Artist Trading Cards (ATCs)
This article is available as a 16-page booklet, illustrated with many of my own ATCs printed full-size. More practical than a guide on the screen, this is a great little gift to get for a creative child or someone wanting to try their hand at ATCs! It is available in my bookstore.
To see more of my own cards, visit my ATC gallery.
ATC stands for Artist Trading Card. This article is both a primer and an idea bank intended for those who wonder what an ATC is and how to make one. (Please don't ask me how and where to trade, the reference site for this is ATCs: A Collaborative Cultural Performance.)
The very basics
As their name indicates, ATC are collectables, a brilliant idea born of the older sports-themed trading cards. The one rule that makes an ATC derives from this: the dimensions of the ATC must be 2.5"x3.5", or 64x89mm.
To this rule are appended a couple of conventions. First, an ATC mustn't be sold, only exchanged, as the whole essence of these tiny works of art is about artists meeting (by correspondence or online if need be) and exchanging their works, thus meeting many artists and getting exposed to many personal styles.
Second, on the back of each ATC the artist writes part or all of the following information: name, contact information, title of the ATC and number (1/8, 2/8...) if it's part of an edition. By definition ATCs are made in limited numbers, often no more than one of a kind. Unique ATCs are called originals; sets of identical ATCs are called editions and are numbered; sets of ATCs that are based on one theme but that are different are called series. Don't be intimidated by the concept of small editions or originals: very few people are anal about this. What most collectors really want are cards that were made with care. Based on that, numbers are meaningless.
That's all! The above is all you need to know to start making your own ATCs. Common sense dictates that they should be sturdy enough to survive mailing, and of reasonable thickness (unless you specifically want them otherwise. Transparent card sleeves are useful to protect the cards if need be. This is particularly true if they can easily get smudged or if the medium might stick during transport.
Extra things to know or do
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| I store the ATCs I make in this box till it's time to send them out |
❥ ATC envelopes: A lovely alternative to transparent sleeves when sending several cards is to create an ATC envelope. A template for such an envelope can be found at Mirkwood Designs, or you can download my own template in Photoshop layers. This template allows you to print the outlines for two envelopes on a sheet of paper (pretty paper, giftwrap, or anything else cut to printer size), or to decorate your envelopes digitally before printing. Just turn off the top layer, which contains instructions, and it's ready to print. It goes without saying that you can make your own template and come up with your own envelopes.
❥ What to do with your collection: A popular solution are those nifty albums with 9-pocket sheets available for commercial cards. But many people also keep them in boxes so that they can enjoy taking them out and handling them as they flip through. Others collect them in panels or picture frames to display in their home. I've heard of people sewing a plastic pocket to their handbags to display a different card every week, and someone placing a card inside their name tag, turning it into a piece of unusual jewelry. Some even make special handmade books to display theirs. The sky's the limit!
❥ Signature cards: Many ATC artists create a "business card" ATC that features a self-portrait on the front and a fact sheet about themselves on the back. They then send it out with sets they are trading. This is a lovely idea that allows artists to get to know each other more. Make it good -- this is your image in the ATC-trading world!
❥ Design issues to consider: My personal piece of advice before you start would be: as you sit down to create your own cards, don't think of them as works of art scaled down. Many stamp designers make this mistake when they create stamps for the postal office. Think at the scale of the card, don't go into techniques that are only suitable for larger projects, but on the contrary think of what the small size allows you to do that wouldn't be otherwise possible. You know how a group picture becomes so uninteresting when scaled down too much, because you can't even see faces anymore? This is an example of a subject that would be wasted on a small size.
In case this hasn't transpired yet, any and all art/craft/design techniques are permissible here, including completely new ones! Below you'll find a compilation of ideas for techniques and themes.
Achieving the format
I can think of three ways to get the correct format. One is to cut the support to the right size before you start working; the second is to work on a large surface and then cut out the cards from it; the third would be to use commercial trading cards, cover them with a layer of paper or paint, and use them as readymade canvasses (playing cards are also the right size if you like cards with round edges).I use the first method a lot, especially when I get paper scraps that have potential but that i don't want to use on the spot: I cut them to the right size and save them for later. When I'm dealing with themes that require spontaneity and I don't want to feel constricted by a small canvas, I use the second method. I made myself a frame the size of an ATC, cut into a large piece of board. I move the frame around on my composition until I find a cropping I like, then I mark the corners and cut it out. I repeat until I've used up all the interesting parts of the painted surface.
