Strathmore ATC Trade

I finally broke down and bought some precut Strathmore ATC card blanks. I wanted to do the trade and the rule was you have to buy their prepackaged ATC blanks. Of course for what I paid for them, I could have almost bought a pad of full sheets. I can get 9 cards from one sheet. The prepaid ones have 20 for over $2. They must have had slow sales.

I worked on one card tonight but don't like it for the trade. I will have to make another.

I have been seeing some really good work done with oil pastels. One of the sites is Tanya Bond's website. You can go to her site from my links list. She has some really cutesy animals done in ops. I have no idea how she can get such beautiful work with the ops. I have a set of ops and decided to get some new tools to try and do something with them.

While at Beverlys fabric store, I also found an inexpensive set of ops for under $2. I figure I can practice with those. I bought a couple of embossing tools, a stencil brush, and some plastic blending pencils. I tried a little piece yesterday but plan to further practice with them later.

I joined a portrait sketch trade on WC. I have my person's name who will do a portrait of me and I will do one of her. I believe we have a month to finish. I spent the afternoon taking photos of myself. Out of about 30+ photos, I still didn't really get any I like. I settled on two of them and emailed to her. Hopefully she will be able to use one.

I finished my ATC for the trade on Scribble talk. Nothing going on till January on Toad Hollow Drawing club, and I decided not to do the trade on Drawspace this month. But I still have plenty to keep me busy. The portrait, the scavenger hunts, 10 more Anything Goes postcards, the Out of Africa trade project, and a postcard trade with my plein air art group in December. On that one I have no idea how many I need. A lot of the artists were uncertain if they would participate. I have already given two cards for trade. I have 2 more ready. And then there is Christmas to get thru.....