ATCs - Babywipe Backgrounds

This week's challenge/swap on MAMMA was a technique rather than the usual theme. The technique being 'Watercolor on Baby Wipes' from Bernie Berlin's book called 'Artist Trading Card Workshop' We also had to use words on our ATCs.

This was such an easy technique - basically place a sheet of kitchen roll or scrap paper on your table, lay on top of it a clean baby wipe. Drop or brush on some watercolour paints or ink and watch the magic happen - the paint/ink spreads into the wet babywipe and the colours merge. Once the babywipe has dried it can be stuck onto an ATC base, or stitched even as it has a fabric like texture. The piece of kitchen roll, or paper you had underneath the babywipe can also be used too.

I used Brusho watercolour inks on my babywipes and loved their intensity of colour. Once the babywipes had dried they did fade a bit, but once the gel medium I used to stick them onto my ATC bases hit them, a lot of the colour returned.

My entries for the MAMMA swap were just a simple collage as I didn't want to cover too much of the lovely backgrounds up. I've since made a few more with a bit more detail to them. (They are all on my Flickr photostream individually for a better view of them)

I love this challenge and hope there will be more to come like it.

ATCs from Famous Works of Art!

A new group has just been formed over on Flickr by Melody (AKA artsy fartsy queen) called Famous Works of Art ATCs . The idea is every Monday, Melody will challenge everyone to, and in her words 'recreate famous works of art on an ATC. Not an exact copy of it necessarily but your interpretation of the famous piece' For this first week's challenge the work of art she has chosen is Leonardo da Vinci - 'Lady with an Ermine in Cracow'.

Seeing as I'm a complete philistine I'm ashamed to say I'd never heard of this piece before - so thank goodness for the internet - I could read all about it on Wikipedia.

So it appears the 'Lady' with the ermine may have been a young girl of about 16 called Cecilia Gallerani who was the mistress of Leonardo's employer Ludovico il Moro, the Duke of Milan. She is holding a pet ermine (thought to have been associated with aristocracy although it is also believed to have actually been a white ferret instead!)

I chose to give the image of the painting the Bernie Berlin treatment - using her technique for altering magazine images, by using gesso, acrylic paints and pens. I called my ATC 'A Present from Luddy' - as I thought maybe Cecilia had been given the pet by her lover Ludovico.

I'm glad I joined this new group now as not only is it fun to play around with the works of art (so to speak), but I can also learn a little bit about them (may come in useful in quizzes - told you I was a philistine!!)