I've also seen lovely ATCs that had been made in series by drawing the motif along a long horizontal strip that was then cut up to obtain a bunch of similar but not identical "tiled" cards.
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| "Tothill Ranges Dry River Bed and Tracks" tiled ATC by Llewena Newell |
Classic techniques
❥ Almost any Fine Arts medium can be put to the miniature canvas of an ATC, either alone or in combination with others: pencil sketch, charcoal, cartoon, watercolor, markers, colour pencils, pastel, crayons, inks, dotting, collage, photography, calligraphy... Below are examples of cards based on traditional media.
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| "Nervous Mail" Drawn ATC by Danial Powers |
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| Collage ATC by Lynn Dewart |
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| "The Lay of Leithian" Calligraphy ATC by Reed C Bowman |
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| "Double Happiness Symbol" Crayon ATC by Den Tan |
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| Photo ATC by Shafina Sheridan |
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| Painted Desert Cut-out ATC by Roger L. Waggener |
A way to make cut-outs that require careful assemblage is to draw your composition and then use tracing paper to trace every shape you'll need separately. Then transfer each shape to the paper of the appropriate color and finally cut them out and put them back together. Using this method I have made very successful cut-out portraits by tracing the shapes of the facial features and hair straight off pictures.
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| Adinkra Symbol of Adaptability" with the wax reserve technique |
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| Gel pens ATC by Boo Book |
❥ ATCs are traditionally on light paper for the design to show, but fluorescent gel pens on dark colors can give a brilliant effect, especially when the subject matter fits this medium. Similarly intense colours can be achieved with the following technique: drawing in pen, coloring on it with super-waxy crayons and then painting over with with a color of speedball. It's very colorful with a messy effect, bringing a strange life to your drawings.
❥ A good old method is rubbing, especially white crayon or wax rubbings with an ink wash. Use lightweight paper to do the rubbings then use a glue stick to secure it to the card support. You can use any and all surfaces you find in the house or outdoors for rubbings, or create your own by cutting out thick board in the desired shapes and gluing it strongly to another piece of board (cheapboard available in architecture stores is great for this).
❥ Printmaking can be achieved through a variety of means, from commercial stamps to carved potatoes to fallen leaves to your own homemade stamps cut out of board or carved in an eraser. Unless you're making your own stamps, which can be works of art by themselves, don't just stamp the card with a comemrcial stamp and leave it as is -- that's cheap and looks more like a store display for the pattern than like a creative work.
❥ Create and cut out your own stencils in card, using an X-acto blade. You can use any kind of paint dabbed with a special brush or a piece of cloth, or spraypaints.
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| "Peace" Stamped ATC by Candy Phillips with embossing powder | "Golden Butterflies" Stamped ATC by Shafina Sheridan |
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| "Bridge to the North Sea" Transfer ATC by Concrete |
❥ When I was a kid I explored the following technique: drawing with a dry point, pressing well to deboss the line into the paper, and then lightly coloring with pencils or crayons. My drawing would show up in white outlines against the colour. Combined with other techniques, this can wield amazing results. Perhaps it would be worth it to try and print on a sheet of card that's been debossed this way?
Needles and all that implies
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| "Snow Flint": Needle punch ATC by Autumn |
❥ Much can be done with thread on cards, as you can see in the examples below. You can thread them, embroider them, or use a sewing machine! You can use carefully designed patterns or total randomness, etc...
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| "Vert Sacred Spiral" Sewn ATC by Autumn | Machine-sewn ATC by M. Steve McCauley | "Sew What?" embroidered ATC by Leslie Green |
❥ Beads can be used in various ways, such as sewn individually, threaded, or glued. They make wonderful accents as they themselves come in endless variations to fit all themes.
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| "Kokopelli Night": a simple row of sewn beads bring this card to life | "Blue Leaf" threaded beads ATC by Carolynsn |
Unusual materials
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| "Aztec Burial": foil ATC |
❥ Fabric (embroidered, painted, patchwork...), can be attached to a card, either as the main focus of the card or as one element in a more complex composition.
