Sisterhood of the Traveling Creative Spirts

Each month I get together with PJ, Jan and Ingrid who are three wonderfully inspiring, creative and fun women. We rotate houses and the hostess comes up with a project or technique for us all to try together. It's fun and it's therapeutic. I wish we could do it every week.

This month it was my turn to host and I decided to have us try to carve our own stamps. I've always wanted to do this and I even had tools, sitting unused, in my craft room. It was actually a very easy process and we all created great stamp images using pink erasers, white polymer erasers and speedball stamp material. The tools we used to carve were speedball carving tools, used for carving both rubber for stamps and lino blocks.

I wished I had taken pictures of us working and the stamps that PJ, Jan and Ingrid created. They were all fantastic. Here are mine:

Little bits of Creativity

So I haven't been totally inactively creatively.  I have made small entries in my sketch book:

I've been keeping the sketch pad handy by the sofa and when I see an image in an ad, or piece of mail, or blog posing I've been sketching it in pencil.  It's adding to my confidence and I enjoy the zen like process. 

Pushing the Boulder Forward

I realized this morning that I hadn't posted in a couple of weeks.  Why?  I'm not sure because I have been doing a few creative things.  I seem to have lost interest in the Daily Paper Prompts.  I'm not sure why.  I should go back to the list and see if there are any I want to do and maybe that will get me going again.  Here are a few that posted at Flickr but didn't post:

Stitch Paper 

I really hated doing this one.  I started out with the idea to stitch a landscape but half way through I found it to be tedious and in fact I didn't finish it for  a few days.  Once done, it didn't look too bad but I'm not doing that again! 

Ogee Pattern

This one was more my speed.  I drew out this pattern from my area rug.  I painted it in my craft room, doing the colors from memory. It's interesting how I remember the colors brighter than they actually are.  The colors in the rug are blue, brown and green but much more muted.  And I left out beige all together!  

Round

I used the "faded" card as the background for this one.  Worked out great.  I started by painting free form circles, added the blac doodles then used a bottle cap to make the white circles.  I was just making it up as I went along and I like what I got.

Grid

Nothing too creative here.  I was trying to do something interesting with the colors but all I really did was fulfill the theme.  Wish I had tried something more creative.  I could feel myself losing interest in the prompts here...I liked it better with the ICADs when I was just doing what moved me each day.

Saturated Color

I'm always intrigued by the very simple abstract paintings at modern art museums. I think "how did that artist get such a simple painting into a major museum?". You know, it's not as easy as you would think.  Besides the mechanics of creating it there's the whole decision process. Colors and shapes. Composition. Making it interesting. Not so easy! You can't just throw stuff on there...there actually has to be a thought process.  

My thought process here was cool against warm.  Blue/black against orange/red. I like that I thought it out and I do like the that stripe of blue against the warm colors.  River through the desert? Canal through a field of flowers?  Those weren't in my mind when I started this, but that's what I see now. I may try abstract again, but start with a real image first and then turn it abstract.  

The Boulder

So the title of my post was the "Pushing the Boulder Forward". As in, I suddenly came across a boulder in my creative path. In this case, I think it was work. I work in a retail store and both the hours and pressure to meet sales goals is really stifling. I seem to go in two week cycles of happy/unhappy. Something happens that makes me mad/unhappy at work and then slowly I make peace with it and I'm feeling OK about work and then something else irritates me or sets me off.  And over two weeks I make peace with it and the cycle starts again. Each time though, the scar left from the cycle becomes more prominent and the funk is a little deeper. I need to get to happy place and that's not going to happen in this job. In the meantime, while I'm searching for something new I need to reach for my creative tools and use them to lift me up. So really I shouldn't push the boulder forward...I should push it out of may way. And I will!

A Grinding Halt...

I've been moving along so enthusiastically through the ICADs and then the Daily Paper Prompts and then suddenly I came to a grinding halt 5 or 6 prompts ago.  I went into my sewing room full of energy because the prompt was "stitch paper"  I had an idea to take this landscape idea:

and recreate it with dense stitching on mixed media paper. I worked from the bottom up and by the time I got to the sky I was burned out on the project and the whole thing looked horrible anyway. I added water color over the stitching to try and enhance what I did but it really looked awful. And I really don't enjoy stitching on paper. I've done it for some handmade cards but have only liked the effect when combined with fabric on the paper.

