Art Journal Journey

And so the ICAD for this year has come to an end. It has been interesting, enjoyable, boring, annoying, refreshing - you get the idea- Again HERE is where the details are listed. Day 57   For this last group of cards I didn't even consider the prompts as I noticed bits and pieces all over the desk, that would be a shame to throw away. Instead I decided to use them for the cards. Thus most of these have some echo somewhere back to previous cards in this collection. Day 57 also has a piece of paint 'skin' on. It looked much to nice to just throw away... It is stuck on quite flat, the 'shadow' was added with paint. Those animal stencil date back to the 70's when we got them in cereal boxes. Day 58 - A piece of 'desk protector' paper found it's way one this one. This clearly dates from the 'mud' stenciling week  Day 59 - More protector sheets, some hand carved stamps and paint splats. Day 60   -  More 'mud stenci...

Well just look at that. All those cards! My little index card box is getting full...and to think just the other day those first few cards were getting lost in it's vast interior. Week 08 -  The index list can be found HERE  For this week, the theme was maps and cartography, geography etc. I need no excuse to grab a map, so I found some...and that led to travelling and that led to vacation... I put all the cards out on the table, numbered them on the back and then started sticking the maps randomly on cards, tearing paper, and just working quickly. Next I sprayed and coloured, working on all the cards simultaneously. Took out stamps that seem to suit and stamped away, did some embossing and inking on the edges etc. It was a different way of doing it, but it worked out really well and the cards came together rather quickly. Day 50 Day 51 Day 52 Day 53 Day 54 - I like the effect here on the embossed swirl. I rubbed charcoal over it, in the hope ...

Prompt...typography. I did not care for any other promts/ideas. Instead I decided to try 'dry wall mud' as a stencil paste instead. I was pretty pleased with the result. It is heavy though, and gritty of course. Day 43 The stencil is one I cut with a wood burning tool from a plastic file folder. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It is a good thing though that I was not heading for perfection ;-) but if I wanted perfect circles, I would enlist the Silhouette Cameo to help me out! The letters were stenciled on with wax pastels. (don't like the result..) The card is coloured with alcohol spray inks. Day 44 Still playing with the stencil. This time I had coloured the 'mud' with a paint & ink mixture (left from when I did Week 5's cards .  This time I cut the letters (traced with a stencil0 from paper and stuck them on. It was sooooo nice to have a little rain after all the heat and sun the last weeks! Day 45 I stampe...

This week's prompts are for a series of board games. Find all the details HERE . I like the graphic quality of board game designs and decided to play with those a bit. And coloured pencils. No collage this week. All of them to have that checkered border stamped around, hand drawn and coloured with pencils. Day 36 - Backgammon (the purple border around the card is the clipboard it was sitting on...) Day 37 - Draughts (checkers) This one sure brought back childhood memories! Day 38 - Mahjong. Thinking about what to put on the tiles, I remembered that I have a PC version of Mahjong that has sweets/candies on the tiles...so I decided to add my favourite licorice on there and some mints for colour! Day 39 - Bingo  Not a game I play but I do like the idea of numbers and blocks. Day 40 - Now this one I do enjoy playing, but thought how nice it would be to play with multi coloured dice ;-) Day 41 - Bridge and gin rummy are both out o m...

Day 29 - This week I liked the techniques and tools ideas, but not the daily prompts, so I went with that instead. ( Find the info HERE) Since it has been so hot and sunny here, I decided to go with a beach/ocean/vacation theme. I need no excuses to explore this theme! Stamping and alcohol inks for this very simple card... Finished off with a touch of shimmer on the versamark ink on that shell bg stamp. I think it captures the shimmer on the water in the late afternoon. Day 30 - The waves breaking on the shore...standing in the water (yummy!) looking out at the ocean. The shell I made as a paper cast taken from a mold made with polymer clay from a decorative button. It worked really well! The blue paper is done with bubble blowing, something I have not done for years! I forgot how much I like the results! The sand is dye inks and water colours. Look how nice the backing/protective paper looks with all that spray by! The bulky...

The month is speeding by.  I find I have less time than expected, so I'll see about doing July or not. I'd like to though... Prompts appealing to me this week, relates to fabric and wall papers etc. The full lists of prompts can be found HERE I plan to use some of the stamps my sister gave me a few years ago. These stamps are inspired by textiles and quilts in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I have used them so much on so many different projects! For fabric I looked for small cut offs that I have around and pieces that were not yet secured into my art journal! Day 22 - Started of uncertain, but I ended up with something I like well enough. Here the white embossed flower is from the stamp set. Coloured with alcohol inks and white embossing powder for the florals. Day 23 - I got pretty close to giving this one up for a lost cause...until those tiny white flowers saved the day. Still not crazy about it, but it will have to do. The large blue flower an...

The prompts for this week did nothing for me, but I did like the technique prompts which called for collage. I always have bits & pieces of interesting papers and 'stuff' around. It is more a matter of making the choices than that of finding something! I did want to be less random about the next 7 cards though so I decided to make a large background piece in Photoshop using a variety of tools and printed it in grey scale. This would give me a starting point for a thread that would allow me to create a cohesive set of cards. From here on I cut, tore, painted, sprayed and otherwise altered the original print. Day 15 -  I stuck the plain card onto the print and trimmed it out. That was when  I noticed the word 'commerce' on the bottom. That decided the 'theme' for me. I found a couple stamps to suit, dug into the postage stamp collection and found some stamps from Zimbabwe that suited the bill. They all have to do with commerce in one way or another...