Floor Art - Mixed Media Collage

What is floor art?  It's art made with scraps of paper and other "trash" on my craft table and on the floor below.  I am notoriously bad about cleaning up after myself, so in time I end up with quite a mess.  But eventually it gets to the point that even I can't stand it, so while in the process of doing some cleaning tonight, I took a break and put some of those scraps to good use.

My base was a 4x6 index card.  I used a glue stick to adhere the various patterned papers, book text and sheet music to the base.  The little half circle at the top is a scrap leftover from a Gelli Plate print I made, and you probably recognize the snippet of an old library catalog card in the middle.  I used gel medium to adhere the piece of punchinella and to seal the entire piece.

I find the process of cleaning my space very inspiring.  As I come across various scraps, I sometimes am reminded of the original project they came from.  But more often, I simply see new ways to combine those scraps to create something completely different.

Thanks for dropping in!  Have a great day.

ICAD No. 59 "E" Bird

ICAD is winding down but since I missed quite a few days I will be making and posting more cards even after the official ending date this Friday.

For inspiration tonight I dug through my file folder of Stampington artist papers.  If you subscribe to Somerset Gallery magazine, you know that each issue includes several sheets of tear-out artist papers or clip-art images.  (Occasionally they include some in their other publications, such as Art Journaling and The Stamper's Sampler.)  The artist papers tend to have more modern designs, but the clip-art images almost always have a vintage vibe to them.  For this card I chose a bird, hand and the letter E.

For the background, I combined a piece of Basic Grey patterned paper, vintage book text and washi tape.  I added a little stamping using a low contrast ink color.  This close-up view shows some of the background detail.  Those pops of red are large polka dots on the Basic Grey paper showing through the washi tape, and the oval image on the left is part of a stamped image.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
4x6 index card; Basic Grey patterned paper; vintage book text; Tim Holtz washi tape; titanium white acrylic paint; pumice stone distress ink; clip-art images from Stampington and Company; French post stamped image by Hero Arts; splatter pattern stamp by All Night Media; Ranger (Wendy Vecchi) watering can Archival Ink; black Stabilo All Pencil.

ICAD No. 35 September Song

I don't know why I felt like creating an autumn-themed card on such a warm, summer day.  Perhaps the dry, brown leaves I noticed in the yard this week made me think of fall.  Perhaps I'm feeling a little melancholy, thinking too much about how short life really is and how much of it I've squandered.  For the umpteenth time I have had to tell myself to "turn over a new leaf" about certain things.

I was digging through my paper scraps and found a piece of watercolor paper that I had used to clean off a stencil.  I drew a leaf on a text tag using a black Stabilo All Pencil, went over the pencil with a water pen, then cut out the leaf.  I tinted it using distress inks before adhering it to the background.  I added a strip of old sheet music and some stenciling, then willed myself to stop before the card got too busy.  I didn't want to lose all that beautiful white space, which really sets off the other colors.

In case you're not familiar with September Song, I've included some of the lyrics below.  It was originally used in a 1938 movie but has been covered by many artists since then.  My favorite version happens to be by Willie Nelson.

Thanks for popping in!  Have a great day.

Supplies:
140 lb watercolor paper; TCW stencil Mini Time Travel; Dylusions spray ink (dirty martini I believe); text tag by American Crafts; mustard seed, wild honey, spiced marmalade and gathered twigs distress ink; vintage sheet music; Pigma Graphic 1 archival ink pen (sepia); Tim Holtz stencils; Stabilo All Pencil in black and white: Faber-Castell PITT black pen.

September Song

(Weill, Anderson)

Oh, it's a long long while
From May to December
But the days grow short
When you reach September

When the autumn weather
Turns leaves to flame
One hasn't got time
For the waiting game

Oh, the days dwindle down
To a precious few
September, November

And these few precious days
I'll spend with you
These precious days
I'll spend with you

ICAD No. 3 Cow Country

Today's index card not only fed my soul artistically, but also served as the means for me to get something off my chest.  I went to bed last night with another person's negativity weighing heavily on my mind, and I decided I wasn't going to carry it around with me today.

After adhering a vintage map, reproduction ephemera and an old photo to my background, I took a graphite pencil and wrote a rant around and around the photo until all the negativity had left my thoughts.  I further obscured it with a black Stabilo All Pencil.  I know it won't be long before I don't even remember what the negativity was because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

I wish you a positive day!

ICAD No. 2 A Swinger of Birches

Ack!  It's only day 2 of ICAD and I'm already behind!  I barely finished my index card before midnight, and only then because I ditched today's prompt (carnival) and went in a totally different direction.

I spritzed Dylusions spray inks through a stencil and then added bits of a Robert Frost poem called Birches.  Did you ever climb a tree as a kid and feel at peace?  As if you were somehow, just a little, temporarily, escaping whatever troubles you had on the ground?  Even in your young, partly-formed mind, you knew that eventually you'd have to climb down and face reality.   But for a while, you felt safe and "above it all," literally and figuratively.

Here's a link to the poem and one analysis.   I don't know if I completely agree with all of the analysis, but this poem does speak to me in terms of the themes of transcendence and escape.

Thanks for popping by!

Supplies:

4x6 index card; 6x6 stencil by TCW; postbox red and black marble Dylusions ink spray; computer-generated text.