Index-Card-A-Day 2013: Week 5

It's week 5 of Index-Card-A-Day 2013 (at least in my little world). No, it's really two days until the end of nine weeks of Index-Card-A-Day fun. Can it be over so soon? 

Well, not for me. I'm still catching myself up on cards and catching you up on my work. I want to keep all these posts and cards in order, but there may be a post later with cards I went back and made up for. Of course, for too lengthy blog posts, I'm not sharing every single index card. Some of mine came out awful (and that could be a post in itself). 

"Oh, My Deer!" ICAD : 6-30-13

Gelli™ printed tissue paper, acrylic paint, colored pencil, gel pen, text on 3" x 5" index card.

This scrap of Gelli™ printed tissue paper had the exact shape of a deer on it! I just added a few details like the eye, ear definition, shading, and the text.

"Layered Gelli™ Printed Petals" ICAD : 7-1-13

Molding paste, acrylic paint, Gelli™ printed paper collage, marker on 3" x 5" index card. 

My Gelli™ printing sprees produce a ton of yummy papers for collage. These are mainly junk mail scraps and book pages I printed. All the petals were hand-cut and are layered in this collage. I used the end of my finger to curl the ends of all the petals, but the scan I have here doesn't show the real dimension of the piece. 

"My Favorite Washi Tape" ICAD : 7-2-13

Washi tape and DYMO lettering on 3" x 5" index card. 

I needed a really quick make-up card for this day so I just grabbed my five favorite washi tapes and my DYMO. Is it possible to just have five favorite washi tapes?! NO! 

"Summer Fun" ICAD : 7-3-13

Gelli™ printed background, handmade stamps, gel pen, calligraphy pen, archival ink on 3" x 5" index card. 

There were parts of this Gelli™ printed background that I really didn't like. So I stamped my pie chart and asterisk hand-cut stamps over it. The pie charts looked like beach balls to me on the colorful background. I colored them in with opaque gel pens and added some white gel pen accents. My calligraphy could use some help. I tried to disguise my mistakes with a hot pink opaque gel pen, but the calligraphy ink bled right through.

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I did a card for the 4th of July and it can be seen in my post here. 

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"Heart Garland" ICAD : 7-5-13

Gelli™ printed background with hand-cut paper hearts stitched to 3" x 5" index card. 

The Gelli™ printed background for this one sat on my desk since the start of Index-Card-A-Day. It was too pretty to cover up with a lot of collage. Each heart is Gelli™ printed book page and was hand-cut by me. I lightly glued them to the card before sending the lot through the sewing machine. I really like how this one turned out and may turn the design into something bigger.

"Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge" ICAD : 7-6-13

Spray ink, acrylic paint, stamp, ink, gel pen, paper collage on 3" x 5" index card. 

I masked and sprayed the background with spray inks. Then I stamped with paint and ink and doodled on it. The quote is stamped on a scrap of painty phonebook page and was given dimension with foam tape behind it. The paper backing the quote is part of the mask I used with the spray ink - it matched the colors! How handy!

- Vickie

Index-Card-A-Day 2013 : Week 4

Humor me and pretend it's the end of June. Index-Card-A-Day 2013 is still going strong. It's week 4 (June 23-29) and I finally feel more like myself again after surgery. It's back to some serious art time. 

"Home Sweet Home" 6-23-13: This card began as a Gelli™ printed background. I glued down two pieces of printed tissue paper for the houses and painted over them. The scallops at the top are also Gelli™ printed and came from another project they just weren't working with well. I added a lot of detail with my gel pens. This is one of my favorite cards.

  

"What A Wonderful World" 6-24-13 : The background started with gesso etched with some texture. I added some grungy paint techniques and splattered paint on it. The torn paper roses are from old book pages, some in English, French, and Japanese. I lightly edged them with a pink pigment ink pad. The leaves are cut from my Gelli™ printed paper stash, which is ever growing. "Lyric" was one of the week's prompts so I went with one I could make with those Tim Holtz chit chat stickers. Each word has a Gelli™ printed background, which I distressed with my craft knife. The shiny rhinestone brads look funny in this scanned image of the card - but trust me - they shiiiiiiine. In order to tie the card together more I added stitching around the outside. 

