ICAD 51/61; no prompt. Gesso, followed by Crayola Slick Stix (watered and brushed), illustration pen.
I probably should have limited the doodling to the “flowers” and left the bottom of this card alone. This is my first attempt at some kind of watercolor/doodle abstract work. It’s not great, but I want to play with this a little more.
ICAD 50/61; no prompt. Acrylic paint and illustration pen.
Late with this post, I know. Felt kind of off all day yesterday.
Finally getting away from my beloved G2 bolds and realizing that a proper illustration pen (this one from the inexpensive Artist’s Loft brand from Michael’s) is the way to go with the doodling. Far less smudging and blobbing for my left-handed self.
I’m hitting the wall on a lot of things right now, including the index cards and the weekly weigh-ins. And I have a lot of venting I need to do, but it’s the kind of venting that goes offline into the handy art/junk/gluebook journal I’ve tricked out from a 50-cent composition book. Some, if not most, of those opinions belong there. If only more people would do that in this social media age.
ICAD 49/61; Sharpie, glitter pen; collage cluster made with acrylic paint, scrapbook and newspaper scrap, bling stickers, and a Japanese postage stamp.
I’ve been hitting the wall on the index cards lately. But I’m enjoying working in an even smaller format with tags and collage clusters. I made this cluster and planted it on a random doodled card from earlier in the challenge.
ICAD 48/61; no prompt. Acrylic paint background, sloppy mandala made with Pilot G2 bold pen and metallic Sharpies, scrap from a past Sunday paper.
Actually created the messy mandala on a separate card, then cut it out and glued it onto this one.
F and I created our first batch of shortbread this afternoon. I think we have another recipe to add to our list of baking standards.
Worth the 17 grams of carbs (per bar) and two sticks of butter (whole recipe).
Ted Lasso would be proud.
Padres-Nats game in gunshot delay. I’ve already seen one tweet complaining about how we can’t even watch a baseball game in “Biden’s America.”
Waiting for the first statement that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen if we only would arm the ball players.
ICAD 47/61; no prompt. Junk mail scrap, circles punched from an index card brushed with acrylic paint, PaperMate Liquid Flair pen.
We somehow ended up on a mailing list for some fireworks seller in a neighboring state, even though my husband hasn’t bought fireworks in ages. The one mailing we got this summer has yielded some decent art material.
ICAD 46/61; no prompt. Pilot G2 bold pen, Crayola Slick Stix, metallic paint pen.
Back to the neurographic doodling. Not thrilled with my coloring job, and clearly I need to reserve the Slick Stix for larger, less finely detailed stuff. But it’s something.
ICAD 45/61; no prompt. Blackboard paint, Crayola Slick Stix.
A little late with posting yesterday’s card. Decided to check out Crayola Slick Stix gel crayons. Love the feel of these, as well as the price point compared to other such crayons. I still want to try Neocolors and Gelatos when the budget allows.
Not that thrilled with this card—and I think I’m done with the blackboard paint series for a while—but I enjoyed the test drive on it.
ICAD 44/61; no prompt. Chalkboard paint; newspaper and junk mail scrap; and a chipboard tag covered in paint and metallic Sharpie, then collaged with scrapbook paper, snippet from an old Tom Clancy paperback, washi tape, and a Dollar Tree sticker.
Been playing with college clusters lately, especially after I realized that I have a TON of tags that I’ve punched over the years out of chipboard harvested from various food boxes. Decided to work one of these tag cluster things onto a background I created a few weeks ago. It seems to work.
I actually weighed myself Sunday, and hit this milestone then. But then I weighed myself again and ended up 0.4 pound lighter.
So, as of yesterday (that is, Monday), I am 232.6 pounds. That’s 50.4 pounds less than my starting weight in January, when I started cutting the carbs and putting myself under a doctor’s supervision to lose weight.
It’s been a stressful 2 months or so. I haven’t hit a Pilates class or done anything fitness-minded in that time. I need to do something about that. Otherwise, I just need to keep going.
