Black and White

When I volunteered to host the Black and White prompt for week 2 of the index card a day challenge, I thought I needed a plan.  I mulled it over all week, waiting for the perfect idea.  As the days slipped by and brilliance was not forthcoming, I started to get a little panicky.

  

I rarely have an idea in mind when I sit down to make my index card each day.  Usually that's not a problem.  I start playing with paint and something emerges.  I'm not sure why I thought this had to be different.

Finally, with the deadline breathing down my neck, I sat down in front of the blank cards, turned on some music and turned off my brain.  The best way to combat paralysis is to move.  I started ripping sheets of newspaper, black and white photos and painted paper from my stash.

I glued the strips across a grid of four cards.

I often work on more than one card a time.  It gives me the freedom to try different techniques on similar backgrounds.  Sometimes I like all the cards, but usually I just end up with more collage fodder. Either way it's okay.

After gluing, I ended up with two "sheets" of index cards.

 Looking through my stash of black and white papers, I was inspired by these: 

They are pieces of copier paper used to mop up extra spray ink from a tree stencil.  I love the way the prints look and wanted to do something similar on my cards.

I laid my stencil on some plastic, sprayed it with black ink and used one of my sheets as the blotter.  It didn't come out the way I hoped it would.  I think there was too much gel medium on the page from the collage so it didn't soak up much ink.

I  then laid the stencil on the other page and used my brayer to cover the page in gesso. Again, not what I was hoping for.

I couldn't give up. 

I needed more than a blank blog page for today.

After the sheets dried I cut off all the excess paper to free the four separate index cards.

Suddenly they were a lot more interesting to me.
I almost always like my paintings better after I've cut them to pieces.

I added black and white photos and stamps and smudged around some black pastels and black ink.

Here are the finished cards:

 I'm happy with them and can't remember why I got all worked up.  
These weren't hard.

All I need to do is play.

Remind me to read this next time I get crazy, OK?