Five Minutes at a Time

I wasn't getting anything done. There was plenty of stuff I needed to get done, but sometimes I just have to accept it's not going to happen. This was one of those times.

So I made atc's instead.

For my own amusement, and for this blog post, I set a timer on my phone and took a photo every five minutes. Here's an insight into my masterboard making.

Blank mixed media paper. Messy desk.

Acrylic paint, alcohol ink, blobs of embossed bits. I'd like to pretend I had a plan to start with but nope. And I regretted this all immensely.

Tried to block a few segments for different color schemes. I already knew I was going to cut it up and reassemble so I wanted distinctly different areas. Gelatos were added here.

Pulling together a little more. Looks like one of my first masterboards from 9th grade art class.

Half of getting better seems to be learning when not to quit.

The paint pen dots really make it for me. I use them in a lot of my mixed media.

Cut up into chunks. Tried to make sure each chunk was limited in its color range. Also, my redvine got in shot.

Gluing down. Alternated between wanting to use tacky glue and a glue stick, figured out early on the tacky glue was warping the mixed media board too much. Which is kind of bullshit. I need to work more on canvas since it's the only thing that doesn't seem to warp.

This is surprisingly slow. 

I tried to get a decent balance, but also to remember it was going to be cut up.

Starting on adding the black between chunks. Acrylic paint, palette knife. To minimize the paint on the colorful blocks, I "pipe" the acrylic on using a zip lock bag with a tiny hole in the corner. I still end up with some paint on the blocks, but enough that it looks intentional instead of haphazard.

This process is kinda slow. It'd be faster if the lines were straight, but that wouldn't look as cool, would it?

Finally! My masterboard, just to let it dry to trim down.

At this point I stopped photographing because it took hours for the paint to dry and then literally just cutting it down into 3.5 x 2.5 chunks was not exciting. 

I liked the cards as they were, but decided a little text for focal point couldn't hurt. I sat at my typewriter and pounded out some random phrases. A lot were rehashes of unfinished projects and old poems, hence the series title "Poetic Nonsense & Goddamn Cliches". 

Here they are in sets of 4. I put them up like this on instagram and it was fun to see what got dibs'd for trades first. I'm hoping the rest of them will find homes too, because the last thing I need is to start hoarding my own ATCs again... 

I think I made up for every post I have ever done without pictures in it... yikes.