Week 4: ICAD Round-Up

Heading into the official start of summer, with lots more index card artistry!

Day 19: Mandala Monday

It's a vintage collage Mandala Monday featuring some beautiful Hindi text; a dandelion-related library catalog card and illustration from a gardening book; and punched circles from two different colors of index cards.

Day 20: Tranquility

O is for Ocean, which is the first thing that came to mind when I thought about the #dyicad2023 Day 20 prompt, #TRANQUILITY ...so I got out all of my blue brush markers and made some waves.

Day 21: Postage Stamp

Putting the "mental" into "experimental" on with a Glue-as-You-Go collage, featuring one cent stamps plus floral washi stickers plus a few flower illustrations cut from an old, falling-apart gardening book. It's not perfect... (wish I had left more white space on the card in the postage layer!) ...but it's not bad. The point of the "Glue as You Go" collage exercise is to work loosely, commit to each element without dry-fitting or having a firm plan for what's next. You don't always get a finished piece you love, but it helps you become more confident that you can fix/adapt/improve on the fly and it's a great way to learn how to analyze what works and what doesn't; which will help you out a lot the next time! Perfect for ICAD really... 

Day 22: Unexpected

Rating the elements of this ICAD for their Unexpectedness Levels:

Pink + Yellow Color Palette: 2/10 (pretty expected)

Jaunty Random Stacked Triangles: 7/10 (kinda unexpected)

Handcut Goldfish: 11/10 (did NOT see that coming!)

Day 23: Enchanted Forest

...or in this case... Enchanted Florist! More painting + doodling with my Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks. One at a time, I smooshed three of my favorite (blend-friendly) colors (Rosey Posey, Bluebird and Sunflower) onto a craft sheet... spritzed with rubbing alcohol... and dipped the card into the ink. I repeated a few times with each color until I had a nice mix of blended and unblended color. After it was dry, I "looked for" the centers of the flowers in the random ink splotches and outlined them. Then I added concentric, rose-like petals. Then (this is the vital part!) I did Wendy's trick for turning a simple line drawing into a fun and whimsical doodle, which is to ADD A SECOND SET OF LINES! Simple... but it really really makes all the difference. I'd write more but you probably want to go try this for yourself and I don't want to slow ya down...   

Day 24: Bubble

During a two month project like ICAD it's important to acknowledge that some days we have more time and energy than others. My strategies for low-energy days include: embracing my comfort zone activities; "copying" something I've made before; and revisiting my favorite prompts. Conversely, on high-energy days I tackle more ambitious ideas and if I'm really on a roll, I might work ahead and make more than one card at a sitting. But honestly, part of the point of a daily art practice is learning that it IS possible to make art on days you're not particularly inspired; and accepting the fact that a few days of making art you don't love is not the end of the world. In fact, sometimes that "spectacular failure" you were embarrassed about... it might turn out to be the doorway to a really great innovation, two weeks later. We're nearly halfway through ICAD and all I can say is KEEP GOING! If you've missed a few days, re-start without worrying about catching up. The exact number of cards you complete and/or the date you finish is not the crucial thing, I promise! 

(PS: My easy, peasy take on the Bubble prompt consists of handcut, stacked, patterned paper circles on a vintage library catalog card.)

Day 25: Dictionary

A super-simple card with just a few elements: An orange and the characters for orange from a very fun set of Chinese language flashcards my friend Liz gave me; a bright yellow index card; the definition of orange from an old, falling-apart English dictionary and from the same source... a total bonus... the "OPQ" tab from the dictionary which fell off its page while I was putting the book away!

(ALWAYS embrace serendipity, that's my motto!)

♥♥♥

I'll be back next week with another ICAD Round-Up, in the meantime, I post these daily on my Instagram Account and my previous Round-Ups can be found under the ICAD Blog Label.