Another Round Robin

I recently started a collaborative art journal round robin with four friends, because being part of one round robin wasn't enough pressure, I needed more art deadlines in my life.  (and no sooner was this group up and running when a different friend asked me if I'd be willing to host a round robin.  I wisely said no to that one, but not after thinking for about an hour that SURE, I could handle working in three different art journals every month. My sanity was quickly restored.)

For Round Robin #2, I'm altering a book from 1955 called "The Boy Scientist." 

 This is the inside cover:

Since the intention of the group is to add to and alter one another's work, a lot of my pages are just beginnings, or invitations to play.

The book has some terrific illustrations that I'm hoping my clever friends will incorporate into their work.

This page uses an aborted ICAD, it's glued into my book with the end sticking out like a little tab:

 I decided to get interactive on the next spreads.  The page on the right has a large circle cut out of it.

  

Here's what it looks like when you turn the page:

 This one got a little random...

 Naturally I couldn't resist a stamp head.

Harry Truman never looked lovelier.

I wonder if Bess knew he liked to wear ball gowns?

 

These last two could stand on their own as finished pages, but I'm not opposed to the creative alterations from my talented (and equally silly) friends.

 

Finally, here's the cover of the book:

I used layers of paint and tissue paper, and the  tissue paper left all those nice raised wrinkles.  I dragged a blue oil pastel across the surface to highlight the wrinkles.  Hopefully the group will create some collaborative art on it.

I now have two journals in my possession, from two different artists, from two different groups, and they both need to in the mail by August 1st.

Time to start collaborating!

haphazard ICADS

 Flying by the seat of my pants as usual when it comes to this week's index cards...

 6-29-14

Bits of vintage security envelopes, old postage stamps, ubiquitous circles.

 

6-30-14

An interesting bit of styrofoam fell out of the box my new fan came in.  I used it to make those black stamp marks. 

The cards from July 1st were covered in my last post.  Thanks for all your feedback. I ended up gluing the original stamp head to the index card with the woman, and gluing a copy of the stamp head to the other index card.  (Many thanks to Christie for this simple solution to my conundrum.)  (and my mother, the editor, has informed me that my grammar irritation on card #2 was unfounded.  This is known as an exclamatory question and her go-to source says An exclamation mark may be used to close questions that are meant to convey extreme emotion, as in "What on earth are you doing! Stop!")(Who knew?)(or maybe I should say WHO KNEW!)

After those July 1st cards,  I went on a stamp-head frenzy.

It was much too hot and humid this week to spend time in my unairconditioned studio, so these quick and easy cards were all I could muster.

7-2-14

7-3-14

7-5-14

 

I woke this morning to the irritating realization that I didn't do an index card yesterday.  I completely forgot.  It wasn't like I was too busy with 4th of July celebrations.  It was a ridiculously rainy day, and we barely left the house.  I had ample opportunity to create a card, but it never entered my head to do so.

I'm trying to get over my disappointment for breaking my streak, but it's been hard.  I've been walking around like the woman in the picture above.  My arm is getting tired from pressing it to my forehead for so many hours.

So it goes.

funny 1 or funny 2?

I have two index cards using the same "stamp head" image and I can't decide which one gets glued in place.

This one?

Or this one?

 

I kind of like the second one better, except the background image is too small for an index card, so it's got an odd composition.  Plus it bugs the crap out of me that the question ends in an exclamation point instead of a question mark.

Which one do you like better?

Descent into summer camp madness

6-25-14

First day of camp.

After an 11 hour day in which my name was called every other minute, I managed to glue a few desk scraps onto a pre-painted index card.

Done in sixty seconds and I didn't even resort to orange and aqua circles.

Feeling pretty proud of myself.

6-26-14

Day two of camp.  

I didn't think it was possible to be more exhausted than yesterday, yet I came home and stared dumbly at my blank index cards for over a half hour without moving.  I might have drooled a little.

I finally challenged myself to use only things that had arrived in that day's mail.

 

Those green leaves came from a chocolate bar wrapper.  The entire bar may or may not have been consumed in the making of this collage.

