Zentangle Thurzdayz

The Diva Challenge this week was to incorporate the new 'grid seeds' demonstrated in Rick and Maria Thomas' newsletter last week. In the newsletter, they illustrated fifty of these 'seed' possibilities:

 

and opened the door for our imaginations to run wild. I picked a seed (a little variation on C3) that I thought I could play with and, as you can see, play I did! I started off the top card and only two blocks in I realized what potential lay in this design and quickly drew out two more cards using the same seed design, just turned different ways:

Cool, no?

 

I think I could play with these grid seeds a long, long time...But! Other projects in the works--if the humidity would kindly cut me a break so paints and glues and gesso would dry in a more timely manner....What's a girl to do? Tangle with grid seeds while waiting for the paint to dry? Don't mind if I do! Have a great Thursday!

 

Artist Way Wednesday

Well, I'm on Week Two of Julia Cameron's Artist's Way and already I feel myself opening up to more creative playing. Yesterday I spent the day in a mix of media like I've never done before--I painted acrylics on a slate, watercolor on a greeting card and an ICAD card, sprinkled and spritzed with salt, glue, and masking fluid. I Mod-Podged a collaged art journal page then covered it with gesso for some lettering work and even played with a possible little poem for the page--me, poetry! I took a break for lunch then sat and tangled most of the afternoon away, creating three different cards--I just couldn't stop! It's so fun seeing all of this artistic productivity proliferating--who knew that was all in there?!

So another experiment with collage--I've had the bits and pieces for these pages laying around for a while now, just waiting to be put together, and while I was waiting for other things to dry I thought I'd give this some of my attention as well. I really have no idea what I'm doing with collage, but I loved the colors and the fish, which matched my little butterfly (why not?) and a fortune from somebody's cookie after Chinese one night that reads, "One of the best things to do sometimes is just be," which totally spoke to me after watching Eat, Pray, Love last night--what a great movie! Anyways, this is as far as I got since I had to wait for the gesso to dry--darn humidity!! Hopefully it won't be too long before I can get back to doing some journaling/lettering and finish it all up!

 

You'll have to wait to see pics of the other pretties I worked on today--ooo, like a cliff hanger...come back tomorrow to see more goodies!! Haha! Happy Wednesday!

ICAD Tuesday

Carrying on with my new weekly blog series, I've decided that rather than post daily pics of index cards, Tuesdays are now for ICAD--at least for the duration of June and July while the challenge is under way. Week Two's theme is Ink (pen, marker, spray ink...) and the prompts are: City/map, Sun, List of favorites, Ivy, Circus, Junk mail, Camera, and Rubber stamp.

 

A shot of cards #7-10--I broke out one of my primary color cards to do a little mandala play with my Sakura Moonlight gel pens, some simple daisy doodles, then, getting back to the prompts, I did a big, bright sun with a happy little cloud, and a mini Funky Town for city/map:

 



 

And Twinkle, Twinkle's Summer of Color is now officially under way and the color combination for the week is Citron and Turquoise--love it! Stay tuned for those postings! Well, what are you waiting for? Go get a pack of cards and come play with us!

Mail Art Monday

I'm hoping to get my blog posts organized weekly in an effort to post more regularly and to also maybe keep myself on track with different projects rather than dabbling at random (though that's not always a bad thing...sometimes it just helps to have a little focus...)

 

So, to start us off, another favorite fun art blog, Mail Me Some Art, has started Mail Art Mondays to link up mail art related blog posts, share tutorials, and spread a little inspiration. Since I've been participating in Random Acts of Mail, a spin off group from National Letter Writing Month, I thought it would be great to link up with Mail Art Mondays and post pics of the cards and artsy mail I'm working on (and, hence, take care of my weekly Monday posts! Tada!)

 

Last week's cards--a zentangly card and simple hello--all Sharpie love

 

This week's RAM postcards on watercolor paper, Derwent watercolor pencil: Beachy waves and another Funky Town

A possible new logo I played with last week...my initials turned into DaydreaM Designs...??

One final little heads up note, artist Roben-Marie Smith is hosting a new online class about--you guessed it--Mail Art!! Check out her blog post, Every Life Has a Story, for a chance to enter and win a spot for free in this fun workshop! Yay!

 

All rightee, tomorrow will be a catch up on the week's ICAD...hope to see you then!

 



A linky to the Mail Art Party

 

Are you playing?