I put the project down and gave myself permission to skip that prompt.  Why do something creative if it makes you unhappy!?  The next day's prompt was "Ogee Pattern".  This sounded more promising so I emotionally moved on and thought about what I would do the next day for that. 

The answer was literally under my feet.  We have a contemporary area rug in our family room with a beautiful Ogee pattern. I took a photograph of it, changed it to high contrast black and white and printed it out so I could trace the pattern onto my paper. I am not the best at line control, so I though tracing it would give a good start. After I turned off my lightbox and looked at my awkward tracing I put all my stuff back in my craft room and I haven't walked in there since. 

I know I just need to pick up a pencil and paper and kick-start my energy again. Just pick a prompt...any prompt and go. GO! 

Maybe this afternoon....

Games

The Daily Paper prompt for this one was games. I love playing games! I hate chess! So why did I make a chess related project?  I think because I love the checkerboard pattern.  When I started quilting, my first project and checkerboard sashing between the blocks and I continue to be attracked to checkerboard type design in quilts and  artwork. 

There's nothing fancy about this, but I like the way it came out. Once again, though, I didn't have patience.  I wanted to add the check-mate stencil (I cut the stencil out on the Silhouette) so I quickly dried my piece with an iron  before I stenciled with acrylic. There must have still been some moisture in the mixed media because the black paint started to color the white acrylic that I used for the word. It wasn't too bad but it could have ruined it.  I have to be patient!

Faded

This is one of those project that just had to call done even though I didn't like it. The Daily Paper Prompt was "faded".  The technique to is use watercolor crayons or pencils on the paper then spray it with a waterbottle to "fade" the color.  I drew random overlapping shapes and colored them with my watercolor pencils. After I took the spray bottle to the color did indeed look faded, so I like this technique. But I don't like that I can see my pencil strokes...or my design!  I think if I use either hot press watercolor paper or mixed media paper instead of cold press paper I won't see as much visual texture.  The cold press paper really holds onto those stroke marks.  I wanted to see how the technique works with stamp pad ink and distress inks so I rubbed my stamp pad around the edges of the paper, did the same with a bottle of distress ink and sprayed again. I like that effect a lot.

So I like the technique, just don't like the outcome of this project.  However, this will be the base for something else...coming soon!

Leftovers

Sometimes it's fun to just see how these project develop.  Today's Daily Paper Prompt was Leftovers and the suggestions was to use the paper you use to protect your work surface to create something. I just cleaned up my room recently so I was afraid I wouldn't have anything good to work with, but lo and behold I actually had a good "leftover"  I took it outside and photographed it whole thinking that I might do something digitally with it.  I open the file in photoshop and look at different croppings but nothing was really doing anything for me.

Then, I remember my cards that I threw away yesterday while trying to create the certification card. I figured I could cut those up in some way to incorporate them into today's project. Sure enough I started framing out the paper and then laying strips down and before I knew it I was well on my way. After I glued down my strips I rubbed over them with white paint to tone down the brightness, the outline with black sharpie.  After scattering a few more torn pieces of the cards on and outlining them I called it done.  I enjoyed the process of turning nothing into something and I happy with how it looks. 

Certified!

I made this card 4 times!  The Daily Paper Prompt was Certification so obviously it was going to involve handwriting...the bane of my artistic life! I knew right was my certification would be in time juggling.  That's some thing I've been doing a lot of the last few weeks.  Dad's been up and down health wise and we had a 4 day trip to the hospital which I had to balance with work.  Then Nick was home from school, which is always a wonderful thing but then Greg ended up in the hospital. And of course I had to get back to work on Monday and there were piles of laundy, dust bunnies all over the floor and a very cluttered and dirty kitchen.  And my cousins from Pittsburgh were coming this week. I think that makes me a Time Juggler Extraordinaire!

Anyway, I knew what I wanted my card to look like but I had to get the darn writing on it.  The sideways writing wasn't so bad.  It's not as pretty as I would like it but it's passable. But when I went to do the center part of the card...Aye, yi, yi!  Horrible.  After 3 cards I looked through some other index cards in the Flickr group to get re-inspired and that worked because I saw Lenna's certification and remembered I had alpha stamps.  I stamped most of what went that center section and then just wrote in my name (very plain and uninspiring) and put this one behind me.  

They don't all have to be spectacular...just keep creating!

