draw a "sunbeam" from the window to the book on the wooden stand, but you can't see it very well here.  It's subtle, even on the card in real life.

 

 

Staycation

I decided that this little bookworm was going to chill under a mushroom, so here he is.  He makes me laugh, so I think he's my favorite.  After drawing him, I used my Artist's Loft markers to color him, along with a few other random markers.  I used my white Gelly Roll pen to put in some details (not many), and I used Judikins Diamond Glaze to add shine to the sunglasses and drink glass.  I think he's enjoying himself.

 

 

Mind of a Fish

This little guy is stressed, but I'm sure he managed to get out of this sticky situation.  He's sketched with pencil, lined with Micron pen, and colored with Artist's Loft markers.  The hook is done in gold marker, but you can't really see the shimmer here.

I enjoyed having to think about what I was going to do with this theme, and the cards were fun to make.