Every year, Tammy Garcia hosts the Index Card a Day (ICAD) challenge. Here are a few of my favorite cards I created this year; see my Instagram for the whole set.
Tag: my mixed media
Looking Back: ICAD 2019
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I’m a little over two weeks into this year’s ICAD challenge, Tammy Garcia’s annual index card creativity extravaganza (learn more about this two-month project here).
Today, I’m throwing it back to a few years ago, my second time around with ICAD, when I threw all the rules out the window and stumbled on a loose, intuitive, energetic mixed media process that I loved.
I always wanted to know what my “style” was, but it took letting go and playing for me to discover it.
Details
Within each piece I make, there are scores of unintentional mini compositions. I love looking for the most interesting bits and studying how the layers, colors, and textures meet one another.
Each of the photos above is a snap of a small detail of a larger art journal page. All are mixed media — a combination of acrylic, oil pastel, wax crayon, tempura paint, graphite, and paint marker. Some have collage elements, too.
By studying what catches my eye the most, I learn more about my own style and gain inspiration for further art exploration.
My Toolbox: Birch Panels
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Over the past year or so I’ve been exploring going bigger in my art. I have been painting and collaging in books since at least 2008, the largest pages of which have been about 11 x 14 inches. Creating single, stand-alone art — as an alternative to a bundle of spreads to be viewed as a multiple-paged whole — is new territory, as is experimenting with new materials.
Being used to a smaller, hard surface, attempting to switch to large canvas has been a new learning curve. Canvas has a lot of give, and it pushes me to use a gentler hand — something that ultimately changes the style of my art, I think, for better or worse.
A few weeks ago, though, I decided to try out wooden panels. They don’t come in as wide a variety of sizes as canvas, but is a good place to start broadening my horizons while working on a surface that retains some of paper’s characteristics. I bought some small panels on sale at Michael’s (their website is currently down) and later ordered larger ones from Amazon.
I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting on these. More experiments will certainly follow.
If you work or have worked on wooden panels before, I’d love to hear: do you gesso or otherwise prep the surface? Do you varnish the piece when you’re finished? Any other tips?
