ATC Mega Swap @ Swap-Bot

Okay! Finally have my sends ready for the ATC Mega Swap over at Swap-Bot. My original idea for this project when I signed up was to do one single art piece and then cut it up into the 20 required ATCs, and send those out. Kinda like a "One Part of a Whole" puzzle type thing ... Anyway to keep it more manageable, I ended up doing 2 seperate pieces that were 17.5" by 5" - which got me 10 cards on each piece. I kept it simple by doing my usual Sharpie Abstract background, but did one in my favorite Black, Red & White "fill-in" theme and the other I just randomly colored in with metallic markers in a green, purple and blue palette. And here's how it progressed:

STEP 1
I randomly drew lines in black Sharpie marker, bisecting and looping and dividing until I was satisfied with the overall layout and individual sections. Did the same for second piece.

Step 2
Then I started inking in my spaces, adding little designs - stripes and lines, bubbles, dots, squiggles, hearts and stars - my usual arsenal of random abstractyness. I just go by a mantra of "fill the space" when I do these - it's seriously the quickest and easiest method I know of creating original, fun looking art - and no "talent" required! I usually prefer to leave some whitespace, especially in this particular color scheme. Here are the stages of this process:

I then repeated the process for the second piece, only without the added design elements - I simply filled those spaces in with solid colors to give it a sort of stained glass effect. I also had to re-ink the black border lines on that piece, as the metallic markers dulled the ink whenever I strayed outside the margins. Which was often. Sadly, I didn't continue my photo documentation past the early stages on that one and have no finished piece to show (Roops!)

Last step was cutting them into the 20 individual cards, attaching a backplate to each with the swap name and the number of the piece as it corresponded to the original it came from (1-A1, 2-E2, etc ...) then getting them into their envelopes, addressed & stamped and ready to roll!


I added images of the full size pieces to my Flick'r page: 1 (red&black) 2 (metallic), with an approximate breakdown of which individual card came from what section* (was kinda hard to get those note boxes to just the right size, plus I'd already sealed up the cards by then and couldn't doublecheck the actual card "contents") , so my partners can have a look at where their own card started out ... though the stained glass piece is a bit sad looking since I didn't photo it as a finished piece before I cut them (what can I say?! - kids are set to get outta school this week and I been a busy mama with all the end-of-year activities and running around and stuff. I was lucky just to get the ARTWORK done!)

Anyhow - that's it ... Just thought ya might like to see what went into creating my ATC Mega Swap submissions ... and I hope you like'em, those of you who got one!

Happy swapping!
~ gem ~

eta: Oh yeah, 2 things ... Number 1 - the PINK envelope in the mix there is a "WINNER" that I randomly chose from my partnerlist, they will get a new, personal piece of artwork made by me once they email me with their theme and choice (ATC, 4x6, 4x4 or deco) ... AND secondly ... I have steadily been recieving my ATCs from this swap, but as I said from the start - I'm holding off opening them until I either get all 20 sends, or a week or so after the swap date passes. No kidding!

*FYI- since I am no longer on Flickr, those links are dead