ICAD 2014

Today is Day 1 of a 61-day art challenge called Index Card a Day, or ICAD, offered by Tammy Garcia at http://daisyyellowart.com/icad/. It is a two month foray into art making on a very small base - an index card of any kind, 4x6 inches max - using pretty much any media you please, and either following a list of daily prompts and weekly themes, or not. In other words, there is a lot of freedom in this experiment. The whole point is simply to create on this tiny, inexpensive, okay-to-goof-up substrate, just for the pleasure of waking up your creativity. It's not designed urge the participants to produce art that is prettier than or better than or more artsy than the art of anyone else participating. It is not about keeping or archiving (although I'll probably keep mine somewhere). It IS about giving yourself permission to try. And to make things you may not end up especially thrilled with (although you'll probably have plenty that you are thrilled with)! 

I plan to post my progress with this endeavor on this blog - as well as other artsy things I do, encounter, or find inspirations from. Hope you'll enjoy following along!

In the last week, there have been 5 Creative Warm-up exercises (completely optional), and I've responded to one. It involved lettering: one's name or "ICAD" or some other meaningful phrase. So I created some random lettering on a 4x6 gridded index card. I seem to be really drawn to graph paper and grids, so I'll probably use this kind a good bit. I used Staedtler colored pencils which I blended in places with a blending tortillon, Stabilo colored pens, and a black Sharpie pen. Here are a couple of pics showing my process: