Making Collage ATCs With a Masterboard a la Margarete Miller

 I swap Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) with a group of friends, and on several occasions some of them have mentioned making their cards by starting with a collage masterboard, which means you collage a larger sheet, then cut it into individual ATCs (2.5" by 3.5"), and add some details to each one.

For some reason, I have long been skeptical of doing that, but finally decided to give it a try when the number of participants grew slightly — from typically 5 or 6 each month to potentially 8 to 10. Not exactly an overwhelming number, you might think, but I actually kind of panicked, because the way I make the cards, one at a time from start to finish, is pretty time-consuming. So I decided to give it a try to see if it would streamline my process.

The technique is championed by Margarete Miller, who is kind of a collage art influencer, in that she sponsors collage art challenges and makes tutorial videos, and her own artwork is very appealing. So I watched her video demonstrating how she goes about making a masterboard, in this case for a set of postcards.

I had initially resisted watching a how-to video on making a collage. I mean, I do know how to cut and paste, duh! But I decided to watch it anyway, just to see if I could pick up any helpful tips, and of course I did. The first thing, which had never occurred to me, was to place the elements without glueing them down yet, then take a photo for reference before beginning to glue. That was kind of a forehead slap for me, and very helpful.

The second thing, which she actually did first, but I didn't appreciate until I had begun to glue things down, is to draw where your cut lines are going to be. This became especially important to me, as I was using a letter-size base (8.5" x 11"), which meant I'd be trimming some away when I cut my ATCs. To avoid placing something I really liked in a spot where maybe I would end up having to trim, I added my cut lines after I had glued a couple of things down.

Our theme for this swap was botanicals, but I wasn't really focused on that as I made my masterboard. I kind of thought of it as a generic background, figuring I would add the botanical part after cutting them. 

I decided to leave off the paper tape measure in the end. It just didn't really work for me.

Cut into ATCs, but not "botanical" yet.

It's hard to say whether making my cards this way actually saved me any time, since I spent a lot of time on each card anyway. But I enjoyed the whole process, and felt that having the common background elements helped the individual cards relate to each other more than sometimes happens when I do them individually from the start. And there's a lot to be said for not starting with a blank "canvas" for each card!

I'm definitely going to use this technique again; in fact, I'm working on a smaller set (6 ATCs) for our March swap, which I'll show you after I finish them.