Linear

Right after I finished my Flowers for the last prompt I got to work on 'Linear". I'm not sure I followed the prompt to the letter of the rule...which was to draw something with only straight lines, like on a etch a sketch. But I quickly envisioned making a living being, either human or animal from one shape.  I chose a human and triangles.  Amazingly, I had this guy drawn in less than 10 minutes and then another ten minutes to add color and lettering (also all with straight lines).

I have never, ever drawn an interesting looking human in my life. All my humans look stiff and un-natural and frankly, like a second grader drew them. No offense to second graders...some could definitely outdraw me!  But Mr. Lineman looks like he has personality! And great form! He could become the star of a cartoon strip.  

Needless to say I am quite pleased with myself and don't mind saying so. What a great follow up to being unable to draw a flower. The next prompt is Certification...as in draw up a certificate in something you are good at. I may have to make it for ability to draw a human out of triangles. :)

Flowers

For a time yesterday I thought I might abandon the Daily Paper Prompts.  I was a day behind and the prompt was flowers.  Started off in the morning before work by working on two different ideas but that went nowhere.  When I got home. in the afternoon I tried to re-work them and again nothing I could live with. One of those discouraging moments set...I'm just not good enough.  If I was good enough I could do flowers! How hard are flowers!

Well, I set it all aside and went about other business like getting dinner ready and relaxing with my husband.  Then we were watching...actually, make that making fun of, Love it or List it on HGTV...and I saw a briefly saw a comforter on a bed with very free form flowers and a lot of white space.  I flew to the craft room, grabbed and pencil and drew.  Grabbed some oil pastel and a Pitt pen and finished this prompt up.  YAY!  See, I can do it...stop being so hard on me!

Drips

Daily Paper Prompt #3: Drips.

I have dying to sit on our patio and enjoy a good monsoon storm this month but the gods are not cooperating. The few storms we have had I have been sitting deep in a restaurant or at the emergency room with dad (no windows) or the storm has bypassed my neighborhood.  I know I'll finally get to experience a good one when I am camping in two weeks!

So anyway, rain must be on my mind because when I saw "Drips" as the prompt I immediately heard the chorus from Donna Summers "MacArthur's Park" song in my head:

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, nooooo

I grabbed a cake image and overlayed it over some sheet music in photoshop, printed it out and started dripping.  The hard part about working with acrylics for me is waiting for the layers to dry.  This time I was very, very patient and took Saturday and Sunday to make it.  Which worked out because I worked on it in bits and pieces since my husband ended up in the emergency room Saturday night and spent most of Sunday at the hospital. Two trips to the emergency room in a month (one for my dad, one for husband)! 

But I digress...after I got the drips just right, I printed out Donna's words, glued them on, and outlined them.  I'm very happy with the results.  My first drip experience and I would do it again. However, I've had that song stuck in my head ever since!

Windows

Today's prompt was "Windows".

I actually started out down a different road. I had a piece of scrapbook paper with distinct graphic flowers and I cut out the flowers and was going to color the underneath piece in such a way that scenes showed where the window were. I didn't like it at all. It was too busy and unfocused.  

I threw all that way again. I turned to watercolors (again!) and then painted up a checkboard of colors. I wanted to have something graphic but neutral for the windows so I grabbed a yellow pages page and cut a series of rectangles, then punch circles.  I'm much happier with the result.  The black and yellow page look great against the bright colors and I like the pattern I cut for window. A success in my book!

Rainbow Cloth

The first daily prompt is "Rainbow".  Towards the end ICAD I got away from drawing. In fact, I realized that I wasn't drawing in my sketchbook anymore.  So I thought I would start off the Daily Paper Prompts by drawing something and then coloring it in rainbow colors.  I found instructions on how to draw fabric wrinkles and off I went.  I like how my drawing turned out...watercoloring is a little crude but I had to get to work did have a lot of time to spend on it.  I;m happy it at least resembles something!  

The End...But Really, Just the Beginning

ICAD is finished and I feel exhilirated! I did ICAD last year but I only did 29 cards...just June really. I know I was in a very bad place emotionally last year and I was trying to use ICAD to pull me out of it. The details are sketchy (the psyche is good at blocking out the unpleasant) but I think I started to pull out of my funk and start looking for jobs about that time.I didn't actually find a job until  October, but I think I turned the corner on some serious depression and was finally joining life again. So ICAD last year was very important and even though I didn't finish I was on the road to better things.

