As a crafter, no matter your craft, Artist Trading Cards are a fun, easy, and accessible way to translate your work into artwork. Here’s how to get started: Artist Trading Cards (or ATCs) are trading card sized artworks that are freely exchanged between other creators and collectors. There are only two rules for an ATC:
The artwork MUST be official trading card size: 2.5″x3.5″. These are trading cards, just like baseball cards, and this is the rule. Some professional paper suppliers, like Strathmore, actually make their professional papers in ATC sizes, or you can of course cut down your own, but… The artwork MUST be created on a professional quality paper as its base–no cardstock, no typing paper, but legitimate gallery-quality paper. This rule has a conceptual basis, in that it highlights the status of the creation as artwork, but every conceptual rule has a practical underbelly, and the truth is that professional quality paper is sturdier, it’s archival, and it’s well able to handle a variety of media and stand up to the wear it will likely receive.
One more rule: it’s best for your work to be archival–if you work with chalks, for example, or collage with ephemera, it’s best to seal it when you’re done. If only The Last Supper had been treated so well! Other than this, your work is your own, and this small canvas is actually highly malleable to your purposes. Do you scrapbook? Create a ATC-sized scrapbook page! Do you throw pots? Create an ATC-sized sketch of a work or concept! Do you sew? Quilt over an ATC-sized canvas! Your ATC may be as three-dimensional or as textual or as whatever-you-want as you want it to be. And then, when you’re done, swap your beautiful Artist Trading Card, post it on the ATC Flickr pool, or just give it to someone else, and encourage that person to make one of their own.
