Scenes from My Sketchbook # 14: Women & Creativity ATC

Day 279  This month I have been participating in the Women & Creativity 2012 Sponsored by the National Hispanic Cultural Center here in Albuquerque.  One of the activities was an ATC (Artist Trading Card) swap that anyone could sign up for and apparently they have artists of all ages from all these places
AZ, AK, CA, CO, GA, LA, IN, MA, MD, MI, MN, NE, NM, NY, OR, PA, TX, VA, WI and British Columbia
seriously how amazing is that?  We were given 11 cards, 10 to trade and 1 to keep, and basically just allowed to create.  I mailed them this week, it will be so much fun to see which ones I got back!

Since it was 'Women & Creativity' I decided that I wanted my daughters to also participate.  I sketched out the design and discussed what I wanted in the basic design.  My oldest loves to paint so I asked her to mix or choose a blue for the background which are representing the blue cloudless skies common to New Mexico.  Yes we do paint in our living room, in fact we do all our crafting in there or the kitchen and no I don't cover up furniture~it might get a little messy sometimes but we clean up real nice and I would love to see the kids creating.

Then I worked on the gold, brown, red acrylic mix for the background to represent the Sandia Mountains here in Albuquerque.  Over the top of the acrylic I used oil pastel crayons in reds and browns.

Whether moon or sun over the mountains they always stand stark contrast against the bright blue skies.  Using a yellow oil pastel crayon I colored a circle to represent either of those celestial bodies.  

Next I took an old large metal sewing needle and punched holes around the orb.

Last I gave my youngest daughter a ball of leftover threads from various sewing projects and asked her to sew them into the orb.  Since the threads were scraps there were long and short lengths, she just kept on sewing swapping in new colors chosen at random.

They turned out very simple but they do represent the women in our family, the place where we live, the sky and mountains that we see every day and the sewing that I do.

What will you create today?