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

"Summer Evening" Gelli Print

Since my Artist Spotlight post went up at Gelli Arts' Facebook page I've had some inquiries into how I've created some of these prints. Several people had questions regarding the vibrancy of my prints. How do I do it?

To be honest, I'm not completely sure. I really had to go back and almost dissect my work to produce an answer. 

Right now my best "guess" is using color theory to not layer colors over each other that produce muddiness (like putting a bright yellow over a purple because red + blue + yellow = mud). 

I use rather bright paint colors to begin with. As with any kind of paint the colors vary in opacity and translucency. Knowing your paint helps a lot. 

Let's take a look at my "Summer Evening" gelli monoprint.

I will freely admit much of this print is a happy accident. This piece was very experimental from the start except for the leafy vine stencil I cut freehand. 

The first layer of paint is a dark cranberry purple -  Yes, I know I just ignored the suggestion above about putting those colors in a bottom layer. Experimental, remember? 

The large circles, when wiped out with my finger and a paper towel, looked really nice with how organic the edges became when printed. 

I added a little fuchsia over that cranberry purple. You can see in the wiped out circles the little lines and squares of fuchsia. 

I wanted a lot of color and layers under the vine to create a lot of dimension. Intending to just print on the left side under where I planned to put the vine stencil, I inked up my gelli plate with yellow. While printing the left side of the piece, the right edge of the paper fell out of my hand and into the yellow paint. EEEK!

Mud! Instant muddy brown. What to do?! Grab a baby wipe!

I figured there was enough paint on the paper already that it would hold up to a wet wipe down. When I wiped away the yellow paint it left this glowing, bright yellow orange behind. The fuchsia and yellow created this color in the white space of the wiped out circles. So basically this side of the print received a yellow color wash. Nice happy accident! 

Incidentally, you can see how awful that yellow muddied things up if you look in the upper right corner of the piece. There is some of that yellow that I didn't wipe off. (I suppose if I wasn't going for bright colors and wanted brown I would have been satisfied with that yellow.)

I printed a thick layer of turquoise while masking out the vine with my hand cut stencil. Then I used a handmade stamp over that with more fuchsia. Several more handmade stamps, some stenciling with punchinella, and some white gel pen brought the piece together.

Ta da!

Working on this piece got my brain wondering how color washes over prints would look. I added Distress Stains over some parts of other prints, and it looks really cool. Adds a pop the piece didn't have before. I also seem to have a thing against white space. I love full blown color all over. I made some prints on paper I covered completely in Distress Stains and watercolor. 

Color washing first also helps me avoid the "white blank page" staring contest. It's already started! All I'm doing is adding to it, I tell myself reassuringly. 

I would love to share in the joy of your happy accidents! Link up to your posts about them in the comments, please!

- Vickie

With Love From Friends! 2013

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

For the past three years I have been delighted to volunteer for With Love From Friends (WLFF) by making Valentine's Day cards for people who are without family or friends to remember them. 

The fabulous Eve Elzenga developed and coordinates this project. WLFF is such a wonderful program. I adore Eve and her work. I'm not alone... Eve was the recipient of a Jefferson Award in 2011 for her public service for WLFF! 

Eve strives to have high quality cards made with great materials and by artists in our community. She really wants the cards to be well made as the people who get them really do cherish them and deserve nice cards created by adults for adults. In years passed she opened her home for all of January so people could come over and make cards. Her collection of high quality supplies, papers  embellishments, ribbons, and little gorgeous what-nots were made available to artists to pick up and use this year. She collects Valentine art supplies all year round. 

As someone who has been lucky enough to spend a lot of time with my grandparents and great grandparents, I appreciate and value my elders. Now that they are gone, as well as my beloved father - who will always be my first Valentine - I felt like their memory needed to be honored, especially on a day all about love. So in memory of my loved ones passed, I made ten cards for With Love From Friends. 

