So it's already lining up to be "one of those days" - I've left my work pass (and hence my access token for dialling into my work laptop) back at the flat in London; the engineers working on my project have accidentally pushed the wrong script out to hundreds of laptops and the first I hear about it is from the customer, rather than my team; the grass in my garden is about 2-3 feet high and there's no way my lawn-mower will go anywhere near it, plus I blew the motor on my strimmer last time I tried to use it. I still haven't figured out what to do about my iPhone 3GS which I discovered had quite literally blown up yesterday (exploded batteries are apparently a known 'feature' of this model !!!). So where to turn to stop this day getting any worse? To put things back into perspective - it is, after all, only 09:30am so there's quite a lot of potential for improvement :-)
Even getting it all out into this blog is helping. I have my salt crystal lamp over there, I'll switch it on. I can light candles and incense, maybe smudge some sage. I am at home, not in the office so I can rest if I need to. I'll get a new strimmer from Argos or Asda and tackle the grass later, then start carving out the patterns for my new goddess garden.....
So now a short time later, the rock salt lamp is on, sage-smudging done, a myrrh incense cone is burning and I have a roaring log fire, lit by my favourite method of sparks onto char cloth. I absolutely adore the fact I can light a cold fire and have it burning in brightly in a couple of minutes without needing a match or flame of any description :-) The candles on my altar are alight too, it's quite warm so the patio doors are wide open letting in the breeze and the sounds of the birds singing. I have time to take a few minutes to just relax, before going back to emails and spreadsheets.......
..... so several hours later, I have chilled out quite considerably. I have created backgrounds on several more index cards by experimenting with drops of colour in water. I've found it works better with a drop of oil on the surface first, and acrylics work better than water colours. The oil droplets formed can enhance the overall look, though I guess it would be possible to just use oil paints instead of oil plus acrylics. One of my cards got too wet and had water pooled on the surface so I drew spirals on it in watercolour paint to see what happened. My phone camera doesn't want to post pictures so it may need to wait until I'm back at the flat before I can update with photos on here but am happy with the results so far :-)
My ICAD for the day turned out completely differently to my expectations (this is happening A LOT with my art, including with the mandala course). This one was an attempt to blend paint in the way that so many people on the Daisy Yellow site do so beautifully - I'm beginning to think there is a technique to it that I don't know yet, lol. Patterns and images seemed to stand out so I just followed them with a pen and ended up with my first piece of abstract art. I still don't know which way up I prefer it!
Today has been a day full of disappointments and frustrations. I have not made time for an index card today and it is now nearly 11pm, though in my partial defence, I was late home from work, hurtled straight into a 90 minute yoga class with only minutes to spare, then had to pack and drive for 90 minutes to get back to my home in Berkshire. So pretty much my whole evening vanished after a crazy day at work. The yoga class wasn't as relaxing as I'd hoped so I'm now trying to relax and unwind enough to be able to sleep when I go to bed. Am really not in the mood for creating a card but maybe a zentangle will help me reach that chilled out space.
To add insult to injury, my old iPhone 3GS has exploded, presumably the battery has blown up, pushing the screen out and cracking the back cover :-( Really not having a good day!
....so the zentangle didn't quite happen :-D This is a Christmas stamp that I dug out from years ago when I was trying to make my own cards. I was feeling a bit miserable then started counting my blessings, and this is what emerged :-)
A work in progress :-) Today I looked up zentangles and zendoodles on the web and had a couple of attempts at creating my own. Not there yet I don't think, though I certainly zoned-out whilst creating this one in the middle of a busy shopping centre at lunchtime today, complete with squawking kids climbing all over the end of the seat I was sitting on and harried mothers trying to round up their offspring.
I did the most central heart first, then the 4 descending hearts and then the one in the corner. The spirals didn't work out quite right at first, so I extended them with the stems, leaves and heart flowers. The attempts to zentangle made me think at first that I'd ruined the picture, though as I worked on them more and just let everything flow, my central heart re-emerged and my descending hearts didn't look so swamped. Not sure where this is going, maybe I'll add some words rather than more doodling, but it's certainly an interesting challenge and I do like the technique. Will be trying more of this though I may do more internet research or even buy an instruction book if I struggle with the concept and patterns.
Really lousy day at work today, starting with a poorly attended customer meeting (only the organiser showed up, none of the required attendees made it) so hardly any progress and a waste of most of the morning. Getting back to the office, things didn't improve to the extent that I very nearly walked out and came home. Kept trying to think of positive things then got foiled by a despairing team meeting. Tried to deflect the negative by creating a brightly coloured ICAD card with my fluorescent gel pens but was very disheartened by the results and threw it in the drawer and went home.
The day brightened up considerably with a lovely meal with our new friends David & Jenna who live across the courtyard from us so that inspired a completely different card when we got home.
The photo doesn't really do it justice - the background is green and red sparkly children's ready-mixed paint, the picture and text are cut from a takeaway menu from the restaurant we went to. I really like how the ICAD cards are actually turning into something of an art journal for me - an evolving exploration of the different ways I can be creative, even when I'm not feeling particularly inspired in what I would usually consider to be a 'traditionally arty' way :-)
Just started reading Naomi Wolf's biography "Vagina" today and already several of the phrases she has used have resonated with me. Seemed like an ideal subject for my ICAD today so quickly sketched the cover illustration onto an index card just before leaving work :-)
This was done purely with a CD marker pen that I picked up during a quick scoot round the local shopping centre at lunchtime!
And here's the original, possibly by Clay from Depression Comix according to a Google search (couldn't find any credit for the artist in the book, so happy for anyone to correct me):
Day 2 of ICAD and I wanted to continue with the week's theme of rainbow colours. I had prepared a couple of backgrounds yesterday but none of them felt right so I drew on a fresh card with white wax crayon (somewhat difficult when you can't see what you're drawing!) then then washed over the results with watered down yellow and orange ready mixed paints.
One of the corner flowers morphed into a butterfly when I started painting and the central flower turned into a mandala. It still seemed incomplete so I searched through my folder of phrases cut from magazines until I found the words I liked, then added the "Enjoy" by cutting the word from a pizza box in my recycling bin :-)
Loving seeing what everyone else creates - lots of inspiration and just sharing creativity with so many lovely people is fantastic. Two months of this could become incredibly addictive!
Day 1 of ICAD 2013 and I decided to start with inspirational quotes. The first one has often been attributed to Albert Einstein but is actually from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr (yes, i forgot the Jr on this version, it's added now :-) )
I had fun playing with the children's ready mixed paints - the background on this card is the first one I painted. Before I added the text, I experimented with the colours and made backgrounds on several more cards, using the same colours in different orders. I didn't have a pen that looked like it would stand out enough so I grabbed a whiteboard marker for the text.
