Postcard Project

I joined this postcard project over at Nervousness at the beginning of the year - got my "blank" card a week or so ago and set out to alter it this morning, using the "prompted collage" technique I learned about from eliza-jane, who I think learned it from artsymama and so on and so forth (like I have time to backtrack to the absolute origination of any tip or technique, YAH!) but I really like this process as it's sooooo easy and fast - you can knock out an ATC or 4x4 or postcard or even bigger piece in like minutes (depending on how long it takes any one elment to dry or set, etc ...) but you still feel like you really stretched you creativity and went outside some of your normal borders. So it's nice especially if you find you get into a sort of rut doing the same process and elements again and again in your artwork. (Then again I'm bad about putting back and re-fishing around in my prompt can if I don't get the element I want at the time I want it, heh.) Anyway. On with the show!

Goal here is to take this postcard:

and alter it into my own piece of art, then send it back to the host who will collect them all and then exhibit them in a local arts center. The only prep work I did to the card before starting the process was to lightly sand off the glossy topcoat (as seen above) and then I pulled out my first prompt:

PAINT I have a new bottle of acrylic paint in the shade "Passion Punch" so I used that, just dry brushing it randomly across the front in horizontal strokes.

Next was PATTERN so I found a similar hued piece of scrapbook paper with a wave pattern and glued that down along one side.

Then came STAMP, so I used my trusty swirl rubberstamp and dipped it into some antique white acrylic paint and randomly added the swirls. Here we are so far:

The next prompts I pulled were SCRATCH - using an opened paperclip I scratched some straight lines throughout, especially over the original qutoe text. Then I got CHARCOAL and edged around the patterned paper - and right there is where this piece really came together for me, I think:

After that came SMUDGE (well, wasn't thaaat lucky?) so I smudged the charcoal with my finger to work it into the paper ... INK was next so I took my black StazOn pad and inked the edges of the card (something I have to do to almost everything I work on, habitually!) then for SURPRISE I used a shaped punch to add two openwork stars through the patterned paper. SPATTER was next (I explained this in another art piece description on flick'r, but "spatter" wasn't one of the original prompt words in the list I copied - I took the typo patter to mean Spatter but it was actually supposed to be patterN ... So I just left them both in. It's just art - you can still do what you want you know.) Anyway I love paint spatters on stuff so I was happy to see this one turn up, though I did make my paint mix just a tad too wet here. Lookin' good so far:

Only one prompt to go (I usually stop at ten) and what do I get?
TEXT - not so bad I think ... I go and pull the entire quote for the Plath-itude that was on the front of this card when I started, print it up in a nice little font and cut it out - ink the edges, and before I attach it realize the white paper is too stark so I lightly sponge some of the leftover spatter paint mix onto the text, then re-ink the edges, then attach. And BAM! just like that it's ruined!

So now I DO NOT like that final piece on there, and only added it thinking it would "tie" the whole thing together with the original underlying quote and the full quote on top (plus the fact that it mentions writing and after all this is a postcard ...) I don't like how large the text field is (even though I used a real small font and the lowest possible point size) or the angle at which I placed it. Shoulda just used the last part of the quote, but ah-well! It's done now. I brushed a topcoat of satin varnish on as a protectant (mostly for the charcoal) and now it's pressing flat so I can mail it tomorrow. YaY. Here's the final, finished card:

Oh and while I was working on this I noticed my son's clay art project for school is cracking as it's drying (yeep!) - but - thats another story for another day!


See ya :)
~ gem ~