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| "Dowie Dream Spirit" Fabric ATC by Llewena Newell |
❥ Sheets of thin plexiglas are available in architecture stores. Cutting them is a pain (you're better off using fake plexiglas, from the same shops, or having them cut them for you), but it's a small price to pay for such a wonderful transparent surface! However, you can also find acetate sheets in copy centers – they're much thinner, but crystal-clear.
❥ The reason I love plexiglas is that I have it laser-engraved to obtain a beautiful white-on-transparent effect that I love to contrast with a small but richly coloured and textured element, as shown below (although that card was scanned on black so that the white would show).
❥ If you can spread polymer clay (FIMO, Super Sculpey...) thin enough, and cut it to the exact dimensions of an ATC, you can obtain wonderful results. Different colours of clay can be mixed to obtain a marbling effect before spreading; different objects both manufactured and natural can be used to create imprints in it; small things like the crystal balls inside ink cartridges can be pushed in; etc... It is also possible to simply create small elements in clay and then attach them to the cards, like I did below to recall the beetle in the stamp.
❥ Ever wondered what melted crayons would look like? Apparently they look quite good!
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| "Artifact" Clay ATC by Marianne Kirby | "Glorified Leaf" Plexiglas ATC |
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| Melted wax ATC by Martha L. N. Goutal | "Fiji beetle" ATC with clay additions |
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| "Dream Lizard": contrasting vinyl and textures |
❥ I am very fond of crisp black silhouettes on richly coloured textures. While working on my final year project I discovered my dream material -- black vinyl. For ATC, I created a series of shapes -- symbols, animals -- on Illustrator, fit as many of them as possible on the surface of an A4, and had them cut out in that material. Copy centers should be able to do this for you, and a single A4 is quite cheap (it cost me a little more than $3): all you have to do is prepare your shapes in a vector software like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. The computer is not necessary though -- you can get your hands on a piece of vinyl and cut it out yourself, with scissors or X-acto.
❥ Introducing wire to a card immediately creates action and interest.
❥ Plastic that shrinks and hardens when baked (called Shrinky Dink in the US) is difficult to control if you intend to make a full ATC out of it, but it works very nicely for elements to be attached to the card, such as the murex shell holding the fabric in place in the card below.
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| "Where do you look first" Wired ATC by Den Tan | "The Purple" Shrinky Dink ATC |
❥ Metal is heavy but it's a wonderful field for experimentation and special effects. To be able to achieve the full range of effects you naturally need a rather complete metalsmith's equipment, but many things can be done with stuff as accessible as lemon juice.
❥ Thinner sheets of copper or the like, found in craft store, are much lighter and allow for easier physical manipulation: bending, cutting, debossing, alteration... For the card below I debossed the pattern and inserted a couple of stained glass beads where I wanted red enamel, and put it in the oven -- only to forget it there. I later found that the copper had achieved a beautiful iridescent red hue due to its prolonged heating. By experimenting with the same copper at different temperature and times I discovered I could more or less decide what colour I wanted it to take in the end. experiment, but watch that oven!
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| "From the Tomb of Kings" Red copper ATC | Metal ATC by Reed C Bowman |
❥ Unwanted negatives are great art material. Did you know that two pieces of film sewn together side by side are the exact width of an ATC? That means possibilities, doesn't it!
❥ Spraypaints can yield interesting results: the card on the left is part of a series that was made by spraying onto a piece of cardboard held at an angle, letting the watery paint drip down onto the ATCs.
❥ Other alternative stuff you can do something with: band-aids, nailpolish, crepe paper, wrapping paper, yarn, playing cards, tea-straining paper, incense paper, perfume (for scented cards), salt (spread white glue then sprinkle), glitter, postal stamps, old tickets and receipts, negatives, transparent wrappings...