So, this year, finishing ICAD was a triumph of spirit. Of preservering. Of conquering demons when they start to gather. I claim that this is a process of developing skills, but I know that deeper within me it is a process of giving myself a place to go where I can lose myself.  There is something meditative about creating. Sometimes creating can be frustrating and not soothing...but mostly it is tranquil. For sure it lets you express and feel emotion. I don't think I put emotion in the index cards but I am feeling emotion when I create them. 

So I am exhilarated! For one, I finished something! And I am very satisfied when I look at the body of work I created. Next, I found an amazing place to share and be inspired (ICAD Flickr group). What a great group of people! And finally, I found myself well on the road to self discovery, both emotionally and creatively.  I'm not liking some of the emotional discoveries but I am at least being honest with myself about my motivations in life. But I LOVE my creative discoveries!  So much so that I am going to continue to create daily by participating in the Daisy Yellow Daily Paper Prompts.

Two Steps Forward, One Back

For today's card I wanted to capture how I have felt during the ICAD project.  I didn't want it to be so much about the art (although I wanted it to be pretty) but about the journey.  This quote captured it perfectly. There were times when I doubted that I had enough talent to keep up with the other ICADers.  That's the wrong emotion for two reasons.  Art isn't a competition, nor should it involve comparisons. Viewing other artist's work should provide inspiration, not a benchmark for how you are doing.  

My whole purpose for Discovering Doreen and participating in projects like ICAD is to find my own style and to develop my skills. There were moments when I felt a style starting to emerge.  Some of my drawings have a distinct look to them.  At first I thought they were childish, but I kind of like the illustration quality of them.  I would like to develop my skill in that area further. I need to work on perspective for sure.  I did discover I like the immediacy of watercolors a lot.  With Acrylics I don't like opening and closing tubes and worrying about drying paint (maybe just an issue in the desert southwest?) and having to wait a long period between layers.  Watercolor moves at my pace.  Swish the brush in water and pan paints and go.  Rinse and repeat. Need to dry it fast? Iron!  I love the look of watercolor with black in.  

This quote sums up how I feel.  Somedays I feel like I have progressed in my skills and other days I feel like I am still at square one.  But I'll going to keep chugging along because the journey sure is fun!

20 minute Wonder!

I saw this technique in an newsletter from SplitCoast Stampers.  I quickly following the link to the tutorial and then ran to my crafting room. I was surprised to see I had clear embossing power, which you need for this project so I quickly grabbed the rest of the supplies (paper, Versamark, distress stains, an iron and newsprint) got to work.  In twenty minutes I had this and was extremely happy with the result.  Sometimes you spend several hours and never get what you envision and sometime you spend 20 minutes...0r 5!...and something wonderful happens!

Finding Beauty

This started out as a very simple watercolor, really just splotches. In fact it looked like a 1st graders depiction of flowers. I did it in a hurry about 2 weeks ago and left in on my work table in case I was desperate. Yesterday, I realize I had 7 cards to make in 3 days so I was desperate! It orginally was just the watercolored flowers and vase against the white index cards so I watercolored around the whole composition and that helped but it was still simplistic. I added a little more depth and dimesion to the flowers and vase by adding darker shades of watercolors to them.

 It still wasn't quite right so I picked up my Pitt artist pen....again! I am officially addicted to black line work now. Nothing feels finished or right unless I go around it with that pen. I'm going to need a 12 step program to help me put down that pen. But for now it helped me get this card looking presentable. And in that whole process I found the beauty in this card and created something I like. 

Put a Little Love in Your Heart

For this card, I think I used a little bit of inspiration from everyone on ICAD.  I like Charlie_Brown's idea of using rubber cement for masking watercolors so I painted the whole card a turquoise color and then painted rubber cement in heart shapes. After the rubber cement dried I watercolored the background a reddish, magenta color.  I removed the rubber cement and added details with the Pitt artist pen.  Then I outlined in white gel pen and black watercolor pens, which was then moistened with a wet brush to soften.  Thank your Tracy Scott for that technique. Then, like Pam, I started layering on colors of paint until I had a soft textured background. 