ICAD #5-6 and Diva Challenge #121

Carrying on with the Index Card a Day, I used the week's Paisley prompt and incorporated the Diva's UMT Challenge to use CZT Mary Kissel's pattern, Bird on a Wire for the top card, and the bottom card was inspired by our trip to Horseneck Beach this weekend:

 



Summer is quickly coming up on us, though most of our southern friends' kids are already out of school, the last day here won't be until the 26th. I'm trying to find things to keep my kiddo busy (read as: not glued to the computer screen) and so I've found summer basketball and dodge ball, plus the summer bowling league, and I'd like to get him signed up for regular guitar lessons now that the rec center's lessons are done. And before you know it, he'll be starting middle school and I'll be wondering how my little one's grown up so fast...*sigh*

I've gotten a little group started on the Artist's Way and we're working through Week One (if anyone's interested in joining us, just leave a comment and I will happily send you an invite to our Yahoo group!) Very excited to see where this journey might go--yay!

One last beautiful day here and rain sets in for the weekend after midnight. I'm biking and running and taking the dogs for late morning or after lunch walks. The Color Me Rad 5k is scheduled in Providence for late September and I would so love to run it! Bill and Bug could be with the folks throwing paint on the runners--fun for the whole family! Haha!

So, happy Thursday--thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you here again soon!

 

ICAD #3-4

I've been feeling rather anxious this week and I'm trying to pin it down to figure out why, but it could be a hundred different things. My brain always likes to overthink everything so sometimes it's better to just tune it all out the best I can, take a deep breath and keep moving forward.

We did have a perfectly gorgeous day at the beach Sunday. It was so hot and humid here in town, a final blast of the weekend's heat wave, so we packed up our towels and sunscreen, threw on our suits, and off we went to Horseneck Beach to play a while. Just exactly what I needed--it was sunny and breezy, not hot or humid at all. I sat and listened to the waves crashing in and eventually braved a walk in the water, which was ice cold at first but quickly adapted and it felt oh so heavenly....Bug buried himself in the sand, hubby collected white beach rocks for the flower beds, and I happily soaked it all in-the salty air, the soft, warm sand, the crashing waves, seagulls sailing overhead. I didn't want to leave...but, alas, dinner was waiting at home and life does have to go on....We did buy a summer parking pass so we can go back anytime, as often as we want now and not have to pay--yay!

Life is good at the beach!

I did get a couple more cards done for ICAD:

Prompts Calligraphy (a little...) and Purple for Colors

Prompt: Candyland

I'm also jumping back in to The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I worked through this book so many years ago and lately I've been wanting to do it again. I've got a few friends from our Zia Yahoo group who are joining in, so I'm hoping we can keep each other going along this journey because it's really easy to find yourself sidetracked and quit.

 

I have a busy day ahead, bunch of chores to catch up on, a book to pick up at the library, grocery shopping and I have to swing by the vet's as well since they overcharged me yesterday for Pea and Boo's exams and shots--grrr!! But lots of good arting plans to play with once I get caught up for the day--yay! So have a great Tuesday! Thanks for stopping by!

 



 

ICAD 2013 Begins!

One of my favorite creative blogs, Tammy Garcia's Daisy Yellow, hosts a yearly summer challenge-the Index Card a Day. For June and July, the challenge is to do something--anything--creative with a simple index card. Tammy posts weekly prompts and themes to help get those juices flowing--you can go as minimal or crazy as you want--no rules, no expectations, just exploration and creation and FUN! So I picked up a plain pack of cards at Walmart and was ready to play!

I did two quick cards today....getting only slightly ahead of myself because weekends are difficult for me to find creative time with everybody home and weekend chores and family time...but this morning, hubby has a dentist appointment and I took full advantage of the free time to do my cards for today and tomorrow!

The first one, I wanted to do a title card for the challenge and the second one...well...I actually started it yesterday and thought it might be going in the garbage because the spray paints went more than a little wild...but I let it dry and thought I'd give it another shot before junking it...So--two of our eight prompts for this week that I incorporated are zebra and a crown, and the week's theme is color-a rainbow of colors...I decided to start with red (where else to start but the beginning of the rainbow, right?) but decided that wasn't quite enough (nothing is ever enough--half my trouble, I think! Haha!) Using my zebra stencil and my homemade acrylic spray paints, I did the background on the second card. It all ran together and you couldn't really get much of a zebra feel from it...so tempted to just pitch it and move on...But then I did my title card with reds and oranges and zebra striping and I really like it! I dug into my slowly growing ephemera stash to do a little collage on the stenciled card, and, eh, it's not so bad...?? Too much critiquing!! Viola:

 

So there you have it, my first plunge into the Index-Card-a-Day challenge. I think it's gonna be fun playing with these cards all summer--click on over to Daisy Yellow if you want to play along!