Index Cards galore.

I have been a little slack updating my blog lately. I think I am trying to do too much and it is making me freeze and not do anything. I take on lots of new projects and then get lost not knowing what I should do. I am deciding what is important to me and letting other things go but it is hard for me because once I start a project or challenge I like to finish.

week 9

  I did the Index Card a day challenge again this year. It will probably be the last year for me. Why? I just didn't find it interesting this year and so it will be one of the challenges I will stop doing.  Well...maybe stop doing because I may change my mind next June, lol. I would normally follow peoples links to their pages from the facebook group but as links were banned this year I couldn't connect with other artists like I did previously. It took a lot of the inspiration and discovery away for me and made it seem less fun because I didn't feel the need to check the facebook group as often.

week 1 periodic table

 I did enjoy making my cards and have prepped a few extras so that when the mood takes me I have a quick little card to do to get me in the mood for larger art pieces. I was going to do my own thing this year but when the first week of prompts were listed I was inspired to give them a go. As the challenge went on the prompts did not always appeal so I did my own art then. 

I have only shown a few of the cards here. I have loaded all 61 cards onto my flickr page so if you want to see the other cards they can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/artygirl/

 Week 1 was drawing and this is a plan of our garden.

Week 2 was paint and all the prompts were colors so I did abstract doodles most of the week.

Week 3 was collage. This was route 66 in my town. 

 Week 4 was patterns. This prompt was exotic.

Another week 4 prompt - dramatic

 

Week 5 was mark making using stamps, tape and stickers. I didn't follow prompts this week. I used washi tape on all the backgrounds and stamped on them. I then colored and added details with acrylic paint markers. These cards were a lot of fun and something I will do again. 

Week 6 was to use a different color each day. I did a collage of similar colored pictures each day and doodled to fill in blank spots on each card. I really enjoyed this technique as well and got to use some of those random images I have been saving. 

 Week 7 was typography. I did follow the prompts again this week.

Week 8 - maps. I followed prompts this week so I could use the maps in various ways. 

 The last week was meant to be sketching but I found these picture cards in my stash and wanted to use them so I doodled backgrounds to match the photo colours. 

I enjoyed my time making cards this year but the fun of the facebook group seemed to be different this year...maybe because it has become so large. Or more likely because I didn't have time to keep up with the posts this year. I am thankful that Tammie hosts the challenge each year but it may be time for me to do something different next year. 

Something a little different.

I woke up early this morning and when I looked outside I could see frost on the lawn. It is winter here and I like trying to get photos of the early morning light. I grabbed my camera and jumped in the car. I went to a lake that is not far from me and was not disappointed with the scene I found there. The lake was covered with a heavy layer of fog that I knew would be very atmospheric in photos.

I took this first photo as I was walking towards the lake. I could see rainbows in the mist and tried to capture it with the camera. It is not a colourful as it was in person but it is pretty close. The next image was taken a little later on.

Faux encuastics with Jodi Ohl

I recently did an online course at creative workshops. It was faux encaustic with Jodi Ohl. The link is http://www.shabbycottagestudio.com/  I changed the design for mine. I don't like to make exactly the same thing as the teacher when I take classes and if I can will do my own work.

I used the same techniques but used images from Flickr that people have allowed to be used in art works. I will put the links for the photos underneath so you can download them if you want to. I won't go into details of the technique because that is not fair to the teacher but basically it is many layers of paper, drawing, stamping and mediums. It gives a look of wax encaustic without using wax. I still have to do a final layer of matte varnish but you get the idea.

 flickr.com/photos/fftang/4316126962/in/photostream/

 flickr.com/photos/amynkassam/2866419139/

flickr.com/photos/tubagooba/365796347/

flickr.com/photos/lipkee/2281219861/

It took a while to complete the canvases but I am happy with the final result. Even my husband likes them, lol.

Inspiring Artists

When I was at my local art store I picked up these postcards of upcoming exhibitions. I really liked the paintings so didn't want to throw the cards away. I decided to put them in my journal as inspiration.

I chose two scrapbook papers for my book. They were a little brighter than I wanted so I sprayed them with adhesive and stuck on some tissue paper.

It came out a little blotchy and too much of the original color could still be seen so I gave it a light coat of white gesso. I still kept it blotchy but less of the original paper could be seen.

I then painted on two shades of blue Daler-Rowney pearlescent liquid acrylic. I thought it looked great and showed up the texture of the paper. I then rubbed on some green Viva InkaGold paint. It highlighted the original embossed paper. I stamped on some words using the liquid acrylic. It was just after doing this that I knocked over my brush washing water, completely saturating my work. After cleaning up the mess I had to give the paper another coat of paint and when it dried the tissue started to separate from the background. I stitched around the edge to hold it all together. I restamped the words and finished off the pages.

Emma Hack takes very intriguing photos. She paints the background then body paints a model to stand in front of it. She poses them with a real bird before taking the photo. You can buy prints of Emma Hack's amazing work at her website. Just search her name.

Beach Album

I have been a scrapbooker for a while now. I have always liked these photos of a sunny day at the beach with my children so I decided to put them in their own mini album. I used the BoBunny chipboard album shown here. I decided to keep it fairly simple in style because I wanted the photos to stand out so they take up most of the page. I stitched around the edge of the pages because I wasn't sure the glue was strong enough and I didn't want it to fall apart in the future.

The completed album.