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| "Modern Tribe" ATC made with negatives | Spraypaint ATC by James O'Donnell | "Yupik": a single feather creates interest |
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| "Scrap City" Scrap-recycling ATC by Charlie Gattuso |
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| "Hidden" Recycled nori wrapper by Taraegon |
Working with a computer
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| "Le Chat" Illustrator and Photoshop |
Many artists have mixed feelings about computer-generated ATCs. Such qualms are superfluous: the computer is just another tool to obtain a result that another tool couldn't achieve. The beauty or cheapness of a card is not determined by whether it was printed out or handmade, but by the work and vision (or lack thereof) put into it by the artist. That said, nothing says you can't mix computer and manual techniques. Using both together is one of my favourite ATC media. There are a number of ways to make your computer-generated ATCs more than a simple printout and as unique as handmade cards.
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| Digital ATC by Shafina Sheridan |
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| "Ritual" and "Enhanced Ritual" printed on coated and metallic paper |
❥ Print your motifs on card, then apply wax over them in wide blotches. Then, apply a coat of ink or paint over the whole paper (not necessarily evenly). Where you put wax over your printed motifs, the paint won't catch, so they will be visible in the background. You can also do it the other way around, by painting/drawing on the paper, then waxing it, and finally printing bold designs on top.
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| "Diving Memories": the fibrous paper chosen fittingly evokes the texture of underwater growth |
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| "Celtic Drake" Printed on waxed paper then rubbed |
❥ Contrast the clean flat colours of vectorised graphics with the rich texture of special paper. The fish on the right went from "lovely but pointless fish" to "full-fledged exciting composition you want to touch".
❥ Draw randomly on an A4 piece of paper -- symbols, sketches, colour blots, finger painting,â?| Anything will do as long as it doesn't interfere with the paper going through the printer next. If you use stuff that the toner can't stick on (clear nailpolish perhaps?), all the better! Prepare your ATC's central motif on the computer and repeat it within an A4-sized document. You can print out 8 ATCs on a single A4, so tile the motif 8 times if you want it to appear once per card, or more if you want a wallpaper effect. Print this out on the paper you prepared. The result is unpredictable, often delightful and always unique!
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| Acrylics ATC by Autumn Summer |
❥ Brush, rub or sponge paint onto drawing paper then print black & white images on it.
❥ I wonder if printing on damp paper would look cool or very bad (or kill the printer).
❥ Try dropping drops of acetone (found in pharmacies) on a printed design.
❥ Take a wet paintbrush to your printed cards to make the toner diffuse just enough for it not to look so printed anymore. Then try to apply glue all over it with a glue stick: this dries clear and makes the ATC look almost like a painting.
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| "Paper Crane" printed in 3 runs. |
❥ After adding manual touches to computer work, try the reverse! Look into your old sketchbooks for interesting bits that can be scanned, resized, given a fresh treatment and printed. For instance I have been scanning mail I receive in an interesting handwriting to blow it up, play with its transparency, and turn it into typographic compositions as unique as the sender's handwriting.
Paper only
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| "Origami!blue" Randomly folded origami combined with green card |
❥ Origami can serve to create small creatures or wonderful paper dolls to be glued on ATCs as a part of a composition, or it could make the card itself. All you need to do is fold it any way you fancy and then insert another piece of colored paper or card to complete the correct rectangle.
❥ Papier mâché is made by cutting or tearing paper into strips and dipping them in a mixture of white glue and water. The strips are then placed on top of a mold (maybe a cardboard box, a balloon, anything) one by one, until several layers of strips cover the mold, and left to dry. The result is hard as wood and can be painted; the white glue becomes completely transparent when dry. Last year I used papier mâché to make gift boxes for all the members of my family, using different kinds of paper every time. I believe interesting "hard" ATCs could be made out of this technique.
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| Origami doll ATC by Jen Hook |
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| "Undine" ATC making use of layers of tracing paper |
❥ If you're going to store a card in a sleeve, you can use oil to stain the paper and create a translucent effect. Make sure you're in control though or you'll end up with a mess!
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| "Seasonal Wisdom" ATC with tracing paper used on both sides | "Wings" ATC where the choice of paper brings out the design by Keren/nuKKe |
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| Paper ATC by Lynn Dewart |
❥ When you have interesting paper at hand, a magic recipe is to combine two kinds and a die-cut. A die-cut is a shape cut into the paper. Use the most interesting of the two papers (perhaps corrugated paper or something strongly textured or coloured) as the background, and in the top layer made up of the second type of paper, cut out a clear shape such as an animal or object. You can use art punches as well. The contrast will look lovely, and if need be you can always add some design elements with a pen.
