Index Card A Day (ICAD) - Day 1

Hello and good morning, everyone!  I am excited this morning because this year I am going to try and actually join in Daisy Yellow's ICAD challenge! (Only partly because my first name is Daisy!  Us Daisys need to stick together!)

If you haven't heard of it before, it stands for Index Card A Day and runs from 1 Jun to 31 July.  The point is to do something creative every day on an index card.  If you are interested, you can find more details her blog here: Daisy Yellow's ICAD 2018.

This week, it seems her prompts are all about fair ground rides and attractions, with today's prompt being "Rollercoasters".  I was in a bit of despair because I really wanted to join the challenge, but I don't really know how to draw - so how do you do a mixed media rollercoaster theme?  (I should note that you don't HAVE to follow the prompts, and she also has more generic themes. You really just need to do something creative with an index card, so my stress was really for nothing anyway!)

Anyway, while working on other projects, I came across a page from an old vampire romance book that I cut up for words and phrases.  It said "There was this bond--he denied it."  And it hit me: Rollercoaster of emotion!   And that turned into this wonderfully grungy hot mess (I love it!):

I do need to make a confession - this was not all created this morning!  It actually took a week.  I know, I know!  It's supposed to be done in a day!  But I do mixed media, and that takes layers and paints and glue...tall hat stuff needs time to dry!  So lemmie begin at the beginning.

First thing first, I went and gessoed the card, because I knew I'd be using wet mediums on it.  As I worked on other projects throughout the week, I would add the leftovers to the index card.  You can see the leftover paint I mushed onto the card, and the extra bookpages I decided to use. I glued down the papers around the green (which I wanted to keep) using Art Basics Soft Gel Medium.

When I had a base layer that I was happy with, I scrapped on a layer of the Art Basics Heavy Gesso.  This not only protects and seals the papers, but it also makes everything cohesive and work together. At this point, I still didn't know what I was going to do, but then I looked at one of my leftover scrap papers and saw the phrase "There was this bond--he denied it."  It was from a vampire romance book that I tear apart to get words and phrases from, but it hit me....a rollercoaster of emotion!   And from that lightning bolt of inspiration, came this: 

I drew the tracks with a black stabilo marks-all pencil.  I kept the sketch basic - the background is very loose and a bit grungy, so I didn't want to try and sketch anything that looked dimensional or realistic.  I love the marks-all pencil because it really reacts to water: 

Look at that wonderful, grungy mess!  I love it.  Don't ask me why, but I really do love grungy, messy art. Anyhow, after sketching the rollercoaster, I spritzed it with water, re-sketched, re-wet...I did this several times until I was happy with it. 

At this point, I planned to add the words to a piece of gauze that I had colored with Quinacidone Azo Gold (Golden Fluid Acrylics) and Transparent Red Iron Oxide (DecoArt Media), however I had a little accident with my water, and my book text got wet and turned into the same color...sooooo...no gauze on this one. 

Instead, I took some inspiration from Deedee Cantron (you'll find her blog here and her YouTube channel here) and added some cross-stitching instead.  I used a heavy embroidery needled and black DMC Floss for this. I just wanted to add a little more texture and visual interest to the card.  I finished by using my marks-all to add some black around my text and voila.  An index card masterpiece!

I hoped you enjoyed seeing my process on this card, and hopefully you'll be inspired to go and create a little something today!  If you do, please share!  You can always comment below or find me on Instagram @badcatharley.   Thank you, and have a great day!