Sunday Painters, Get the whole family involved!

ATCs or Artists' Trading Cards are small original artworks on a 2 1/2"x 3 1/2" format. They can be done in watercolor, pastel, acrylic, oil, pen, stamping, collage....just about any medium you could think of. You can cut up paper or card on your own, or you can purchase sample packs already made up for you to use. Strathmore has sample packs with watercolor paper, illustration board, canvas, and more.

Get the whole family involved on a weekend or during time off for the holidays! All ages can join in the art making fun and then trade with each other. What a nice memento of your next family gathering!

ATCs are generally 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. This is the size of playing cards and other trading cards.

I recently assigned my watercolor students to make ATCs of people and umbrellas in the rain. Here are a few examples of the ones they made as well as workshop examples from previous classes. There's an illustrated lesson plan online here at WikiHow.

While the purpose of ATCs is to trade, not sell, those who are interested in creating these wonderful works for profit, it would be more appropriate to list them as ACEO's (Art Cards, Editions, and Originals). These are more often made for the purpose of sale, and by labeling them appropriately we don't take away from the ATC namesake tradition. All creation rules are the same for ACEO's as they are for ATC's. Limited Edition, Signed and Numbered ACEOs, especially with short print runs of 25-50 cards, are very popular and still count as ACEOs because they're the Editions.

Wet roads

It's amazing how much more one sees while sketching on location rather than by just trusting the camera and working from photos at home. During the time it took to do the sketch, a deer emerged from the woods and crossed right in front of me. The school bus got away before I had time to get my camera, and quite a few cars came up and down the hill in each direction.

There's something cozy about painting in the rain. In the car , of course!

Potpourri

Potpourri
Original Watercolor by Michele Cooper
Size: 11x15"  Price: $200

Here is a loose watercolor of a bowl of potpourri with a dominance of warm color. I love the interplay of light and shadow on the circular shapes and the complementary orange/blue color scheme.

Summer Shadows

"Summer Shadows"
Original Watercolor by Michele Cooper
Size: 14x19"

I love painting flowers in watercolor and I'm always challenged by the attempt to capture the contrast between loose and definitive edges/high and low chroma, as well as light and shadow effects.