ICAD 2022 - Week 2

 Day 8/61 - Pictogram

This is the universal symbol for "No" or "Not Allowed".  I originally wanted to do this in all red but decided to go the all color way in the end.  I used water color pencils. Circles were drawn with a Helix circle tool.

9/61 - Found

Items that were found in a basket on my craft table.  I don't remember if it was originally meant as a waste basket or a scrap basket.  Who saves snippets of ribbon this small?  Apparently me.

10/61 - Rubik's Cube 

Watercolor pencils and Micron marker

11/61 - Rainbow

Zig Dot Markers, Micron marker

12/61 - Blueprint and/or Cyanotype

I used Distress Oxide ink on the card first and then a blueprint background stamp from The Greetery which was embossed in white.  The butterfly is a sticker from the Dollar Tree and the white pieces were cut from another index card and outlined with colored pencil.

13/61 - Toy

I was coming up with a blank for this until I noticed a bread bag tag on my windowsill as I was doing the dishes.  I remembered I had a jar of them that I had started collecting for some reason not known to me now.  The openings in these tags reminded me of little bear faces and the colors reminded me of Care Bears.  I seem to remember reading that you could tell the day of the week the bread was baked by the color of the tag.  I didn't have many colored ones like this.  They're mostly white.  So it was nice to have a enough to make a nice little chorus line of Care Bears.

14/61 - Off Prompt (Mood Board) 

 Instead I went with honoring the Red, White, and Blue on Flag Day with some more of the bread bag tags.  The blue ones were light blue originally enhanced to royal with a Posca paint pen.

Just wanted to note that art doesn't have to be involved.  It can be as simple as gluing found objects to something else as I've done above.  There is nothing humbler than an index card as a base for art.  This is not meant to be a way to create sellable or museum quality artwork.  It's meant to reap the effects of creating something every day.  Here is a link to an article that MaryAnn of Magpie's Mumblings shared about The Healing Power of Stitch which I think relates to any art form as a creative practice.  

The takeaways that I got from the article are:

Creative Practice is therapy

Creative Practice is your safe space

Creative Practice is a way through dark times

You need to:

Stroke the lizard - the brain stem - to feel safe

Feed the mouse - the limbic system - for nourishment

Hug the monkey - the cortex - to feel connected

This is why I encourage you to buy a package of index cards and give it a try.