"You Are Loved"
acrylic monoprint, paper, mixed media
4.25" x 5.5"
© 2013 Victoria Porter

My cards started as Artist Trading Card sized (2.5" x 3.5") original monoprints made on my Gelli Plate. I added red and pink cardstock mats behind and stitched them together. The heart is crumbled red cardstock inked to add some dimension. Don't you love the tiny staples?! Everything but the straight lines on the mats behind the monoprint are all hand cut by me. The words are all hand stamped. The wings are my design and took a long time to cut out. (I do not even own a die cutting machine. I do it old school!)

Each card I made is a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork as all of the monoprinted backgrounds are different. 

Every card donated to WLFF is stamped with "With Love From Friends" on the inside. Did someone say 1500 cards need to be stamped?!?!?! I am so on that. My mother and I spent many hours stamping the inside of cards last week. We had a ball hanging out with Eve and her partner! 

This year WLFF is in need of a Sizzix Big Shot Die Cutting Machine, Valentine themed cutting dies, and cash gifts so they can update their website. Supporting Eve in her efforts pays off in ways you can't even imagine. Hop on over to WLFF and see how you can help for next year! 

- Vickie

Shop Small at Mayday Underground Crafts + Art

Be a part of something bigger by shopping small this Saturday at Mayday Underground Crafts + Art! This show features plenty of local, amazing artists who create hip and modern handmade goodies for all the people on your holiday shopping list. 

Shopping small is about supporting small, local businesses and artists for your holiday gifts this season. This actually does make a difference. A very huge difference! 

"The average American will spend $700 on holiday gifts and goodies this year, totaling more than $465 billion, the National Retail Federation estimates. If that money was spent entirely on US made products it would create 4.6 million jobs.  

But it doesn't even have to be that big. If each of us spent just $64 on American made goods during our holiday shopping, the result would be 200,000 new jobs." - ABC News

I have been working in the Rochester area for over 12 years doing my art thing. I personally have pumped an untold amount of money into the community during this time by buying my supplies locally and spending my profits on handmade goods over and over again. So, by supporting me you are actually supporting many, many local artists and businesses. You can't lose! 

When it comes to shopping small, you can't get any smaller than with Tiny Works of Awesome from In My Head Studios! I make ridiculously tiny original artwork on the backs of dominoes and other game pieces. So shop small by shopping even smaller!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Mayday Underground! Crafts + Art

10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

The Main Street Armory

900 East Main Street, Rochester, NY 14605

The first 50 shoppers through the door get FREE swag from the artists in the show! How cool is that?!

- Vickie

Holiday Craft Show Schedule 2012

Time to get your handmade holiday shopping done! I'm here to help with Tiny Works of Awesome from In My Head Studios! 

Want to know where I will be vending? Here is a handy list! Or you can print the above image to keep in your calendar, pocket, purse, or file of awesome things to not miss out on. 

Since I don't have a lot of work listed in my Etsy shop, these shows are the only places to get your Tiny Works of Awesome this season! Don't miss out!

I will update these listings as Facebook event pages become active so you can invite your pals.

Next week kicks it all off! See you at St. Rita's!

Saturday, October 20, 2012

St. Rita School Craft Sale

9:00 AM – 3:15 PM

St. Rita School

1008 Maple Drive, Webster, NY 14580

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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Holidays in the Vineyard

10:00 AM – 7:00 PM

* Plenty of time to shop after work! *

Casa Larga Winery

2287 Turk Hill Road, Fairport, NY 14450

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Saturday, November 3, 2012

Mayday Underground!

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Main Street Armory

900 East Main Street, Rochester, NY 14605

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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Irondequoit High School Craft Sale

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Irondequoit High School

260 Cooper Road, Irondequoit, NY 14617

- Vickie

Bring On the Monks!

Monks! The Drepung Gomang Monks are in town! 

All the way from India and exile from Tibet. 

Right here, in Rochester, NY ... my hometown ... where I am lucky and thankful to not live in exile from my people, my culture, and my choice of religion. 

They are here to pray for healing and compassion. They are here to celebrate life and the amazing, wondrousness of it all. 