(thanks Gina!)

I lost count of the number of times I moved the "bold and brisk" text back and forth from above the word "people" to below the word "people".  At the time it seemed like the most critical decision in the world, as if people's lives hung in the balance.  I may have been a little bit delirious.  

 6-27-14

Day Three of camp

(a.k.a. the "glue random sh*t down" day)

All three backgrounds were pre-painted over a year ago and stuffed in a box of crap that sits on my desk.

Inspiration had been completely pummeled out of me at this point, but that didn't stop me, and what I lacked in quality I made up for in quantity. 

 (This was the same day I superimposed the picture of my family over the Moscow skyline.  I was getting a little punchy.)

6-28-14

Saturday.  Not a camper in sight.

Nothing like a day of rest to bring me back to my usual ICAD sensibilities.

Stay tuned for next week's adventure, in which I consider growing a mustache and changing my name to Harold.

snort

A family picture taken against a very institutional looking background led me to post a series of pictures on facebook of us standing in front of more interesting scenery.

Which led to tonight's index card.

My stomach hurts from cracking myself up.

ICAD catch up

This year's index cards are really a mixed bag.  I don't have a particular theme or vision.  I am more often then not staring at the card with zero inspiration.  Some of my cards I really love, but others I feel like I'm phoning it in.

Regardless, I've managed to make at least one a day, which is really the point of the challenge, isn't it?

6-18-14

I was home from my travels and happy to play with some new paint I bought in Virginia.  This one made me happy.

6-20-14

Having a "Parks and Recreation" marathon with Ric.  Dragged out my inktense pencils which I haven't used in ages.  Not sure I love where this card ended up, but I sure do love those pencils when used with a water brush.

6-20-14

This one was also done in front of the TV.  We've had a pair of Carolina wrens in the tree in front of the house.  I never see wrens out front, I only see them in back at the feeder.  I noticed them because one morning I let Jake outside and immediately heard a terrible racket.  Upon investigation it was the two wrens loudly chastising him from the tree.  I watched this same thing happen every time I let him out over several days.  It seems they were trying to build a nest in my windowbox, but between the feline presence, and my need to water the flowers, the wrens have given up and found a less treacherous place to nest.

6-21-14

I came really really close to not making an index card this day.  I'd fallen sound asleep on the couch watching a movie (living it up on a Friday night!) and was stumbling up to bed around midnight when I realized I hadn't done my card.

My pillows beckoned, but my desire to stick with this challenge was stronger.

I grabbed my scrap basket and found a bunch of circles cut from my marbled paper.  Since I obsessively file my painted papers by color in a file cabinet, it wasn't hard to find complementary strips to use as the background.  A little charcoal pencil and I called it a night. 

6-22-14

Fun with security envelopes - and I guess a reminder to myself that I really don't have to make a card if I don't want to.  The world won't end.  No one will be angry.  Just acknowledging this is often enough to keep me going.  I don't have to do this, but I want to.

6-23-14

With no inspiration in sight, I turned to the "summer of color."  I haven't been playing along this year, but popped in to see the color combo of the week - salmon, dark teal and a splash of white.

Done and done.

(thanks to those color-filed papers once again!)

6-24-14

Remnants of Virginia.

Transparent purple and red paints bought on vacation.

More purple raffia from my mom's bouquet.

Red circles of holographic wrapping paper, discarded by my niece.

6-25-14

Gifted papers, a chocolate bar wrapper, some scraps.

My summer camp program starts tomorrow, and I enter an intense period of crazy-busy-happy-exhausted-I'm changing my name so no one calls me again, but omg I love camp.

One staple collage

I largely disregard the ICAD prompts, but I could not resist the challenge of a one-staple collage.

The purple stringy stuff in the background came wrapped around a bouquet of flowers.  All the other bits were pulled from my magic bag of scraps.  The staple is at the base of the triangle.

I may end up gluing it down when I get home tomorrow, just so it will fit in my "ICAD bucket."  Or maybe not.