My initial goal has been to lose 80 pounds; I’m going to stick to that goal for now, and then consider whether I should keep going with the loss or try to maintain. Don’t want to get ahead of myself.
ICAD 43/61; no prompt. Chalkboard paint background, Sunday newspaper photo.
It’s MLB All-Star Game Day. The player here, Brian Goodwin, isn’t in the ASG this year, but I love the joy in this image. I made several “baseball cards,” but I liked this one the most.
ICAD 42/61; no prompt. Black matte acrylic paint, extra-wide washi tape, daughter’s doodle on a sticky note.
No exciting back story here; just slapped this together, honestly. I do love being able to integrate my kid’s doodles into the art.
Playing with collage clusters using scraps, found words, old inchies, and postage stamps on tags punched ages ago from food box cardboard. Took a break from work to do one and recalibrate my still-tired brain.
When I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and overwhelmed even by index cards and inchies, I can crank out a couple of these and feel like I’ve completed something. Will repurpose these for ICAD index cards, the art/junk journal currently in development, or maybe mail art.
ICAD 41/61; no prompt. Matte acrylic paint; old Sunday newspaper clippings.
A large wire photo of a roomful of factory workers eating while socially distanced, which I clipped weeks ago, has yielded material for several cards, including this one.
Working on these. May add found words or box scores or something. Not yet officially part of the ICAD challenge till I finish at least one of them.
ICAD 40/61; no prompt. Chalkboard paint over newspaper scrap and junk mail, with my daughter’s doodling.
Took some strips of newspaper, added a bit torn from a mailing from a fireworks store, and brushed paint over it all. Added some doodles my daughter created, clipped from another index card.
Tired.
That’s it. That’s the post.
ICAD 39/61; no prompt. Chalkboard paint, various pens, Sunday newspaper clippings.
I brushed paint over a card I used to test some pens and played with some random Sunday scraps.
ICAD 38/61; no prompt. Chalkboard paint, shimmer marker, metallic Sharpie.
Took a sponge to some old chalkboard paint, brushed it across a bunch of cards — some plain, some with bits of newsprint and scrap paper glued on them — and liked the result. I doodled on one and liked the result. You’ll likely see a bunch of black-streaked cards over the next few days.
ICAD 37/61; no prompt. Pilot G2 pens.
Yes, even more neurographic doodling. It’s probably getting monotonous for some, but I don’t care. This doodling is becoming a self-care outlet within my daily creative practice of late. This piece stems from a borderline emotional meltdown — the raging red is a giveaway — that kind of messed up my whole day, and doodling it calmed me down. Grateful for it.
At least I didn’t gain any weight. I lost a whopping 0.4 pound in the past week, so I’m down to 235.4 pounds.
I’ve been relatively relaxed lately about allowing myself a sandwich or other carb-heavy food on occasion, so long as my overall carb count remains under 100 grams. For instance, I had a spicy chicken sandwich, brioche bun and all, for lunch on Sunday; it topped out at 60 grams of carbohydrate. I also snuck an onion ring, though I confess I didn’t log that.
Starting to wonder whether I need to go back to being stricter with myself. Also, I have to increase my water intake; I’ve been slacking on that, too, and drinking more diet soda, at least on the weekends.
My old clothes continue to be loose, and I continue to be vastly improved with my energy and stamina on walks than I used to be, so I don’t think I’m failing. I just feel like I need to be a little more disciplined with my eating and hydration habits.
ICAD 36; no prompt. Acrylic paint background, clipped art from our local library’s newsletter, printer paper.
ICAD 35; no prompt. Newspaper clippings, junk mail, and washi tape.
The “memory lane” part is a little overpowering, the more I look at it. But it’s something.
It’s 12:20 a.m. as I post this, and people at least a block away are still setting off fireworks. That’s 12:20 a.m. on Tuesday, July 6. Their trip down memory lane hasn’t stopped.
