Sunday was my class with Bernie Berlin, on Artist Trading Cards. It was the only full-day class I took at AU, and I sort of "fell into" it... someone else was selling their ticket, 'cause they wanted to get into a different class. So, I ended up having a fun day making ATCs, when I wasn't expecting it at all! Bernie Berlin is an amazing artist; she teaches classes all over (she'll be in Italy next year...), runs a dog rescue facility from her home in Tennessee where she saves hundreds of dogs a year (she drives them to Illinois, Wisconsin, and the East Coast where they are adopted out... Noel is one of the first dogs I read about on her site; she is only a puppy, and was probably used as a bait dog for training dogs to fight. This is a pic of her with Bernie, sporting "ears" made for her by one of Bernie's artist friends, to help keep her head warm... Noel was adopted by someone in Wisconsin, and is doing great!).
These are the first ATCs we made... magazine portraits: magazine images painted with gesso, then outlined with marker and painted with acrylics. I never draw people, so this is a good way to get faces without having them look like weird aliens, which is how they would turn out if I drew them freehand!
These ATCs used metal foil tape (for ductwork repairs) and string in interesting ways. The string ATC used a clip-art clown image; the string gives it some interesting texture. I think my clown turned out a bit on the scary side for me, but I posted it on Flickr, and someone wanted to trade for it, so it's going to a good home!
These cards are backgrounds, which I will eventually finish. They were made using a really cool product- Polished Pigments, which are powdered pigments that come in amazingly gorgeous colors... a tiny scoop of the powder was mixed with a liquid medium... the technique to make these was so simple! Drag the card thru the puddles of color, spritz with water, and use a heat gun to dry them, which mixes the colors in interesting and unexpected ways. Honestly, a couple of these were total accidents, because I dropped the card into the puddles of color- they look great!!! I have ideas for a few of them already, just need to get them finished.
The day was wonderful- lunch was provided, and it was great to hang out all day long with artsy/creative type people who are the friendliest people ever! It was so easy to just start chatting with people about their classes, projects, and their AU experiences. Next year I am going to take more classes; it was an amazingly wonderful experience. (I know I've overused the phrase "amazing experience" in this post, but there's not much else to call it!)
This pic is my practice set-up for the show; I set up the table in the living room to arrange everything so I'd know how to set it up.
Saturday was our first Craft Mafia Trunk Show... for me, the day was a bust. Not the show necessarily, but the day in general. First, we had no water when we got up (it was pretty much the entire town); next, there was a traffic accident that closed the highway north out of town just when I was heading out. Then after the show, we had electricity outages in our neighborhood. So, it was basically a frazzled sort of a day, overall. (I hate hearing about those fatality accidents; the highway in/out of town can sometimes be really crazy, but accidents don't seem to slow people down any, though...) After taking 15 minutes to move about 1 mile, only to be turned around by the police, I ended up driving 25 miles southeast to Casa Grande where I finally picked up I-10 to drive north to Tempe. After being in the car for about 2 hours, I finally got to the restaurant. I didn't personally make any sales, but it was still good experience. Hopefully next month will be better; the college-age crowd should be larger, and I can refine my table setup somewhat to make it easier to see things.
This ATC (title: Wounded) was made using one of the backgrounds from the class I took from Bernie Berlin at AU. The heart is layers of aluminum foil that I ran thru the crimper to give it some texture; the spike is actually a spine from our Argentinian Toothpick cactus...
This is another of the same backgrounds; this one (title: Mended) is made from metal duct tape pieced together in a sort of patchwork, along with copper eyelets and string. There is one more of the set that I haven't finished yet; these 3 ATCs are not my usual "style" at all, but they sort of just "came" to me, and I needed to make them to get them out of my head.
And now for something totally different; these 2 mini-collages were made from supplies I won in a blog contest from Art Junk Girl... I won an assortment of collage images, along with some pre-painted background squares and a number of heavy chipboard squares for creating my own collages. The first one was made from a collage image she sent me; the second one was made from images and text cut from one of my vintage cookbooklets. Aren't they nice?? (if I do say so myself... lol!) Now, check out the last pic for another view of them:
Yes, that's right, they're only an inch square... they are what's called Inchies, which are Art Junk Girl's specialty. I love her stuff, but wasn't sure I could make anything so small... I still think the ATC size is easier, but inchies are interesting... it's actually fun trying to find things small enough to fit a one inch square! 
