Our new theme is "Life and Death", and you can make your ATC deal with one or the other, or both in whatever creative way you see fit. Feel free to write as much as you want about the theme in your artist's comments, to give us all a bit of insight into how and why you made the card how you did. And remember, you can use a myriad of types of mediums for these cards and their decorations.

NOTE: You can submit any ATC at any time, whether it fits the theme or not. The theme is optional! Please view our cards on the front page in a slideshow!



Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are collectable trading cards that are 2½ by 3½ inches (64 mm x 89 mm) in size. These miniature works of art can be made of various materials, and the techniques to decorate them are pretty much endless. They can be done with paint, collage, rubber stamps, photography, photomanipulation,

ATC's are rarely bought and sold, only traded!



1. You need suitable material 2.5 x 3.5 inches(64 mm x 89 mm) in size. You can make it portrait or landscape, though most are made portrait. The corners can be rounded or squared off. You can use such things as cardstock, fabric, leather, plastic, metal or anything stiff enough, even playing cards or old collectable cards such as pokemon. You'll just have to prepare the surface someway such as with a coat of gesso. It needs to be pretty flat, though ATC's can be three dimensional. The rule is that they must be able to fit in a standard trading card plastic sleeve.

2. Now you can create your background and decorate it according to whatever theme you've decided for the project. You can use tons of things to decorate your card, or you can paint or draw on the card itself. If you are a photographer you can use your own photography on the card. You can embellish the card with such things as torn paper, clay, watch parts, coins, Scrabble tiles, dominoes, shells, stamps, buttons, beads, sequins, glitter, charms, lace, fabric, flowers, etc etc etc!! And another important thing for your card, are words of some type. Not all have to have words of course, but it's a great thing to add.

3. Information that needs to be placed on the back of your card is:

- Name of the Artist (you can put your deviant name if you like)
- Contact information, such as an email or deviantart address
- Title of the ATC, and theme if there is one
- Date the card was created
- Signature of the Artist



Now that you know what an ATC is, you may wonder why you even need to know this! Our idea for *ArtForTheEscape is to have an ongoing project featuring these beautiful little works of art. Everyone is invited to participate, and you can work at your own pace. You can develop your own themes for the ATC's, or you can use our monthly theme for your card/s.

Once your card is made, either scan it in or photograph it and add it to your deviant gallery, then send a note entitled "ATC Submission" to us, and we'll add your card to our gallery.

Here's where the fun really starts!

ATC's are made to be traded, so our gallery will be used for others to find a card they'd like to trade a card to obtain. Once a card has been traded, please list in the artist's comments who the card was traded to. That way others will know which cards are available.

The great thing about these cards are that they are small enough to carry with you all the time, in your purse or wallet, in a pocket, just about anywhere.. and the themes of these are going to be themes that have to do with mental health, and mental illness, and recovery.

Here's some examples of ATC's I've found on dA for your inspiration:



If you have any questions about ATC's, please feel free to comment or send me a note.

Past themes: Hope