Vroom! Vroom!

It's a Library Car(d) Mandala Monday combining collage mode (vintage library card, funky auto and book paper) with doodle mode (hand drawn mandala rings) and a random diecut that just happened to be sitting on my worktable when I wanted one more element.

Week 9: Index Card a Day Concludes

Incredibly enough, we've (already?!) reached the end of ICAD; it seems like June and July fly by faster each and every year! Here are my cards from the past week:

Day 54: Mandala Monday

This rosy, leafy, semi-collaged mandala finds itself in Manhattan's Chinatown, at the corner of Mott and Pell Streets, which poses the deep philosophical question: Should we walk across Pell to Doyers and eat at Nom Wah Tea Parlor; or head down Mott to Chatham Square and go to Golden Unicorn? Decisions, decisions...

Day 55: Lemon or Lime

Lime, please!!!

(Handcut lime-slices made up of scraps of various green patterned papers)

Day 56: Winter

Snow and Ice (and doodle!) covered hills doodled with Tombows, outlined with a Letter It Fineliner and with sparkly bits of gel pen that utterly fail to show up in the photo!

Day 57: Bird

Inspired by all the amazing bird doodles in the Wendy Vecchi Facebook Group, I decided to make my own paper-pieced version. I may have gotten a little bit carried away...

Day 58: Illustration

This seemed like a good time to slide in one last #OneStapleCollage in this case all of the pieces in the stapled stack are vintage illustrations. From top to bottom: A 1965 Corvair; an example of hand-lettering for advertising; a gorgeous yellow rose from a gardening book; S & H Greenstamps (technically not an illustration, lol); a machinery diagram; and a black and white forest from a children's book. Attached with one staple to a funky olive green index card.

Day 59: Peaceful

There are few things that make me feel as #PEACEFUL as doodling randomly on an index card whilst watching British Mysteries on Acorn TV. Specifically, in this case, rainbow striped doodles during Brokenwood Mysteries, series nine.

Day 60: Filigree (Sorta)

I started out with the intention of doodling a #FILIGREE design for Day 60 of ICAD2023 but it morphed into more of a geometric repeating pattern in rainbow shades, so I just rolled with it... 

Day 61: Mosaic (Again... Pretty Loose)

One of my favorite things about ICAD is that you can use the prompts to get you started, but when your original idea morphs into something else entirely, it's still cool. It might, in fact, be even better than your original idea; but the main point is... you feel inspired and then can let yourself follow that inspiration WHEREVER it takes you. Maybe you'll also end up with a beautiful finished piece; even if you don't love the outcome, the process has likely given you a new idea of something to try in future. Whatever happens, you've gained something valuable. My other favorite thing is all the awesome artists I've met and interacted with over the simple act of creating art on index cards for 61 days in a row. Many thanks to everyone who has stopped by to say hi, and as always the biggest portion of my gratitude goes to Tammy Garcia, aka @gypsy999 who dreamt up this fun and inspiring shindig thirteen years ago and is still the biggest motivator and cheerleader I know. I'm already looking forward to June 1, 2024! 

♥♥♥♥♥

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.

Best Fishes for a Fabulous Week

It's a funky, fishy Mandala Monday. Inspired by a great Collage Social at Second State Press with my neighbor Deb and her daughter Heather on Sunday afternoon, I came home and made another collaged library card for Mandala Monday. With fish... obviously... 

And here's a mid-collage action shot. Many thanks to our hostess, Heather Steckler for snapping and sharing photos; I've never seen myself collaging before!

Here are a few more backgrounds I made during the event; I think in the photo above I'm working on the one with all the Green Stamps.