Month: June 2020

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Index Cards, Music, Fiction

ICAD week three is done, and I am still keeping up! The prompts this past week were: dandelion, robot, mustard yellow, six word story, pause, birdhouse, geode.  I cannot honestly say that I like any of my cards from last week, but the important thing is that I made something for each one.  I am intrigued by the concept of the six word story, it is not an easy concept!  A couple of years ago, I read a book about writing flash fiction (under 1000 words) and I would like to explore it in my writing someday.

Speaking of things I want to explore, it is high time that I get around to rambling about music and visual art.  This will be part of a series, for now I just have some ideas for you to ponder.  Music is often used in movies to add impact to a scene; think back on parts of your life and identify what song could be played over a given event in the movie of your life.  What song is the soundtrack to your life right now?  Many songs could be considered a form of flash fiction, could a piece of art be considered flash fiction?  Where are the boundaries of the definitions of art, music and fiction?  These music and art musings will happen in little bits here, it looks like I will be posting once a week for now as I work on various other creative projects.  There are so many ideas wanting to come out of my head!  See you next week for a summary of the week’s creative efforts in my world.

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Index Card A Day, Week Two

Like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, I am three days (actually more than that) behind schedule.  So, here is Tuesday’s post on Thursday.  ICAD Week two is done, the prompts were suzani pattern, bookshelf, David Bowie, tiramisu, brocade, kite or rhombus and chamomile.

I was not at all interested in the David Bowie prompt.  This is my fourth year of participating in this challenge, and the first time that I completely ignored a prompt.  The creator of this challenge makes it clear that her prompts are optional, but until last week, I have stuck with them.  The card I made on the David Bowie day is a completely abstract mixed media experiment, and something that I could have created in response to a piece of music.  I have some ruminations on music-to-visual art explorations coming soon to this blog, but this card was not made with music in mind, just playing with supplies that I haven’t used much.  It started with some random cut outs from pictures in an old Life magazine, then dabbed with an embossing ink pad and dusted with the accompanying embossing power.  After heating the power to work its magic, I scribbled over everything with a few colors of water soluble crayons.  An interesting result, and I’d like to try the combination again with a bit more purpose and direction next time.  I wonder if the embossing stuff and crayons will work on fabric…

I was delighted that two of the prompts had to do with textiles.  I had to look up suzani pattern, and fell in love with it.  My mind is churning with embroidery and applique designs influenced by suzani.  The card on the left is my first attempt at interpreting suzani patterns.  I’m sure that I will explore it further.

On the right, the card for brocade.  The shimmery wave design was made with Kreinik Iron-On Thread .  And yes, it irons on to paper!  I recently bought a selection of this Iron-On thread to play with, and I am loving it.  It is easy to apply, even around curves, and is a much easier way to add metallic thread to a project than sewing with it.  I am hoping to someday have a class featuring Iron-On Thread, and I will have it at quilt shows, whenever those might happen again.  Meanwhile, keep checking back here for my adventures in creating.

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Getting out of 2017 and into 2020

Yes!  I finished the 2017 ICAD challenge, and I am so far keeping up with the 2020 challenge.  Here is what I churned out in the past few weeks to close out 2017:

Week 7 prompts: lyrics, denim or blue, night sky, love, layers, intersection, charm bracelet.

Week 8: sun or moon, swim, adjective, mirror, greetings from…, sepia, ghost or zombie.

Week 9: spring, summer, autumn, winter, sunset.

On Tuesdays through the next two months, I will post my progress on the ICAD challenge.  My goals for this year are to try combining art media and truly explore mixed media more and to make an art quilt inspired by one of my index cards.  Of course, the quilt will happen after the challenge ends.  For my mixed media goal this week, I have combined stamping, collage and lettering; ink drawing and watercolor pencil; fabric, stitching and paint; iron-on thread and paint; collage and watercolor pencil.  The prompts for week one were hopscotch, marigold, album, sequins, 1980s, dreamcatcher and highway.  It is not too late to pick up the challenge, why not give it a try?

Finally, I’m still rolling along with my 4×4” squares.  Here are the ones from May:

Onward to something else on Thursday, see you then!