I was very happy with that but wanted to finish with some words.  I had a song in my head I wanted to used but had the darnedest time finding the exact words because it was a song I though Diana Ross did.  And I couldn't quite get the turn right to sing the song to myself.  And I had the words wrong. I thought it was Shine a Little Love in your Life, which turned out to be a song by Electric Light Orchestra. But I finally found the right song and it wasn't Diana Ross, it was "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" by Jackie DeShannon.

So there's my card for today and it put a little love in my heart to create it.  Only 2 more days of ICAD and I have 4 cards to make to get to my full 61 cards.  I've got a couple of ideas for 2 cards.  We'll see what I come up with!

Giraffe

I actually drew this cute guy a few days ago and left him sitting un-colored on my work table. I didn't think I would actually be using him but I'm getting down to the last few days of ICAD and I'm behind by at least 4 cards so it's not time to be choosy.  Actually once I got the color on him I liked him a whole lot more.  The color on his face is funky.  I don't remember what giraffe faces look like in terms of coloring.  I had my computer right there and could have looked it up but I was on roll.  I think he is a cutie and probably needs a name. Clyde.  I don't know why, but he looks like a Clyde to me!

Play Ball

I was watching a baseball game a couple of nights ago and had my Pitt pen and so index cards in my lap with the intention of doing some drawing.  I didn't actually draw anything but I started doodling by drawing curvy lines on the index card and then making baseball stitching marks along the line.  I figured it might become a pretty good card.  They next morning I colored each segment either blue, green, red-brown or yellow.  Why those colors?  Green for the grass, blue for the sky, red-brown for the infield dirt and yellow for the sun shining down on the beautiful scene that baseball presents.  It really is a beautiful game to me.

After I colored it, it wasn't anything special so I thought I would try a collage.  I didn't have much in the way of baseball stuff but I did have some sporting and vintage paperwork scrapbook paper . I also lettered and distressed the Play Ball! element.  I'd like to point out that I don't cringe when I look at the lettering on this!  Once I glued everything down I just started distressing and outlining until I had something I like.  I learned some great outlining ideas from this video from Tracy Scott. She is an ICAD participant who does amazing cards with vibrant colors and lots of little details.

I am very happy with the outcome of this card.  It is much fun to see something develop when you have no idea where you are going with the card!

Doodling

I was starting to loss my mojo again.  I just could think what I wanted to create on an index card.  And I was supposed to be used ICAD to practice my drawing skills but I've been getting lax in that department. To get me going again I figured I would just doodle, or more specifically, Zentangle.  There are some amazing zentanglers out there who can draw minute detail or create illusions of 3-d.  I'm just a basic Zentangler, but I find it fun and indeed a bit zenful.  For this one I went with "linear" designs.  I drew the snakey looking things first to divide up the page and filled in the spaces with viney looking things.  

Sunday Morning

Nothing too exciting with this card.  I was watching the CBS's Sunday Morning and throughout their broadcast each week they show artistic depictions of the sun between segments.  I remember the Sun wall hanging we have in backyard and drew a quick sketch of it.  Here is the wallhanging:

I had good intentions of adding color but we decided to go visit the Musical Instrument Museum so I called it done when finished the sketch.

Palmer Method

I was still intrigued with the Palmer Method of handwriting so I turned it into ICAD card.  It was a fun card to create and one of my favorites.  I mix blue and green acrylic paint together to get the right color for a school chalkboard and gave the index card a good coating of paint.  I used my white quite marking pencil to write the letters..  And the cool part was...my letters actually look half way decent. Except for that upper case "F".  That one doesn't look quite write.  for the rest of the card I just printed some images from the internet and voila!

I did realize that I learned the Palmer method in school. I just don't remember it being called that.  I remember making those exact shapes while practicing in class.  I still use most of those letter forms, but I write a few, like the upper case "F" and "Q".  This week I've been trying to slow down when I'm writing at home and work and see if I can get some improvement.

The Bad Handwriting is on the Wall!

After my one week exercise in Handlettering I came to a simple conclusion.  My handwriting is really bad.  I just don't see to have any control over what my hand is doing.  I started to do some research on the internet to find ways to improve handwriting and I discovered some interesting things. Like there is a international society for master penmen, engrossers and teachers of handwriting. Who knew?  And apparently everyone who went to catholic school learned something called the Palmer method of writing from the nuns. I found the original instruction book for the Palmer method and it required quite of bit of discipline. No wonder the nuns loved it. 