"Owl" 6-25-13 : Guess what?! It's another Gelli™ printed background! The owl is on very vintage French text paper. It was fragile so I glued it to a bit of thicker cardstock in order to draw on it. The owl consists of paint, marker, colored pencil, and gel pen. I drew the tree branch and the little stem with leaves, cut them out, and collaged them to the card. Then I cut the owl out and glued it on. A bit of a doodle around the edge completed it.

"Roses" 6-26-13 : These roses are more of a complex paper layering design than can really be seen in this image. There are five paper layers: one for all seven flowers, one for the middle back rose, another for all four in front, one for the middle left front rose and one for the middle right front rose. Except for the last top layer, each layer was made to include the flowers that would be layered above it in order to avoid the lines that happen when overlapping this many layers. I got lazy with the last roses - the ones in the front middle - and you can see the line from where they overlap.

All the leaves and stems were cut separately and put back together creating a lot more layers. The image was painted only after all the paper layers were complete.  

"Love" 6-27-13 : Not being one who likes to waste paint, this card was painted with left overs from another piece. I dragged the paint across the card with an old credit card. The word is drawn with a big brush shaped Sharpie™ and outlined with a white gel pen.

"Time Flies" 6-28-13 : It's another Gelli™ printed background! I disliked the left side of the print so I collaged a piece of Gelli™ printed junk mail over it. The wings and clock are stamped on tissue paper and collaged to the card. I added white and shiny silver gel pen to the stamped image. The little doodles were added last. 

"Not All Who Wander Are Lost" 6-29-13 : The background is torn paper from old books and acrylic paint. I stamped the typewriter and bird on tan paper and cut them out. Then I had to engineer the paper banner coming from the typewriter. It's all one piece of folded paper. Stamping the lettering was nerve wracking as I had one chance to get it right or I had to make the banner all over again. Nailed it on my second try. A slit cut in the typewriter allowed me to tuck the end of the banner in it. I used foam tape under the parts of the banner that have words. Those shadows you see are real, not digitally added. Sweet! 

If you click on the images of my index cards, you will go to flickr where they can be seen much larger. Check out the Daisy Yellow Index-Card-A-Day flickr group while you're there! 

- Vickie

Index-Card-A-Day 2013: Week 2 & 3 Catch Up

June was a whirlwind month. It was filled with sunny days, warm nights, and healing from gallbladder surgery. Yuck. I think I'm finally turning the corner on healing from that. No longer does every move or breath make me wince in pain. A dinner of steak and tater tots didn't have me wailing for death. Good times! I'll take 'em!

Without further ado, I present my week 2 and 3 Index-Card-A-Day work (even though we are already in week 7 of the whole thing).

The purple and pink card above (6-12-13) was started with fiber paste. I don't really know what this stuff is, but I like it a lot. It's weird... pasty yet sort of smooth, really sticky, and really fun. The texture it imparts is to-die-for. After that dried, I added some paint, handmade stamps, and flicked white paint on it. I used another handmade stamp on some Gelli™ prints - the flowers - and cut those out. The leaves and stems are also Gelli™ prints. 

  

These three pretty ladies are drawn with ink. I decided it was toooooo fussy to color in. 6-9-13

Insert the gallbladder surgery derailment that sent my summer plans spilling all over the tracks. 

These flowers (6-15-13) were given to me by the nurses on my floor who felt bad I was so very sick after surgery and had migraines on top of it. I didn't get any index cards done in the hospital so the rest of the cards in this post (except the last one) were done as I convalesced at my mother's house with limited art supplies.   

Red Haired Woman: 6-16-13: Marker, watercolor, colored pencil, gel pen on 3" x 5" index card. (I need to work on my proportions!)

Patio Table Texture Zentangle: 6-17-13: gel pen on 3 x 5" index card. This is the pattern on my mother's metal patio table. I took a rubbing of it with the side of a pencil then drew over that in blue. I erased the pencil and added more lines.

