ICAD Weekly Update

 

Back for another weekly update on my ICAD work. One index card a day. This first one inspired by the cappuccino stamp, a forever stamp to be precise. And my feelings on the subject of cappuccino is yes, Cappuccino Forever where ever I happen to be.

I like how the magazine paper background to the word blends in so well.

My Favorite Child of the week, far and away, no contest.

Although I do like this one, especially the sky.

Cool stuff from the hotel we just stayed at in San Francisco.

All the ways to collect

It's been hard to keep up, but I'm pushing through and doing them anyways.

Another Week of ICAD

 

flexi

True Instinct

Ultimate Commuter

COURAGEOUS

WOMEN

AllStrength

FASCINATION

Eleven ICADs

 

Here are the first eleven ICAds for this year. This first one might be my favorite. It's made with collaged pieces of watercolored Swedish tracing paper.
 

I am again using a word or phrase on each card. I'm choosing it first before beginning work of the card.

This is one of two cards made using marks that went off the edges of other cards. It's always interesting to see how intentional they can end up looking.

I used a lot of the different sized pens on the black part of this card.

Sometimes when I'm looking in the magazine I'm cutting my words out from I'll find an image I want to use on the card.

This is the other card that was an underneath card.

Trying to find some ways to make texture happen.

All gray or black.

ICAD Ho!

 It's not too late to join in, Index Card A Day (or ICAD) is happening again this year. It goes for 61 days, from June 1st to July 31st. I'm participating once again this year which will be my 7th year doing this project. 

Here is what my table looks like as I get ready to begin work on the first card of this year's effort. Note the new stack of blank index cards.

All my usual supplies are ready to go. The boxes of pens and pencils all fit in the plastic box.

And even more importantly, I've located my file card holder. One year I couldn't find it for a bit and almost didn't do the project which was very silly of course.

I let the cards dry first before I file them in here, ten cards per section. Blank unused cards go in the back. And if the cards have been watercolored, then I usually flatten them overnight underneath heavy stuff. In my experience, the fairly lightweight cheapie index cards stand up to the water and the working, but they don't dry flat without help.

I'm looking forward to doing this year's project.

Wandering Wednesday - Mother's Day

 
It was time to make a custom Mother's Day card for my wonderful mom. She loves green so I picked a green deckle edge blank card and first did some colored pencil.

Then I expanded it with watercolor pencil and crayon (Inktense blocks).

It all flowed out and combined pretty nicely. Here's Mom Mountain.

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DH chose the goodies for the meal, all sourced at Costco. I didn't go in and supervise as I'm not walking around quite that much yet. He splurged on some American Wagyu hamburger and got fancy buns. That and some teriyaki chicken and salad made a really excellent dinner. DS helped a lot which was great because my Mom would actually sit down. 

I had told DH to grab something dessert-y and boy did he deliver! My Mom was So Excited about the chocolate covered strawberries. She said she'd never had one and had only seen them in magazines. So that was very cool to give her that experience. They were really really good. A great strawberry with a good chocolate that tasted like chocolate instead of wax. I took this picture because I liked the imprint of the seedy exterior of the strawberry on the chocolate shell.

The very nice patio where we had our early dinner. My mom's container flowers are exploding with color this year. 

And she really liked her Giants t-shirt too.

The rest of the Mother's Day crew. What a great day it was. My DD was going to join us, but her sinus infection got a lot worse and she was worried about passing it onto the grandparents. A nice long phonecall with her was a great gift.

Watercolor Holiday

The lovely afternoon view out of our balcony window.

I wanted to do a watercolor but I knew I had a small rectangle to work on.

I sketched it out with colored pencils and then watercolored it in on top. I didn't work directly from the photo but instead from the actual view which was changing. I lowered my head so that the top of the farther away bluff didn't show below the top railing as it does in the photo. I might do another watercolor to match the photo as I really like that extra stripe of yellow sky right below the railing. This would also make a nice abstract composition for a quilt.

Here's a colored pencil + watercolors piece that I made while listening to *Political Bit* the reporting preview of the upcoming Supreme Court mifepristone case. I guess those shapes are the pills that are now providing 60% of the abortions in the US which are possibly getting banned nationwide. So it's a rather moody piece...grrr.

That piece above was made in a bigger space in a new Moleskine watercolor journal that I bought last year at Dick Blick.  You can see the size comparison 5x 8.25" versus the 4x6" watercolor postcards I literally just opened the journal up this week to use for the first time. So I obviously don't need to make another trip back to Dick Blick as I didn't even use the thing for an entire year. When I'm at home, I just don't sit and do a lot of watercolor work.  

I guess I like working in this bigger space in the journal compared to the size of the watercolor postcards. 

*Political bit* This was done while listening to the reporting about the arguments made in the Supreme Court and the various expected outcomes for the fate of accessible abortion health care in our country. Seems like even if it's a "good" decision in this particular case, what comes next if the Comstock Act of 1873 is all of a sudden enforced again. Amazing that an anti-obscenity/chastity law from that long ago, which was never really repealed could come back into enforcement because we are no longer living in a country under the Roe decision. Guess I'll keep on calling my representatives and writing postcards.

 

Ten ICAD

More ICAD work, lots of layers on this one.

I used some of the watercolor painted interfacing on a few of these.

Interfacing trees.

Layered painted interfacing 

This started out as the card behind the interfacing as I painted it.

Thinking about desertification.

Torn up Kleenex box

 Fourth of July 🇺🇸 related.