jiggety-jig

Traveling index cards

I've been a food geek for years - taking my Chef's knife and food processor and coffee maker on vacation with me. This year is no exception. Only this year I'm also an art geek. It was all I could do to not pack my entire studio. It was only the size limits of the Prius that forced me to limit my choices. (My packing philosophy is "fill the space you have". If we drove an SUV I'd be bringing furniture on vacation).

Lately, all I want to do is make art and I figured this burning passion would follow me to the Cape. I knew, at the very least, I wanted to continue with my ICAD challenge away from home. I've managed to make an index card every day, but overall, I haven't been that interested in making art this week. It makes me realize how much art is an escape and refuge from the stress of real life. On vacation, surrounded by extended family and non-stop fun, I am already removed from reality and so I haven't been seeking refuge in art. It's not that I haven't enjoyed making my cards, it's that I haven't NEEDED to make them.

Here's what I've created this week:

This was a background I painted at home before I left. I'm such a geek that I brought my printer/scanner/copier with my on vacation!

The owner of our rental house is an artist and many of her works hang on the walls. The above card was inspired by her stuff.

An attempt to do something less messy and to work on my rudimentary drawing skills.

Tape transfer over a painted background with more paint on top

I discovered that I can run a painted index card through my printer.
This is one of my beach pictures printed over a painted background with more paint on top.

I think I might turn this into my new business card

stamping with pine needles and beach grass from the yard

Guest Blogging today

I'm so honored that lovely Julie over at Eggs and Herbs has invited me to be the first guest blogger on her newly revamped website. You can see my post here.

The subject of my post?

decisions, decisions

This week's Index cards

Three more things

When I took my collage class with Corrine at Sparkle Days Studio we talked about "how do you know when you're done?". Her advice? Ask yourself "what are three more things I could do?" I think I was too excited about my paint flinging to let the lesson sink in that day, but I think the point is that if you can't think of 3 more things (or if none of those 3 things sound good) you're done. I took home two big collages that afternoon and wondered if they were done. (I blogged about the class and took pictures of the collages here)

Now, one of my core beliefs about my own art is that everything looks better cut into pieces. I wasted no time taking one collage and chopping it into post-card sizes

and now that they're smaller I can think of way more than 3 things to do to them. Here are some of the postcards I've made and sent out so far:

The other collage hung on my wall for a few weeks. I'd look at it, ponder, and walk away. It clearly needed more, but what?

(This is the picture Corrinne took of me flinging the first layers of paint in her studio. Click the photo to see her original post)

Finally, a few days ago, I started gluing down random pictures and scraps of paper and then smearing paint on top. Better. What else? Another great idea I learned from Corrine was using a squirt bottle to apply paint instead of flinging off the brush. I remembered I had a small bottle leftover from a tye-dying kit. I filled it with orange paint, took it outside and let it fly. I LOVED it. It gave me more control and less mess than brush-flinging, but it was still very loose. And depending on how I squeezed and where I stood I could get lines, big splots, small drips or (toward the end of the bottle) a light spray of droplets. COOL!

After it dried I drew on it with Neocolors, and stamped on more paint with bubble wrap and homemade stamps. I think it's done. It's back on the wall, and so far it's not screaming "more". I'll give it a few more days.

Crusade No. 53

Hooray, it's crusade time again! This month has us blending and naming colors. Go visit Michelle's site for the full mission, and join the crusade!

My story starts with this little envelope made from my hand-painted paper.


I love the green color in here, and haven't been able to figure out which paint color I used. I have lots of bottles of green paint, and whenever I use them I'm disappointed. They're just too GREEN.I decided this particular green must be a blend of the blue and yellow paints I used, but which blue? which yellow?

just some of my paint bottles....

Time to become the mad scientist! I chose the blues and yellows I thought were most likely to give me the magic blend and even added I few I was pretty sure wouldn't work, but I was being open minded.

Some systematic blending came next:

Then it was time to compare: DEFINITELY none of these!
This is getting closer:


This could be the one!

We have a winner! I've decided to name it "Elusive"

My recipe:

yellow + calypso sky = elusive

What surprised me the most was the shade of yellow. It's the palest of all my yellows - almost pastel - and I color I rarely use. I tend toward the deepest, most vibrant almost-orange yellows (think school bus). This particular yellow is cool and pale - a little darker than butter, but not as bright as a lemon. I threw it in the mix in the spirit of open mindedness. Glad I did since it solved the mystery of the envelope green.

In honor of my new color, I created this journal page:

Happy crusading everyone!

More fun tomorrow

Every day when I leave summer camp I say "More fun tomorrow". That might be the theme of my summer. This card is part 2 of my "index card a day intermezzio celebration"
As excited as I am to have finished 45 cards, I'm even more excited about all the days of card making still ahead. Here's to 45 more days!

Now serving #45

Look at this yummy pile of index cards!


Can you believe it's been 45 days since the index-card-a-day project started?



We're half way through!

Daisy Yellow asks us if it's getting easier or harder. For me it's getting easier. Sometimes I walk around all day with an idea in my head for that night's card. Mostly I sit down with a blank card and just start painting and gluing at random. I used to be a lot more afraid of the blank card, now I'm more inclined to dive in without fretting.

So, congratulations to all my fellow ICAD participants on making it half way through! Thanks to everyone who has left kind, supportive comments on the blog or flickr account. It's very encouraging!

Turquoise and Orange

My latest 2 index cards. Can't get enough of these colors:

Melting

The studio is the only room in the house without air conditioning and after working all day without AC I can't bear to be in there for more than a few minutes at a time. That means almost no art for the last 2 days. If it doesn't cool down soon I'll go into withdrawal. I'll have to break down move my paints to the dining room. Or (heaven forbid) DRAW something.

The good news is it prompted me to sit with my laptop in the air conditioned bliss and restore the majority of my photos to the blog. (Still have March and April posts to go, but the most recent 33 posts have been restored).

BUMMER!

EPIC FAIL. All my photos have disappeared from the blog.
I was messing around with google yesterday. I have two gmail addresses, and I apparently I used one to create a google account and create the blog. not sure why the "iamrushmore" gmail address wasn't used. I decided to change it so that my blog name, email address, flickr account and google account were all the same. It took forever but I thought I finally figured it out. It involved creating a NEW google account, inviting myself to be an author on this blog, giving myself admin rights of the blog, removing the admin rights of my first self, and then deleting the wrong google account. It all seemed to work. Blog looked great. Even got a comment last night.

But in deleting my account, I deleted all my google reader subscriptions and all the blogs I follow. damn. I started going through my bookmarks and browser history and resubscribing to all my blogs. but I couldn't follow any of them. some even said "the owner of this blog has blocked you". WTF? And I'm also trying to figure out why blogs are now saying "join" with google friend connect instead of "follow".

So I hop over here to see if my own blog has "follow" or "join" and OOOOHHHHHNOOOOOO.
WHERE ARE MY PICTURES???????

And yeah, somewhere in the labyrinth of google help pages it says that deleting an administrator could delete all the photos that administrator posted. damndamndamndamndamn.

so I will begin the painstaking process of reloading my pictures. (and trying to guess from the context of the posts which pictures went where.

AAUGH!!!!!!

Mail Art - June

Here's a picture of the incoming treasures that graced my mailbox in recent weeks. Mail from Pat, Millicent, Corrine, Erica, Matthew, I'm a superhero, Rachel and Pam. SO MUCH FUN. I love getting mail. Thanks everybody!

Here are some of the things I sent out: