ICAD 2016 - #57-61 and Wrap-Up

This is the third year I've done this challenge and I think it's the first time that I've finished on the last day.  It's both a happy and sad occasion, I think.  I'm happy that I completed it but finishing also means that there are no more prompts to look forward to and also that the summer is quickly coming to a close as tomorrow will be August already.  

The last prompts......

July 27 - Stickers - I'd been carrying around a sheet of these sticker dots that I found while tidying up my desk at work. They were originally for some filing, but I don't use them anymore but of course, I couldn't just throw them out.  So I decided to use them for this challenge and added some gel pen to connect the dots.

July 28 - Graffiti - This is rather simple but it fits the prompt. I dry embossed the bricks with an embossing folder and then swiped the card with a stamp pad in the brick color.  Then I took some acrylic paint and added the peace sign.  

July 29 - Hopscotch or Tic-Tac-Toe - Off prompt this day.  We had a big storm blow through here on Monday and we didn't realize until the next day that a branch from our neighbor's tree fell on our cable line and pulled it away from the house causing it to hang precariously low over their driveway prohibiting them from coming and going.  HWNSNBP call Verizon - our carrier - and after almost an hour-and-a-half on the line waiting for and then talking with a representative they told him that since we still had service, it wasn't an emergency and we would have to wait until Thursday as there were many people without service at that time.  He fought with them explaining that to our neighbor's it was an emergency since they couldn't leave their yard.  They finally agreed to come the next day - Wednesday by this point, sometime between 8 and 5.  Of course you know that they showed up at 4:55.  Then the repairman said that there was another problem.  We thought that the two lines that were hanging were our cable and phone lines, but it turns out that the second line was from our previous cable company - Comcast - and Verizon is not allowed to touch Comcast lines, even if we no longer are a customer.  So, now it was my turn to call Comcast and try to explain to them the situation.  A long story to tell you that while I was on the phone with them, I was doodling on an index card and decided to use that as my card for the day.  

July 30 - Sorbet -  Raspberry and peach would be two of my favorite flavors so I did a little drawing in marker and then added the watercolors.

July 31 - Path - I used my Koi watercolors. When I posted it on Facebook today this is what I said:

This path shows no beginning and has no end but it is illuminated much as this creative journey has been by the sharing along the way of ideas, techniques, support and the pleasure of viewing some wonderful art. Thank you Tammy for guiding us along the way. And thank you to this group for being so generous and supportive with your likes, and loves, and wows, and wonderful comments along the way.

I love the way the colors blended.

I don't think I posted this picture of the cards from the month of June.

And here are all of July's cards.

And of course, the entire set.  

Not only did I enjoy expressing my creativity through this challenge, but I also enjoyed trying new techniques and using both new and favorite products.  It was great fun to follow all the other ICADian's on Facebook.  I received many wonderful compliments on some of my work and I saw some jaw-droppingly beautiful creations by others.  A big thank you to Tammy Garcia of Daisy Yellow for hosting this challenge!

ICAD 2016 - #50-#56

We're coming down the stretch with less than a week to go with the ICAD challenge.  Here are my next set of cards.

July 20 - Paisley.  So I tangled some black paisley shapes and then colored in the background with black marker.  Then I added a few white paisley's with a gel pen.  This can be very addictive and meditative too and I probably could fill pages with this pattern alone.  Don't be surprised if I return to this sometime in the future.

July 21 - Purple or Violet.  I went through my scrap box and pulled out everything that was purple or violet and decided on these to make a one staple collage.  

July 22 - Staircase. I'm sure that I could have used this last week for the Wordplay prompt but I didn't think of it until this week.  Keeping it simple.

July 24 - Fortune.  As luck would have it, our office is getting a face lift and in order to do this, we had to move out to another room in the school.  While putting away things on my desk I ran across this fortune.  I had to laugh when I read the fortune. Fastidious - not!  Washi Tape and cardstock in addition to the fortune.

July 25 - Aquarium - I lightly drew the form of the octopus and then I used some Stabilo markers to do the rings.  When that was done I erased the pencil and covered the tentacles with a VersaMarker and then clear embossing powder, several times.  The VersaMark ink on this grade of paper was not the greatest.  It seemed to absorb into the paper even though it did hold onto the powder to allow embossing.  I'm not quite happy with the ends of the tentacles where it shows up the most.  But overall, I like the way this came out.  

July 26 - Olympics - I used an SU die for the rings out of card stock and inks in the same color for the waves behind them adding some dashes with markers of the same color.   

July 27 - Text or Texture - Well there are both here, but out of all my cards (even the unfinished superhero one) I think I like this least.  There is text from a dictionary page that I folded over on itself for texture, but that didn't really fly so I added a strip of cork.  The flag is an ice cream cone wrapper and the baseball and logo are from the packaging on a key we had made.  These things were in my scrap bucket and I guess I'm glad that I got to use them.  

ICAD 2016 - #43-#49

This was a hard week.  Not because of the prompts, well, yes there were a couple that I perseverated over, but I wasn't quite feeling myself after falling off my bike last Saturday and I was trying to get some things ready for our Merry Fishmas party coming up so bear with me on some of these.

July 13 - Mint - Talk about frustrating!  I asked Siri (my phone search app) to find me pictures of mint and she kept finding me the definition of the word "meant".  When I say the two words I clearly hear a difference but apparently Siri does not.  After several tries she finally did give me three pictures to choose from and I chose this overhead view.  I used some Brushos and my new KOI watercolors and a white gel pen.

July 14 - Rainbow-making Machine - I thought about and thought about this one.  I tried something with my new POSCA pens but I didn't really like either of them.

Then I thought some more and came up with this.  I gave the sun a kind of steampunk look and smashed the cloud into the center to have the rainbow burst forth.  Again - the Koi watercolors and a Micron pen.

July 15 - Play on words - I meant to show my original thought and try at this but I think it got destroyed somehow, or I used it as a brush cleaner or something.  I had drawn some cubes that I intended to paint to look like ice cubes and that almost worked, until I tried to added the "P's" - it was supposed to be a play on "frozen peas".  So instead I painted some flowers in shades of blue that I thought I might use for the upcoming monochromatic prompt, but the flowers needed some greenery so this card was used for an off prompt for the day.

July 16 - Lighthouse - spending Saturday in Barnegat one would think that the Barnegat Lighthouse would be my subject matter, but I've drawn/painted that one before and as much as I love it, this lighthouse is one of my favorites.  The East Point Light in Heislerville - which I drew based on a photo I had taken and colored it with Prismacolors.  

July 17 - Monochromatic - I used my Peerless watercolors to do this.  If you're not familiar with Peerless watercolors they are pigments on a card just a little bit longer and a tad narrower than an index card.  You just touch your brush to the card to pick up the pigment.  I used an aquapainter and pulled out all the blue cards.  When I was done it reminded me of a stormy sky over the ocean, especially since they were reporting an unusual water condition at our Jersey beaches making them look like tropical waters.  

July 18 - Aurora Borealis or Australis - This card was a brush-cleaning card that I thought I might be able to pass off as an aurora borealis, but looking at it, it was too splotchy and not enough like the smooth ripples that one would see in an aurora.  But as I looked at it desperately wanting to see something "magically" appear the only things that I could see were heart shapes.  So I outlined them with a Micron marker and somehow they now were balloons or bubbles and I got lucky and found a quote that would fit with it.

July 19 - Super Hero - Alas, this is unfinished and I don't know that I will finish it so let's just say that it's a pencil drawing of Wonder Woman's headgear and a meme about her.  

So.......... let me get on with the party preparation and maybe I'll find a few minutes to work on today's prompt!

ICAD 2016 - #36-#42

I found some of these a little hard this week, and some of them a little thought provoking, and really, I've also found that doing this has been a little bit of an escape from reality - just a focus on doing.

July 6 - Crystal or Prism - I had just received these new Gansi Tambi Starry Colors in the mail and decided that although they weren't crystal or prism-like, that they were shiny like crystals or prisms. Honestly, the photograph makes them look so much better and the reflection gives them so much more dimension.

July 7 - Meditation - So........when I do my tangles I feel sometimes like I'm in a meditative state so I went with tangling for this one.  I had picked up some new gel pens at the Dollar Spot at Target and I wanted to try them out.  I also used a Micron pen and lightly shaded with a Prismacolor pencil.

July 8 - Folk Art - This has nothing to do with the prompt.  I was drawing a blank and right now I don't even remember what did prompt me to write down this school story and illustrate it.  Go figure. It's a pencil drawing colored lightly with Prismacolors.  

July 9 - Lens - I woke up on July 8th to the horrible news from Dallas and found it very upsetting.  I don't understand all the hate.  These last few weeks there have been a number of news reports/coverages that have really been depressing.  I feel that I want to speak out about certain things but I know that people only hear what they want to hear.  I just have to know that in my heart I carry no hatred and I've tried to bring up my children the same way.  So in thinking ahead about the prompts for the weekend since we were to be away, I was pondering lens and imagined that someone could invent a lens to wear, or to be implanted at birth that would make all skin colors look purple.  That we would all be physically the same so that we could love each other.  Just a thought.

July 10 - Surfboard - Another recent purchase was a small set of KOI watercolors that came with an aquapainter, or as they called it, a water brush.  I had this little beach scene in my head and it translated pretty good.  I asked HWNSNBP if he could describe it to me and he got it all right except for the beach towel.  He had no idea what that was.  

July 11 - Latitude and Longitude.  I swiped some ink pads over the card and then used the globe stamp and the wings stamp.  The stamped latitudes and longitudes are the places where my immediate loved ones live.  

July 12 - Yellow - I kind of feel that I failed at this one, or that I cheated, because I wound up doing it twice.  The first time I didn't pay close enough attention to the placement of the wording and then I tried to white it out and move it only to have the white out clump up on the index card and cause my pen to clog up and not be able to get smooth lettering.  I had plenty more torn pieces of the paint chips so I started over.  (Why did I have yellow paint chips you ask - well they're going to paint our office and we were looking for a cheery color and I thought as long as it was school bus yellow that yellow would be cheery.  I think the bright yellow scared my boss because he requested the palest of yellows - which I'm hoping will be noticeably different than the cream color in the hallways outside the office. It currently is a gray-toned white.)