❥ If all you had at hand was a single piece of paper and a cutting tool, you could still make something stunning by creating a weave. Weaves can be as simple as the straight, regular weave or go into mind-boggling shapes. More than ever trial and error is what will help you. You can even weave photography for some real amazing effects.
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| Woven ATC by Penelope Harris | Woven photography ATC by Judith E Bush |
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| Cast paper ATC by Charlie Gattuso |
❥ If you can't find interesting paper, why not make it yourself? There are plenty of sites on the Internet that teach how to make one's own paper. One of my colleagues did her thesis on papermaking and she came up with the most amazing varieties of paper -- textured, scented, and even edible!
To infinity and beyond
Take your cards to a whole new dimension by giving them depth, three-dimensionality, interactivity or even motion! Nothing is impossible if you're ready to work on it till they function the way you want them to.
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| "Franco-libanaise" Die-cut ATC |
❥ The concept of 3D ATCs is not universally accepted (many feel they have no use for a card that can't fit into a sleeve), but it's a very promising one (and, as demonstrated in this shadowbox ATC, an appetizing one).
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| "Divine Geometry" 3d ATC by Penelope Harris |
❥ The interactivity can be made more complex – think of Nick Bantock's folded letters, for instance. A card can also be itself completely folded and require much unfolding to reveal its contents, or constitute a pop-up once it's opened. I don't have the heart to do such a thing, but you could consider self-destructing cards – cards you need to destroy or damage to get to the heart of things, much like a wrapped present.
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| "All that I know of Israel, from childhood till 2003" ATC with acetate layers that are opened one by one. |
❥ Confessions of an animator... I couldn't help myself. I had to animate ATCs one way or the other, and here are two techniques I worked with. Below is a wheel-based system: turn the wheel and different images show up in the cut-out windows. You can just see the wheel jutting out from the right side of the card.
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| "Streetfight" Wheel-animated ATC |
❥ Next is a good old flipbook system: the top sheet is designed as an independent ATC, with 9 other sheets that are meant to be flicked with the thumb to animate the little guy. This can be done by hand -- it's actually easier than having to print them. Since there are so few sheets, in order for it to be successful, it's important that the pages not be exactly on top of each other. Page 2 juts out from under page one by just a hair, and so on. This way the thumb can catch them properly.
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| "Happiness..." Flipbook ATC |
Fun with themes
The number of themes that can be tackled in ATCs is even more limitless than the number of techniques, but here are just a few that are either popular or particularly neat, to get your imagination warmed up.
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| 9-card composition in a binder sheet by Charlie Gattuso |
❥ Series of visually related cards around a given theme (cats, mythical creatures, Asia, a holiday...), visual (colour, number, letter...), medium...
❥ 4, 6, or 8 ATCs that work together in puzzle fashion while still functioning as independent compositions. The ultimate number is 9, where the 9 cards can be arranged in the 9 pockets of a binder sheet to create a larger image (like on the left).
❥ Illustrations of poem extracts or quotes.
❥ Postal stamps with their tiny designs are particularly suited to become the subjects of ATCs, as are fr instance passport or photobooth shots (left).
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| Quote ATC by Danial Powers | "The Stamp Collector" ATC with a postal stamp by Trish LaPointe |
❥ A series that tells a story like the frames of a comic book.
❥ Witty cards (below).
❥ Finally I'll just share with you my own favorite themes so far: experimental/innovative ATCs that explore new techniques and media; cards based on the art of world cultures, whether existing or imaginary; themes that require mixing media; themes that represent a design or technical challenge; symbols, typefaces, and all that jazz...
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| "I am Chinese-Canadian": witty ATC by Vincci T |
Less is more
The treasure trove of ideas above may intimidate beginners into thinking trading cards need to be very elaborate or professional or they won't be accepted. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just because we can do anything, doesn't mean the simplest thing we can do is no good. All this is here so that you can find the method you enjoy working with the most, no matter how basic or intricate. Here's an example of a very simple card that doesn't require any gimmick to be beautiful.
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| "Joy": ATC by Cynthia Sillitoe |