Anyway, after a week of pretty awful handlettering I decided to make a collage that involved no handwriting. But since the past week's cards were still on my mind handwriting became my theme.  I actually cut the tag and flowers a couple of months ago when I was making a bunch of greeting cards at one time to have on hand.  I assembled the flowers and stamps onto the card but didn't know what else to add.  I went through some of my boxes of stuff, but nothing was speaking to me. And then I just started surfing the net looking for handwriting information and soon I had my card!  Not my favorite, but it's done!

Way Behind

Wow...amazing how days can suddenly slip away when your routine is disrupted.  Just a week ago I took my dad to hospital and suddenly my blog is way behind.  Fortunately, I was able to somewhat keep up on ICAD.  I should have 53 cards right now, but only have finished 50.  Not too bad actually and I do have at least one card that I made, but didn't love.  If I need an extra card to make it to 61 I'll throw that one in.

Well, let's see...what have I done since last Tuesday:

I was having trouble getting myself settled and focused. I knew I needed to get something down on an index card to get me going again, but was blocked creatively.  So I made myself think of one word to get me going.  That word turned out to be home.  I was glad my dad was home from the hospital and I was glad I had the day off from work and didn't have to run to the hospital.  It was a well needed day at home for me.

The one thing I haven't really tackled during this ICAD challenge is handwriting, so I decided to write the word Home in a creative font and then I decided to write a different word in a different font for the whole week.  In order to keep myself from getting blocked I decided that every word would start with "H" and that every word would be a happy or positive word.  

That got me focused and in fact on Sunday I wrote 5 of the words immediately. I do wish I had done the backgrounds first.since I was limited to using watercolors once the words were already written.  I used watercolors for the backgrounds but decided to experiment with a couple of techniques, like sprinkling salt on the paper after doing a wash (hope) and spritzing with alcohol (hugs).  I did get some effect but I think the effect would be better on watercolor paper. Index cards absorb too much water too quickly. 

For today's card, Humor, I was able to do the background first, but I still stuck to watercolors. I brushed the watercolor onto a acrylic block first and then smushed it onto the card.  I like that effect will try it with inks and acrylics, too. 

One more "H" word and then I'll move on to a new subject.  I think I'll work on drawing whimsical people and animals next week.  

Brightness

I couldn't figure out how some people are able to mix such nice bright colors.  When I mix colors they get darker and sometimes muddy.  I did figure out the muddy thing...turns out that's caused by mixing complimentary colors.  But I couldn't figure out the brightness thing until I realized....they are buying bright paint!  Duh!  So I ran to Joann's and bought 5 bottles of cheap acrylic paint in bright, bright colors.  Aha!  Bright!

I just needed to throw a quick card together today because I have a long to do list (and I'm already behind!) so finally broke open the bright paints and just threw them randomly on the card and then hit it with the Pitt pen.  Awesome for something that wasn't intended to be anything at all.  

Off to tackle my list now...but proud I got in my 15 minutes of creativity today.

Chopsticks

I thought the paper towel that I wipe my watercolor brush on was starting to look very pretty in its own way so I cut it to fit an index cards.  Then I noticed the scrap from last years card that had the layers of paper on it and though that would make a pretty bowl base and suddenly I had a rice bowl complete with chopsticks created.  Fun card and I love when I find a creative way to use scraps.

Another Day, Another D

I was only going to do one week of "D" but I had one more idea.  I combined my D with the landscape technique I tried out earlier in ICAD.  This landscape wasn't as good (don't like the brown on the top and bottom, plus my watercolors bled) but I don't have time to play today.  Done with D!

A New Day

This is the second time during the ICAD project that I got completely discouraged only to wake the next morning and feel a creative burst.  I needed to make one more "D" and I right away imagined cats making up the letter.  The shapes can fast and easy and even the coloring came out well. I'm happy with the result.

And while I was working on that I had another vision of a D inserted into the simple landscape that I tried out last week so I quickly sketched that out and will finish that for tomorrow's card.  A bonus D!

D is for Doodle

Almost couldn't create anything this morning.  I took a look at the latest ICAD posts from other participants and was just blown away by the talent I saw today.  Gorgeous drawings, collages, painting.  And that feeling that I could never be that good.

