From a Series of Rainbow Haired, Gocco-Hearted Girls for a Skinny Pages (3″ x 7″) swap that I’m hosting over at www.illustratedatcs.com. It’s open style, open theme.
I’m making one for each color of the rainbow: Yellow, Orange, Red, Green, Blue, Purple, Brown, Black and maybe White If I can figure out how to put that one together.

The pages are Mixed Medium with Scrapbook paper (Background), Prismacolor Markers & Colored Pencil, Thesauras Pages (Collaged Shirt), Hand Colored Print Gocco Heart

Shown here are the first four:
1. HeartGirlOrange, 2. HeartGirlBlue, 3. HeartGirlRed, 4. HeartGirlGreen

I’m one of the yellow contributors in this so lovely book. This is my www.illustrativeatcs.com group. A bunch of us contributed to the book – each in a chosen color.

Then, our fearless leader — the lovely artist PotbellyArts/Shel did the most amazing job of creating gorgeous layouts to highlight everyone’s art and make the creation cohesive.

If you’d like to get a copy of your very own, check it out on Lulu
www.lulu.com/content/2689642

You’ll be amazed what can be created on a 2.5" x 3.5" ATC (think baseball card). The artists in this book (me included) created hundreds of beautiful, creepy, strange, bold, sublime, delightful, abstract and all around wonderful cards.

The book is being released to the general public this week. Proceeds will be going to a variety of charities chosen by the contributors.

Get your very own copy at Lulu
www.lulu.com/content/3202513

Originally uploaded by artyB

There’s so much whimsy and darkness to play with when you are working with the Day of the Dead theme. This is my first time working on the theme. It was so fun to combine bold grinning skulls with bright, celebratory colors.

I hope I have done the spirit of this tradition proud with these four cards. I created these for a swap over at www.illustratedatcs.com.

SummerPAT

Originally uploaded by artyB

I love PATs (Pick-A-Theme) Swaps! if you aren’t familiar, PATs are organized swap in which a group of 5 folks all pick their favorite themes. Then, everyone in the group proceeds to make an ATC for each other in their chosen them.

It’s a great way to stretch yourself as an artist. You end up drawing subjects that you would never tackle on your own. It pushes you out of your comfort zone and you occasionally discover that you have a love or knack for drawing subjects that would never have hit your radar.

In return, you get 4 custom-made cards in a theme of your choosing. Does it get any better than that?

I made these four cards for the Summer PAT at www.illustratedatcs.com. They are themed as follows (top left to bottom left, clockwise)
1. Antique Toys – For Inkleaves
2. Eyes – For TabLynn
3. Vintage Science Fiction – For Dina54
4. Wild Hawaii – for Lemurkat

Look at Me!

Originally uploaded by artyB

UIowa has a great web-based project called the Daily Palette. It’s goal is to feature one Iowa connected artist each day. Earlier this summer, they contacted me and asked if I would like to be featured today September 2, 2008.

Hell Ya! I couldn’t have been more delighted. So, check me (and my art) out. Here’s the link.

http://dp.uiowa.edu/index.php?artwork=1496

Of course, while you’re there, check out other Iowa artists too. Iowa has a rich tradition of birthing artists!

Originally uploaded by artyB

Check it out – I made these 7 Glorious Chunky Book Pages for a Black & White Chunky Book Swap at www.illustratedatcs.com.

The core visual of these babies are my typical hand drawn, bold-lined style. However, I also played around with building a sticker base that acts as a border around the heart, goth boy and Frida- homage pages.

I used some custom stickers that I ordered 4 or 5 years ago that say “Muffins or Bust”. I chopped the stickers into little mosaic chunkds and randomly (i mean artistically) stuck them onto card stock. Then, I ran my drawings (slightly smaller than the 4×4 size) through my large Xyron and stuck them on top of the backgrounds — creating an interesting border.

I liberally applied eyelets, yarns and other chunky bits to make them swap suitable.

Mixed Media for Sure: I used all of the following – photocopies for collage, yarn, ribbon, white-out, ink, rub-on letters, prismacolor markers, fabric, stickers, eyelets, brads, gel pens (i think that’s everything!)

Originally uploaded by artyB

These are the loverly backs for my 7 glorious chunky book pages.

I made these 3 chunky book pages for a black and white chunky book swap over at www.illustratedatcs.com. I’m going to add some embellishments (not sure what yet). More pages are coming, but I’m just getting started.

Love me some chunky books!!

I’m participating in a Matroishka Doll Swap over at www.illustratedatcs.com. I’m in a group with an open theme and we’ll each get one doll back from each of the other artists in our group. The only restriction is that they have to be figurative.

So, I’m testing the waters here and it’s a work in progress — I’m using acrylics thinned with acrylic gel medium. you can still see the wood grain through the paint and the coverage is nicely opaque.

For a finishing touch, I think I’m going to use my dremel to drill a couple of holes around her waist line and add a belt and a button as a belt buckle – just to jazz up her outfit