ICAD week2

Wrapping up the first FULL week of Index Card a Day and if you're not on Instagram, you are missing out; there are soooooo many amazingly creative people making art on index cards in every style imaginable; and this year I'm especially excited that my craft bestie, Stephanie, is participating as well!

Day 5: Mandala Monday

It's hard to see the magical sparkle on this card, but trust me, it's there, thanks to golden star stickers and little hits of a clear glitter pen over some of the petals. I scribed the central circles for this mandala with my old-school compass; watercolored pink, orange and yellow Tombow Dual Brush Pens picked up with a waterbrush; then outlined the result (when dry!) with a Ranger Letter It Fineliner. Text added with my 1930's Olympic Elite typewriter.

Day 6: Wildflowers

A bunch of smaller scale collage elements including a Sewing Pattern Lady, glossy wildflowers, a reproduction vintage bus ticket, and part of an illustration (with caption) from a somewhat worse-for-wear collage fodder book, Georgian Architecture. On a pale pink, vertically oriented index card.

Day 7: Zebra or Stripes

Flashing back to a prompt I skipped last week, but then I suddenly wondered if it'd be cool to TEAR one index card (blue) into zebra-ish stripes and glue the pieces onto another (white) card... YEP, it's pretty cool! Remember that the prompts are there to inspire and assist you; use them whenever and however you'd like; or even not at all if you're having fun doing your own thing! 

Day 8: Butterfly

Being a "more is more" maximalist kind of gal, I am quite surprised to have made this collage which has only FOUR elements...?! But it feels balanced and complete, so who am I to argue with the serendipity of two German scrap butterflies and a photo of knitting instruction on top of a gorgeous gifted Swedish library card. 

Day 9: Magenta or Fuchsia

The infamous One Staple Collage* is a beloved ICAD tradition, and thus I am excited to display my first of the #dyicad2023 season; embracing today's optional prompt of "Magenta or Fuchsia" which I somewhat expanded to embrace a bunch of shades of my favorite color... PINK! 

*The One Staple Collage is, as the name implies, a collage in which all of the items are held together with ONE STAPLE. It's slightly harder than you might think, as it depends on clever and creative stacking of elements. I would gently suggest NOT choosing your most beloved and rare items for this exercise, but if you love traditional collage, you might want to try this!

Day 10: Off-Prompt (or Wildflowers, Part 2)

Wendy Vecchi has been drawing the coolest doodle flowers, which she then paints with her signature Archival Ink palette and a waterbrush filled with Isopropyl Alcohol. I did the same thing, but in reverse: I painted all the shapes first, then added doodley outlines on top after they were dry. Which... when painting with rubbing alcohol instead of water... is FAST! Also, it's hard to tell from a photo, but painting with Archivals and alcohol literally NEVER warps or wrinkles your paper, which is a considerable advantage when you're working on index cards!

 Day 11: Off-Prompt

Whenever I need to trim up a lot of edges, especially of mandalas or other watercolory things, I kinda hate to throw all the pretty scraps away, so sometimes I save them, glue them randomly to something and make a quilt-like pattern or a background. Like this one! 

(PS: Yet another reason I love keeping my ICADs together on a book ring is the ability to sprawl out the cards for a funky group shot of what I've made so far!)

♥♥♥