Feather Mandala: 6-20-13: Marker and gel pen on 3" x 5" index card. All I have at my mom's to work with are my nieces' art supplies - markers, watercolors, and colored pencils. Oh, and a lot of time on my hands to get fussy.

Dreamcatcher: 6-21-13: pen, marker, gel pen. This continues the healing theme I'm drawn to right now. Plus I wanted to better learn how to draw a dreamcatcher.

Find Your Bliss: 6-22-13: Gelli™ print, acrylic paint, markers, gel pens, paint pen on 3" x 5" index card. Oh, my sweet art supplies! At last, I am home from my mother's house. This card started as a Gelli™ print that I did a few weeks ago to have backgrounds ready. I doodled and stamped all over it. I went back over the black stamping with gel pens to add details. This one is a little too busy for my taste. I think I was glad to have my supplies at the ready and threw everything within reach at it. 

Index-Card-A-Day 2013 is soon drawing to a close. I will keep posting my cards until I am caught up, which actually may take a couple weeks after ICAD is officially over as I kind of lost a few weeks to surgery. Employing some radical self-love and artsy boundary loosening is very forgiving! Try it!

- Vickie

Happy 4th of July!

ICAD3 :: JULY 4, 2013
Marker, ink, gel pen on 3" x 5" index card
©2013 Victoria Porter/In My Head Studios
All Rights Reserved

My Index-Card-A-Day for today is all about celebrating our country's Independence Day! Stars, stripes, and good old red, white, and blue!

I have been diligently working away at my index cards and {be creative everyday}. They are not up here on my blog or at flickr yet because I had slightly-emergency surgery last month. I apparently rock so hard I can grow my own stones! Gallstones, that is. 

It was horribly painful. I am still recovering. My surgeon said the biggest of the stones was a whopping 1.8 cm. That's almost an inch wide! Yowza!

So today I am also celebrating independence from my gallbladder and the associated pain. Unfortunately, that means my picnicking food for the fair today won't be anything fried or fatty. Gee, what's left then? Snow cones. The beer tent. Grilled chicken. Cotton candy. Yay. 

I hope you have a SAFE and HAPPY 4th of July! Go enjoy your hamburgers and hot dogs, clam bakes, and gooey desserts while you still have a gallbladder (if you still happen to have one)!

- Vickie

ICAD 2013 First Week Catch-Up

Presenting a round-up of my first 6 days of Index-Card-A-Day (and my {be creative everyday} practice, too!)

ICAD3 : JUNE 2 : Queen
Prompt: crown.  Theme: rainbow colors.

Created with a background of painty phonebook pages from cleaning off my brayer when Gelli™ printing. The rest is acrylic paint, ink, gel pen, & colored pencil.

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ICAD3 : JUNE 3 : Fearless
Prompt: zebra

Woman cut from magazine. I added her stripes with a Sharpie™. The background is acrylic paint and my own handmade stamp designs.

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ICAD3 : JUNE 4 : Klimt

Gustav Klimt has been on my mind lately. Created with thick handmade paper collage,  watercolor crayons, a brown Sharpie™, white gel pen, gold gel pen, and graphite.

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ICAD3 : JUNE 5 : Love

This one doesn't fit any prompts. She has been hanging around in my head for some time and I had to let her out. I plan on doing something with her for a painting.

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ICAD3 : JUNE 6 : {Grow Beauty}

This started with a scrapbook paper background I chose because I liked the colors. I used acrylic paint to stamp the flower designs that are my own handmade stamps. I added detailing with my white gel pen. The letters are stickers I embellished a little. Black ink added to the edges makes the contrast pop. 

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For June 7th, I had an all day painting class and totally forgot to paint my index card there! So that one will be a "make-up" card related to my class. I might add a little photo of my painting!

I have TONS of ideas for cards this year. Running out of inspiration won't be a problem. Over the weekend I Gelli™ printed a bunch of cards to have handy backgrounds already started. I cannot recommend doing this enough for those days when you have little to no time to do a card. Just add a doodle or some text. Voilà!!

- Vickie