Most of all they are here to let us know our suffering does not go unheeded or without love and empathy. Unconditionally. From all four corners of the earth and beyond.

I'm over-the-top excited about this. Not only because I get a chance to see them make a sand mandala and hear them chant three chords at once, but because the Drepung Gomang monks are visiting a place near and very dear to my heart - The Creative Wellness Coalition. 

From 2000 - 2007, I worked there as the Impressions Gallery Curator (at what was then called the Mental Health Coalition, lovingly known as "The Coalition"). Now known as the Creative Wellness Coalition (CWC), the CWC is a non-profit, peer-run organization (meaning all staff has a personal experience with mental health issues) dedicated to helping people with mental illness live full lives. 

The gallery I curated exclusively exhibited and sold the artwork of individuals with mental health issues. That gallery was my heart and soul, and the artists I was blessed to represent are all amazing people with amazing stories of triumph through and over suffering. 

I cannot imagine a better place in town to have a giant celebration of healing, understanding, and most of all, compassion towards ourselves, each other, and this place in which we all must live together. 

Several of the events of this amazing visit have already occurred. I'm not on the ball with this post (or much else this past week with all the migraines). I guess I need some healing compassion of my own.

Today, Sunday, and Monday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM the Drepung Gomang Monks will be building a sand mandala at the Creative Wellness Coalition. 

Click here for the schedule. 

Tibetan handcrafted merchandise from the Himalayas will be available for purchase. Bring a T-shirt and have it personalized with your name in Tibetan Sanskrit!

At 2:00 PM on Monday, August 6, 2012, the closing ceremony will begin. The monks will walk the sand from the mandala to the Genesee River in the middle of downtown Rochester. To symbolize the impermanence of all that exists, the colored sands are swept up and poured into a nearby river or stream where the waters carry the healing energies throughout the world. 

On Tuesday, August 7, 2012, there will be a Traditional Tibetan Soup Dinner at the Danforth Community Center, 200 West Avenue, Rochester, NY 14611. Monks and teen leaders will prepare soup in the afternoon and serve to the community beginning at 5:00.  Seating is first-come basis.

That's right! The Creative Wellness Coalition has everything from soup to monks! (Sorry. I couldn't resist.)

With that horrible pun (that will be making me giggle for a few hours at least), I leave you to cross everything else off your calendar for the next few days and go hang out with the monks. Yeah, I know Park Ave Fest is going on. The CWC is just a few blocks up N Goodman St from there! Anyway, it's over 95 degrees today. Go to the CWC where it's cool inside!

I'm hoping to spend much of Sunday there! Join me and let's share some loving kindness. And lots of hugs!

Drepung Gomang Monks

Creative Wellness Coalition

320 N Goodman St

Rochester, NY 14607
--> THE SCHEDULE <--

For more information call 585-325-3145 x 144

- Vickie

Moonflower Handcrafted Gallery: New Shop Opening in East Rochester, NY

Recently I received a consignment offer from Moonflower Handcrafted Gallery. They are a local gallery featuring local handmade items. The Grand Opening is this Thursday, December 4th from 5 - 9 pm. The Gallery is located at 330 West Commercial Street in East Rochester, NY. I hope you can come help Brandi and her family celebrate all their hard work.

Among my soldered collage pendants, she will be carrying my felted items, Christmas cards, altered domino ornaments, Scrabble tile pendants, and glass tile magnets.

The shop, although not completely set up yet as of yesterday, looks great. It’s cozy and comfortable. The displays are creative. The few items I saw there were wonderful. I know this shop is going to be a success!

Other local artist they have work from: b.meg designs, Duck Harbor Design, The Lolly Shop, The Naughty Dog Boutique, Albina Rose, Carla Morris, and Ten Little Toes.

I'm looking forward to being part of such a creative group!

UPDATE: Shop hours are:
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: closed
Wednesday 12 - 6 pm
Thursday 12 - 8 pm
Friday 12 - 6 pm
Saturday 12 - 5 pm