Our May ATC Challenge from Gaby xx

The 1st of May and another challenge has been set for us by our lovely guest designer, self taught multi-media artist Gaby.... this lady is soooo talented please be sure to check out her blog over H E R E



Scroll down her pages and see some of her AMAZING artist trading cards... OH, those rust miniature ATC works of ART are to die for.


Now then anyone who knows me will know I LOVE backgrounds and Gaby has set us a background challenge for this months theme, I myself have never tried it and so out of my comfort zone once again, lol :))


Over to Gaby....

For those of you who don’t know me yet, I’m Gaby from Germany.

I am a self-taught mixed media artist. I have a lot of interests, with a focus on collage.

This form allows me to use so many different methods and materials. My art is spontaneous.

I like the creative process, layering of many different materials including paint, ink, paper, photographs and found elements.

I love all kinds of art, but my special love is the ATCs. I’m always interested in new techniques and challenges, so my art can continue to evolve… only my everyday "job" sets the limits...

It’s a real honor to be invited as May’s guest designer. Thank you Chriss!

My theme for this month is “The Peeling Paint Technique” that Claudine Hellmuth popularized in her College Discovery Workshop book.

I really love this peeled paint effect and I use it often for the backgrounds.

A short explanation for those who don’t know this technique:

First Step, apply a base coat of paint on your card stock.

Wait for paint to dry fully.

Than apply petroleum jelly intermittently over surface areas, covering areas that you want to expose when the paint peels during a later step.

Apply the petroleum jelly thickly enough to cover the surface that you want to peel. You can use your fingers or a paintbrush.

Paint over the entire surface using a different color of paint. . Allow the paint to dry.

Apply a second coat if desired.

Remove the petroleum jelly, using a soft cloth or paper towel.

The second colour of paint peels off at the same time.

Clean the surface to remove lingering traces of petroleum jelly.

If you like, seal your surface with an acrylic medium such as Golden medium.

Decorate as desired.

You can apply the petroleum jelly over a collage or piece of art work, and then paint over top.

However, you must seal the collage surface first with a coat of acrylic medium. Otherwise, the jelly soaks through your paper.

Have fun!

Have a good one, Gaby

Thank you Gaby it is an honour that you have agreed to be our GD for May 2010.

Thanks Gaby for the tute I can see the sales of Vaseline going up this month...lol.

Time for a huge thank you to Patty for doing us the honour of being our guest designer for us last month, Patty you did us proud, your ATC's arrived and IRL they are even more wonderful xxx

I am thrilled to say that Patty is now one of our newbie club members so we will be seeing more of her work. :)

Welcome to our new followers and thank you for the millions at least it feels like millions of enquiries from new readers about our club, I have been kept very busy this month behind the scenes.

All Swaps have now gone out... I held back on the international ones due to the Iceland troubles so you should get them soon.

We have a lovely sponsor for this month, Fay who runs an Ebay shop selling blank ATC's, inchies, twinchies, rinchies and much more however she is away on business at the moment and has closed her shop until the 9th May.

We will be putting her delightful blog candy grab bag of goodies up then so do pop back on the 9th.

When you have created your ATC's please put them on your blog and leave a comment on this post so that we can come and visit you I do hope that I didnt leave anyone out last month.

Thank you to all who pop over to visit each others blog when they have posted their ATC's.

Wishing you all a brilliant Bank Holiday weekend.

Thanks for joining us.