Tag: mixed media

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Wrapping up ICAD 2020

At last, here are the rest of the index card creations from my successful completion of the 2020 Index Card a Day challenge.

Week 6: Ocean, Hydrangea, Rust, Mirage, Gradient, Cinnamon or Spice, Knot.

Week 7: Bloom, Unravel, Simplify, Diagram, Pencil, Confetti or Glitter, Orchard.

Week 8: Pinwheel, Blue or Blueberry, Orbit, Garden Gate, Outline, Paisely, Unfold.

Week 9: Billiards, Tea Set, Arboretum, Bossa Nova, Adventure.

For the first time in four years of my attempting this challenge, I finished all 61 cards by July 31.  Now, I will admit, there were some days that I made more than one card because I skipped a day or three and had to play catch up.  Overall, it was a great creative challenge – I learned some things about the art materials I have on hand, got some new ideas and further reinforced a daily creative habit in my routine.  Now that I finished an edition of the challenge on time, I don’t know if I will participate in it next year.  For the two months that it runs, it does take away from my stitching, but I might try a variation on it next year that will keep me creating fiber art.  Meanwhile, I am going to make fabric boxes to hold my index card creations, and pick up some unfinished fabric collage.  A little bit of work each day on a project is another step towards finishing.

 

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Drawing to Sound

I’m back!  Well, I never left, but I have been making things.  I am pleased to report that today is the last day of the 2020 Index-Card-a-Day Challenge, and I have finished all of them!  I will post more about the end of this year’s ICAD next week, because now I want to show my attempts at creating to music.

My tastes in music are quite eclectic, so it is difficult to find something that am not familiar with.  The Hoopla app (should be available through your local library) has a meager offering of some world music, and there I found a recording of Australian digeridoo music.  That is what I chose for my creative experiment.  I decided to make my musical sketch on an 8.5 x 11” piece of dark gray textured paper, using gel sticks, crayons, colored pencils and oil pastels to make my marks.

After getting everything in place, I started the music and listened for a few minutes, choosing colors, making an effort to select colors that I don’t normally use.  Then, I started drawing lines, trying to imagine my hand connecting to the sound and taking over my movements.

I kept going, filling in shapes and adding marks.  I think that you can see how the red waves and orange scribbles were in response to the undulating drone of the digeridoo, while the blue bars, white dots and yellow slashes came from the sounds of sticks tapping together.

Finally, I added more shading and bulked up the composition with some brighter colors.

This could be a great creative block smasher, I will be making a point to doodle or sketch to music more often in my art journals.  As luck would have it, one of the last prompts for the 2020 ICAD challenge was “Bossa Nova.”  Hoopla again saved the day with several Bossa Nova titles, and here is what came out of my mind:

Next week, (yes, I will post next week, I promise) the ICAD wrap up and moving on to something else.

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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!

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Close to Finishing…

It looks like I am on track to finish the index card collages from 2017 by May 31, in time to immediately start the annual challenge for 2020 on June 1.  As I look around my sewing room, I am realizing that these side challenges get finished at the expense of other projects, but the important thing is that I am still making something, reinforcing a daily creative habit, and learning more about materials, composition and design along the way.  Those are all good things that will positively influence my bigger projects.

Here are the cards from 2017 Week 5, prompts were polka dots, gyroscope, faux wallpaper, desert or dessert, orange, Fourth of July, favorite type of apple.

Week 6, prompts were perfume, kaomoji or emoji, charcoal, ampersand, steampunk, roots, onomatopoeia.

Coming soon, I will have some more musings on music to visual art, thoughts on combining vastly different influences, of course the 2020 ICAD challenge, and so much more in the upcoming weeks.