Someone said that we needed color in the office to perk it up and then they turned to the beiges in the swatch booklet, which were okay, but to me beige is a neutral and not a color so I pushed for the yellow even though I'm not really a yellow lover.

I'm really happy that I'm actually using a variety of my art supplies.  Some of them have been sadly neglected.  

ICAD 2016 - #29-#35

Inspiration can be anywhere - prompts, Pinterest, nature, personal experience, experimentation. It can be simple or complex.  And sometimes the simple turns out to be complex and vice versa.  

June 29 - Aqua - this was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest.  Here's the link to the blog with the card which is much prettier.  Done with rubber stamps and ink.

June 30 - Trivial Pursuit - It's been years since I've played TP and all that was coming to mind were the cheese wedges, and then I just started thinking about the words and they helped me make this statement.  This card was coated with gesso before I started playing with some "cheap" watercolors (one of those $5 sets children's sets, but it has several cool shades of pink and blue).

July 1 - 100 - I was thinking of drawing a dandelion and then remembered I had this set from AMUSE.  So again, rubber stamps and ink.  Oh, the background stamps (butterfly and leaves) are Stampin Up.

July 2 - Zodiac - I'm an Aries so I went with the symbol for my sign and used my favorite color in washi tape, watercolors, and markers. 

July 3 - Magic - Truth be told, I knew we would be away for the weekend so I kind of slapped this one together.  The background was previously done weeks ago when I was using up some paint and I found the butterfly already colored and cut in my scrap pile.  There is some magic, I feel, in a caterpillar becoming a butterfly - don't you think?

July 4 - Statue of Liberty - This Statue of Liberty stamp is among my very first.  I'm surprised I could even find it.  Again, the blue and white background was previously made.  I added some red Sharpie stripes and the lettering.

July 5 - Sunflowers - And this is where the simple became the complex but it was fun "building" it nonetheless.  I had started with just pale yellow circles with darker centers.  Then I swished some greens in between.  Then I decided that I wanted more distinct petals so I added some simple brush stroke shapes.  Then I put dots of a darker yellow on the petals towards the centers and liked how they puddled there.  I took a fine brush and added the orange line around the center. Then we left for the weekend and when we got home yesterday I couldn't find what I had started.  Luckily, I moved something on my craft table and there it was, but I thought it needed more so I outlined the petals with marker.  Then it was the leaves that needed outlining.  And then the flower centers were too plain so I played with them.  Finally, I took the fine brush again and painted the fold marks in the petals.  Sheesh!  

Okay, so on to Week 6.

ICAD 2016 - #22-#28

Hard to believe we're just a couple of days from the end of June.  Another week that flew by.  Here is my prompt card for this past week. (You can find all the information on ICAD here.)

June 22 - neon sign.  I didn't realize, until I looked it up preparing for this card, that neon gas glows orange.  The other glowing colors you see on the signs are courtesy of other gases for those particular colors.  So a true neon sign would be an orange one.  But, since I had these highlighters in neon colors I used them for my card.  This looks tedious, but it was actually fun to do - even if it went wonky at one point which is apparent when you look at the writing that was added.

June 23 - winter - I just couldn't bring myself to do a winter scene, so instead I opted to draw something with the word "winter" in it.  Winter squash done with Prismacolor pencils.

June 24th - Magenta - This card took way longer than I had anticipated, and only because over the watercolored magenta base I used acrylic white paint for the birds which needed multiple coats and there was some seepage involved with those extra coats.  I should have practiced a little more drawing flamingo's!  

June 25th - Song - the base is another clean-off-your-brush card using up white and blue acrylics.

June 26th - Space Invaders - I had a pre-pared card with the yellow acrylics mottled background.  I used a graph paper index card to color the space invader emoji and then cut that out and glued it to the base.

June 27th - motel - off prompt - I had played with the Peerless watercolors on a gessoed card and used that as my background.  I added a tangle and some asemic writing to finish it up.

June 28th - cats and/or dogs.  Hit the scrap box again.  I used some ink and sponges for the background and then added the punched pieces.  The sentiment comes from a stamp set.

Being off this week has given me some time to get a little ahead with the next weeks' prompts and to prepare some backgrounds for future weeks.  I'm finding that that makes it both a little easier and a little more challenging.  It's much easier to go off prompt with pre-prepared cards and that's a good thing.  Actually doing this either way is a good thing.  

There's still the month of July if you're interested in challenging yourself.  Remember, you can personalize this any way you want.  You don't have to share if you don't want to, but getting some feedback on your work is always welcome in my opinion.  No index cards on hand?  I read a blog post by a woman who took some old manilla folders and cut them up into 3 x 5 pieces to use.  Got a little note pad?  Or even some post-it notes?  Use the prompts or try a series of things like a flower each day, or practice lettering, or just play with color.  The point is to exercise that creative side of your brain for brain health and maybe take your mind off the stresses of your day.  

Go ahead - jump in!