But, I made myself pick up a Pitt pen and just start doodling.  I drew out the outline of the D and then grabbed my Zentangle book and just started filling in.  The art of Zentangling is supposed to be meditative and contemplative and I found it to be just that.  As I drew the lines and shapes I gave myself a pep talk and soon I had the D finished.  The shape of the D is far from perfect but I know there are many artists I admire who don't create perfection.

So doodled D is done and I'm ready to be creative again tomorrow!

D is for discouraged

D is for discouraged today.  I was watching Cake Boss while I was having my coffee yesterday and they were making a beautiful Moroccan theme cake this morning: jewel tones, gold line work and quilted fondant.  It was incredibly beautiful so I thought I would try to make jewelled "D".  The pencil work looked pretty good so I grabbed my coloring tools (gold sharpie, gold prismacolor pencil, Pitt artist pen and watercolors) started working on completing it.  I like the effect of the gold sharpie, but it quickly fell apart for me after that.  My gold line work inside the shapes looks like a first grader did it and when I tried to create the illusion of quilting I ended up with a soggy mess (from trying to add color over color) in the same color of blue that I swear every one of my cards has.  Why can't I get away from that blue!  

Anyway, this is ICAD and the point to do something creative every day.  So I did that, but I don't love it.  But in the spirit of ICAD I posted it the the Flickr group anyway.  This morning I'm in Flagstaff and I brought my creative tools with me, but I am having trouble getting motivated to pick them up. It didn't help when I looked at the Flickr group this morning and it seemed like every new card posted since yesterday was a beautiful detailed drawing, obviously done by people with real talent.

I know, I know....the whole point of Discovering Doreen is to develop that talent through practice. And I even made a comment of agreement on someone else's card whose card read "Comparison is the Thief of Joy".  I wasn't going to judge myself by other people's work during this ICAD project. But I guess it's human nature to do that.  So I'm going to push past that right now, pick up my Pitt artist pen and doodle a D right now.  Here I go...getting back on the horse that threw me!

D day 4

Today's post is brought to you by the metallic letter "D".  Working with letters reminds me of watching Sesame Street with my younger sister and then later with my son.  Anyway, for last year's ICAD I made this card for which I used used aluminum tape laid over letters and other elements and then burnished to create the look of weathered metal:

That inpsired me to try to make my D look metallic today.  Because my skills are still basic I didn't try to get too fancy.  I mostly wanted to just included a few metal details and get the shading right. I'm happy with how it turned out.  It's not a photo-realistic drawing at all (as if I could do that!) but it captures what I was after.  I'm still struggling with getting the shading right.  I like how I shaded the rivets and seams but didn't quite get it right to create the curved surface of the D.  Especially in the upper left corner.

That's 4 days of "D's" so far...three more to go. What to do, what to do.....

D day 3

For today's D I revisited the idea I learned from Kristin Dudish although when I went back to look at her blog I realized I didn't interpret what I was seeing right.  I thought she was randomly painting on paper (she was!) and then cutting up it up into pieces (she was!) and then gluing those onto other pieces and turning the abstract pieces into actual items by drawing on them (she wasn't). What she actually was doing was cutting the random painting into squares and then finding abstract shapes in the square and drawing around those to create objects or scenes.  Also very cool and I'll have to try that soon. 

Sooooo, anyways, I randomly watercolored on paper and then used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the "D" (I forget which font) and glued the D to another index card that I had painted with acrylic paint.  I added a drop shadow with watercolor to give it a more dimensional look. I'm happy with the overall impact.  It would be fun to also use this D as a jumping off point for more embellishment, too.

D day 2

For today's "D" I got more adventurous. I wanted to make it more of an illuminated D.  I drew the basic D share and then added doodling to it.  I wanted to incorporate flowers and ribbons, too, and I enjoyed both drawing and coloring it.  If I could change one thing it would probably be to color the background something more contrasty.  The background blends too much with the rest.  But, overall I'm very happy with it.

d is for doreen

One of my intentions during ICAD is to work on my handlettering skills.  Uh, I think I have hand lettered on exactly one index card so far.  So for the next week I will hand letter, although t idea of handlettering an entire phrase or quote is too scary so I think will just do a letter.  D for Doreen.  

I started with a really simple one.  Just drew a lower case d and watercolored around it.  I wish I had added a little more interest...I stuck to one color and didn't even vary the shade.  When I went back and looked at my inspiration I realized how boring mine was.  I'll definitely do this again.  In fact the place where I got the inspiration made them as note cards and I may just do that.