Week 3 - Index Card a Day

The overall theme this week was maps. I haven't really played with maps before and this week I got to see that is a great creative tool.

Prompt - stickers.  I simply used letter stickers on a map of the area where I live. After I did this card I realised that almost all of my adult memories are contained within the area shown. I think it will make a great journal page with a lot more highlights.

 
Prompt - roll the dice.  This card didn't work out the way I imagined but I didn't want to do it over.   I drew a lot of dice on the card then covered it with a stencil of a map. There wasn't enough black so I did the stencil twice and now wish I hadn't. It is a bit dark for me. I will try something like this again though.

Prompt - polka dots.  I punched dots out of a map and stuck them onto an acrylic painted background.

Prompt - orange.  I used watercolors to draw an aerial map of an imaginary orange farm.

Prompt - was Harry Potter but I wanted to do a map of my street.  I did rough sketches of all the houses and colored them with watercolors.

Prompt - candy wrapper.  I used chocolate wrappers glued to stiff paper. I traced the states of Australia and cut them out.

Prompt - repeating pattern.  I used punches and maps to make my repeating pattern.  I added a watercolor shadow around each shape to make it 3D.

This was a fun week and great inspiration for several art journal pages in the future.

ICAD week 2

 The overall theme for the second week of ICAD was collage. It is something I like to try occasionally but not really a favorite technique for me. I do like using these challenges to force me to try different techniques, otherwise I would just sketch or paint everything.

Prompt - mandala.  I have never been a fan of mandalas so this was a challenge for me. I used punches to cut shapes out of magazine pages. Some of them are layered. I put the tiny star shapes on top of some of the circles and also used them for the centers of the orange flowers shapes around the edge. The centerpiece is two cut out stars over a circle cut out.  I used a little white pen to add some extra details. The hardest part was gluing down all the pieces.

 Prompt - alphabet. I was making soup last week so the idea of alphabet soup popped into my head.  I cut a picture of soup from a magazine and put it onto a plain background. The letters were added with rub-ons. I did color some of the letters with marker to make them look like they were in the soup. 

Prompt - The Beatles.  I scanned a strawberry painting I had done years ago and printed it out several times.  I cut out the strawberries and glued them to the card.

Prompt - toy camera.  I imagined the photos you might see taken with a toy camera. I used magazine images to make the pictures and added childlike writing.

Prompt - paisley.  This is probably my least liked textile pattern. I think it has to do with the paisley quilt I had as a child.  I kept this card simple and used scrapbook paper and letters.  Another thing gone from my stash.

No prompt for this one.  I just felt like doing a torn collage landscape.  I have been using an old Somerset Studio magazine for most of my collage this week. It is great to get pieces of paper that look like I have painted them. I colored the edge of the torn paper with a brown watercolor crayon, it helps tie the whole thing together. 

Prompt - magenta.  I tore out petals and centers from my magazine.  To get the petal shape I tore around my finger at the top and then tore the sides in a bit. For the centers I used a pencil to draw an oval on the back and tore along the line.  I added a little fine-liner around the centers and for the border. Simple but interesting to look at. I may turn this one into a series of journal pages in different colors, it is my favorite type of collage.

If you haven't started Index Card a Day it is not too late to join in the fun.

More index cards.

I am sharing the other index cards that I completed for week one.

Sticking with the overall theme of Text for the week I have added quotes to most of the cards.

 Prompt - puzzle.  I had some tiny jigsaw pieces in my stash so I picked out the brown ones and put them together in a heart shape to go with the quote I found. Background is blue distress paint.

Prompt - galaxy.  I painted this one in a similar way to the one I did earlier in the year for the 52 card challenge.

Prompt - nail polish. I cut out a nail polish magazine and added a quote.

Prompt - yellow.  I immediately thought of daisies when I read the yellow prompt.  I sketched them on the card and colored them with watercolor.  I spritzed the card with water to make the color run but it didn't run as much as I wanted.

I will try to share the week 2 cards soon.

52 cards...

I have been neglecting to share some of the cards I have been making. Somehow I jumped from week 16 to week 20.

Week 17 - The prompt for this one was Objet d'art.  I used images cut from a giftware catalog. I tried to choose colours that would work together and then arranged them around the frame I had painted. I had so many items cut out (I did them while watching tv with hubby) that I put them on the back of the card too. 

 

  Week 18 - prompt Army.  I couldn't think of a way to do a card about the military definition for Army so I twisted the prompt to suit my own sense of humour. The arms were painted with acrylics and then I added some colored pencil shading. It is a great way to store a bunch of poses to use in later drawings.

Week 19 prompt - dictionary.  I glued a dictionary page to my card with gel medium.  When it was dry I used coloured pencils to sketch some daffodils. Daffodils are a fairly easy flower to draw if you are just beginning to learn sketching.

Week 21 Prompt - niche.  This shows the hole I made in one card that I glued to a second one with two layers of black foam tape for a 3D effect. I had previously gessoed the first card and stuck tissue onto the second one.

I didn't like the yellow tissue so I covered the cards, front and back, with this paper that I know as mulberry paper (it may be called something else where you live). You can see it has lots of threads in it and when you tear it the edges are frayed nicely. I put lots of overlapping pieces on the cards and then dry brushed on a little silver paint to highlight the texture.

 I used two cards to make my niche.  I used scrapbooking brads for the flowers.   The butterflies are old pieces of jewelry that I had saved. I used wire cutting pliers to remove the jewelry parts and adhered them to the card with foam tape.

Week 22 prompt - trim.  A humorous take on the prompt.  I painted the background with acrylics and covered it with plastic wrap while it dried.  It gives the paint an interesting texture.   I did a simple sketch and colored it with pencils.

Week 23 prompt - emerald.  I used self-adhesive paper for the background of my card.  The tree was embossed on green metallic foil that was stuck to cardstock. I used alcohol inks to add more color to the back of the tree and then used a Brilliance stamp pad to add the copper color to the tree. The Brilliance ink works on most surfaces if you dry it with a heat gun.

Week 24 prompt - game.  I painted the card with distress paint and then used a stencil and distress ink to apply the pattern. I had the scrabble tiles in my stash (I think they were a freebie with a magazine) so used them to make the words.

I am now caught up with this challenge. I also have a bunch of index cards to share so will try to post again very soon. Keep making art and having fun.

ICAD 2014

I had so much fun doing ICAD last year that I am doing it again this year. It is a simple challenge hosted by Tammy at Daisy Yellow. Anyone can join in and the rules are simple: use an index card to make art every day in June and July. Tammy does give prompts but you don't have to use them, lots of people don't. I like the prompts because they make me think of things that I wouldn't normally. 

 

 The prompt here was PRISM. That is definitely one of the things I wouldn't think of but it was fun to do after I found a quote. Distress stain background, collaged paper, white pen & pencil.

 The next quote was CIRCUS TENT. I wanted to use the overall theme for this first week which is TEXT so I found a long quote that I could use for stripes. It took a lot of pencil and erasing to figure out how to make it fit but I liked the way it turned out. Pencil and pen.

The prompt was HELLO MY NAME IS.  It made me think of those name tags that have that printed on top. Distress stain and markers. 

I will continue with the overall theme for the week of Text and do cards inspired by the prompts.

I am continuing with the 52 card challenge as well and will have more cards to share soon. I have a new computer now so I am going to start adding videos to the blog after I figure out how to, lol.