"Soar & Fly" Art Journal Page

From this ...

... to this ...

... to this! Ta da!

This page had more planned for me than I did for it! My muse was here in my presence. I could hear her whispering to me to "let my Little Bird fly". 

Fly, Little Bird. 

Fly and soar. 

Trust your wings. 

Sing your song! 

Your amazing tiny heart 

will take you anywhere.

This bird stamp is my design, and is made from foam sheet and cardboard. It is outlined in orange Copic marker and then black Stabilo pencil for dimension. The bird cage is white-out pen. I drew over that with a sparkly gel pen to make the bars look shiny and metal. 

The purple circle and scalloped dictionary page were scraps laying around. I added my handmade button stamp to the circle and layered them. I used my label maker to print the words because I was in a hurry. They are pixelated, and that bugs me, but it's not a deal-killer on this piece. 

The letters for "soar" were brown to start with. I painted them and stamped some dots and lettering on them with paint. The dimension the raised letters add is lovely! 

The little heart banner is punched hearts from book pages and baker's twine. A little watercolor splashed on the hearts creates some interest. 

Look! I managed to sew in curvy lines - not jagged straight-ish arcs! The paper itself is created with gelli plate printing and white gel pen. This is before I drew the heart and swirly black line.

To connect the theme of singing I glued down some tissue tape with music on it. That needed some color so I washed a little acrylic paint over the tape. Using a Molotow white paint pen I wrote the words "sing your song" and added black to make it more readable. Some little doodles and stars here and there finished the piece nicely. 

There you have it! This is the first art journal page I have completed this year. It took several days to work out. I printed the background about a month ago with my gelli plate right into the journal. 

I worked on it here and there for a while until the full image finally came together. I wanted to experiment with some ideas I had in my sketchbook, and this piece gave me the chance to work those ideas out more thoroughly. That's what I love about art journaling! Mad science experiments! Focusing on the process! Mastering techniques! Practice  Practice. Practice!! 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Happy Easter if you celebrate! Also, Mr. M turns 40 this weekend! Huzzah!

- Vickie

"Put A Bird On It!" :: RNEST Challenge

It's time for another Rochester NY Etsy Street Team Monthly Challenge! November's theme is "Put A Bird On It!", which is more in reference to the delicious and varied poultry we will enjoy on Thanksgiving than the current cute trend. 

Personally though, I love putting birds on anything. I adore little birdies. If I could be any animal it would definitely be a little bird!

My "Party Bird" domino pendant was created with ridiculously tiny, hand-cut pieces of paper that I painted myself. Even the little poofy part on top of the hat is hand-cut! 

Head on over to the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team's blog to cast your vote! You have until November 14th at midnight.

You can also head on over to In My Head Studios' Etsy shop to buy this dapper little fellow for yourself! 

- Vickie

"Home Sweet Home" ICAD2 for 6/21/12

Ok, I might be making the Index-Card-A-Day Challenge a little more challenging than I hoped and/or planned. I've just been so inspired! I didn't realize my brain needed a little discipline to work on something everyday, and now I am hungry, hungry, hungry for art all the time. I LOVE this!
This card is from June 21, 2012. It definitely took me more than one day to do this. I'm not getting a card a day done -  and I gave myself permission to do that at the start. However, I do believe I am still benefitting from this challenge like crazy. If I'm not getting one card a day done then I am at least working on one (or two or three at a time) each day. AND THAT COUNTS.


This house, bird, and nest image is something I've worked on before in different formats - for domino pendants and ATCs. Now I felt it needed an ICAD2 work-up. 
I started by making a house shaped template that fit the index card. I cut the house out of another index card, pasted scrapbook paper over it, and added the tissue tape. Then I stitched around the edges on my sewing machine.  
The sky is layered torn dictionary pages secured with matte medium. I added some watered down blue paint then splattered really watery gesso over it. I left the torn edges because they reminded me of deckled edges on handmade paper. The edge was then shaded with a darker blue Copic marker. 
The lettering is hand stamped in red pigment ink - which I had to stamp a billion times because I always mess up the last letter and ruin it. It's matted with dark red cardstock. The edges are inked to "age" and soften them. 


The bird and nest images are from flickr's collage images group. I love the detail and texture in these pieces. My printer went light on the ink for this printing - not sure why. I went back over the pictures with colored pencils to bring out the color more. The gleaming highlight in the bird's eye is a dot of white gel pen. I also highlighted the eggs with white gel pen. 


After I adhered the bird and nest to the background it all looked very flat. I used colored pencils to shade around the bird and nest for some dimension. It really perked the piece up. I also ran a thin line of dark brown pencil to the very edges of the paper of the collage images to bring them out more. 


Oh, how I love using foreign postage stamps in my collage! I have about 20 pounds of old stamps (anyone need any?). I chose this one for the color and the country of origin - France - so it would tie in with the tissue tape behind it that has French on it.  


The back of the index card has the stitching I did with my sewing machine. I love sewing on paper. I'm stamping the date the card is finished on the back. I should go back and add some more details to the information of the piece. 

"home sweet home" Index-Card-A-Day2
Mixed media & paper collage on index card
3"x 5"
© 2012 Victoria Porter/In My Head Studios

This ICAD2 looks adorable on a tiny easel I found at the craft store! 

I am a bit behind on posting more ICADs that I have finished. There's much more to come!

- Vickie

What's On My Worktable? : Wednesday

It's Wednesday! Time to peek at my work table for "What's On Your Worktable Wednesday" over at The Stamping Ground blog! 

Today I am working on another Index-Card-A-Day (ICAD2). I'm going to use the red thread to sew around the house shape - which is my ICAD for today. The postage stamp, bird, and nest will be going on the house. For the buttons, I am still undecided. They sure do look good with the colors in the ICAD. Might have to get them into the design somehow.  

The paper covered spool is part of a gift for my bestie so I cannot say more about it just yet. :)

I just noticed in the photo that you can see the back of my scrap paper - an old unused coupon from my favorite craft store! Seriously folks, I recycle everything. 

Also of interest, the amount of space on my table shown here is pretty much all that is cleared off enough to work in. Hello, Six Inch Square Club! 

- Vickie

“Little House” Collage

I posted earlier about my class with Claudine Hellmuth. I learned a lot from her about resist techniques. All the parts for this collage are finally put together! It’s a Little House!

I really love how this turned out. At first I was doubtful that I had cut all the parts correctly and it wasn’t going to come together. But it did! It involved hammering in about 50 silver eyelets. That was actually more fun that I thought it would be. Guess I had a little aggression to get out! Ha!

On the house at the top and the “M” I got a chance to buy and use Tim Holtz’s Distress Crackle Paints. They are amazing! It crackles as the paint dries in a lovely porcelain way. Really nice product! No more waiting for double or triple step processes to get crackle! Now I’m going to have to buy more colors! Can you tell I like it by the number of exclamation points I use?!

The bird image is printed directly through my ink jet printer onto the Sticky Back Canvas! I love that about this canvas. So many possibilities!

I told my niece that we would make a Saturday Play Date and make one of these together. I think she would like to learn about how I make things since she says she wants to be an artist like me. I want to encourage that as much as possible. She’s pretty good at drawing for her age.

Now I have to find a prominent place to hang this in the house. Might have to move something for it. We have a lot of artwork hanging in our house!

click images to see bigger over at flickr