Welcome to Art by the Yard

Artist Trading Cards
aka ATCs

An Artist Trading Card (ATC) is 2 ½” x 3 ½”, and that’s really the only rule! Usually they are created on sturdy paper like cardstock, but I also recently completed a “non-paper” ATC swap that included cards made from metal (flattened soda cans, wire), plastic, fabric, beads and leaves. ATCs are a wonderful format for sharing art, especially internationally, as the envelopes are small and therefore postage is low. The only other “guideline” is that the finished cards fit in the traditional trading card sleeves (for baseball, hockey, Pokemon cards, etc.).

Jump to My New Cards!

I was first introduced to ATCs through the Carving Consortium on Yahoo!. ATCs are a terrific way to test your newly carved stamp with different combinations of cardstock, ink, layout and embellishment.


Asters This ATC uses 3 different hand-carved floral stamps	For a 2" x 2" print swap, this Iris carving was printed on hand-made leaf-print green paper and mounted on black cardstock	For "It's the Berries" Carving Consortium swap, I carved this image of wild Maine blueberries and printed in multi-color dye ink on blueberry-juice-stained 140# watercolor paper. Such fun!
See more hand-carved ATCs

ATCs are an inviting way to investigate intriguing flights of artistic fancy without making the potentially intimidating commitment to a big collage. I like accomplishing a whole “artistic idea” in such a small format! There are as many styles as there are individuals and this is another way to use those great markers, stamps, inks, paints, stencils and pencils you already have!

Playing around with cool punches and foreground/background design. Testing how well certain embossing powders show on both dark and light backgrounds.	Some rose-printed paper makes an enchanting background for the carved chair image which was then masked so the wings could be stamped, the lettering and then the custom sticker added	A Foreign Text challenge produced this muted ATC embellished with a charm and beads

To get 10 ATCs from a sheet of 8½” x 11” really cool paper (or plain…): Cut across the 8 ½” length in 2-2½” strips and 1-3½” strip (2 ½ + 2 ½ + 3 ½ = 8 ½). Then cut the 2-2½” strips into 3-3½” pieces and the 3½” strip into 4-2½” pieces. Very little waste—10 ATCs! Cut some and Trade!!

New Cards

"Alice in Wonderland" Using silver metallic sticker, vellum, computer-printed text and stamping on collaged background paper	"Spirit of Twilight" Digital collage using primarily my own nature photographs and one Dover image (the girl)	"Fire & Light" Paper Collage on stamped and embossed cardstock

"Romany" For Gypsy Caravan ATC swap. Digital collage which is printed and then hand-stamped with text and embellished with stars	"Raven's Dark Magic" For Spells & Shadows ATC swap Digital collage using my own photographs and stock images	"Moment in Time" Paper collage (using hand-carved tree image) that is scanned and then manipulated electronically, text added

"Chair of Origin" Digital Collage with over 25 layers done in PaintShop Pro 8	"Flames" Hand-carved image printed on collaged background, then scanned and digitally enhanced and manipulated	"J-Jasperware" Digital Collage for ABC card swap

"Travel" Background magazine image manipulated with Never Dull auto polish. Very cool effects possible	"Escape: Background magazine image manipulated with Never Dull auto polish.	"Open" Digital Collage Part of my Dark Garden series

See Fabric ATCs Dark Garden ATC Swap Go to Color Art Deck Exchange ATCs (2003)
See hand-carved ATC page

Art 'Zine Home

See some Charms, most are sized for embellishing ATCs!