New Challenges

I recently joined a new ATC trading site, IllustratedACTs.com. It's juried site so being accepted was an exciting thing for me. I still love my first trading site, ATCsforAll.com and plan to continue trading there, but look forward to having to push myself a little more with my new group where people don't know me as well and I have to prove myself all over again.

Upon being accepted, I immediately joined a swap. A CAT (choose a theme). I picked a fantasy themed group within the swap and decided on unicorns as my personal theme. Honestly, I don't know why I picked unicorns. They make me think of the 80s, bad fashion/bad hair, and and my goofy teen years. Once I started drawing them, I also realized that (1) horses are a pain to fit into an ATC and (2) getting the horn to show at different angles is challenging. And I wasn't really feeling inspired to do unicorns. They really aren't my thing. What was I thinking? I've started several unicorns that I just wasn't feeling and never finished. I also realized that another artist in the other fantasy group on the swap had also picked unicorns for her theme. While I was trying to come up with my first card, she completed her whole set as well as another set for her second group. And they were fabulous. I got so sucked up into trying to make my unicorns new and original and wouldn't even think about putting cliche rainbows in my cards while the other artist used rainbows in every one and made them anything but cliche. At that point, I joined a second swap and completed all the cards for that one as the CAT was starting to kill my artistic selfesteem. I was getting some serious artist block.

I'm so used to seeing unicorns depicted as white, flowing, skinny legged creatures and wanted something different. I was on a 'zunicorn' (zebra + unicorn) kick last year and still thought it was a cool idea. Zebras are stocky, have short spiked manes and of course sport the awesome striped pattern. But after looking through lots of horse pictures for inspiration, I came across these knabstruppers and was hooked on them. I love love love their spotted coats.
At this point, I have three cards done. I may need to tweek them a bit. But this is what I have so far. My new scanner is awful. The colors are off, the shading doesn't show up, and there are blotches. Sigh.

After years of painting pictures of my nieces, I find they still pop up in my artwork now and then. This girl looks like my niece Rachel. I love her freckles and thought they would be fun with my spotted horse.

Here is the second one I finished. It looks completely washed out. Sorry about that.

And my third one. Do you see a pattern here? Lots of hugging and lovey dovey going on. My art is certainly influenced by my mood of which will be another post at some point.

I have one more unicorn card to go.
For my hostess gift, I made this paperdoll. The hostess is collecting Queen Elizabeth 1 ATCs. Hopefully she wont mind a paperdoll instead of an ATC. I love making them and Queen Elizabeth 1 was so much fun with that awesome dress. The little puppy on her shoulder has a movable head.