ICAD No. 28 Dramatic Abstract

I'm a notorious night owl and that's when I do most of my art work.  But today I decided to start my day with some art, specifically an ICAD, so I can fill in some of the days I missed.  I also thought perhaps by creating in the morning, I wouldn't dilly-dally around.  And trust me, I didn't!  Maybe I'll have to become a lark.

This ICAD was inspired by the abstract artwork we saw at a local restaurant on Father's Day.  I took a picture of one of the larger prints to remind myself of the style and colors, which I particularly liked.  I created my version using Liquitex Basics acrylics.  I added a strip of book text that was laying on my craft table and the magic happened when I used my brayer to make sure the book text was adhered well.  Some of the paint was not fully dry and the brayer carried bits of it into the other quadrants.  Below is a close-up of one corner where you can see the color variation better.

I'm thrilled with how this turned out.  It has the feel of a monoprint without as much work (or mess).  I just wish the colors would have scanned better: in reality the green is a bit brighter and the orange a bit deeper.  I tried to edit them but they would not cooperate.

Have a fabulous Monday!

Supplies:
Strathmore smooth bristol vellum paper; Liquitex Basics: titanium white, brilliant yellow green, cad yellow deep hue, burnt sienna, mars black and cad red medium hue; book text; paint brush, palette knife; brayer.

ICAD No. 6 Under-Paper Abstract

I'm a day behind and the prompts aren't inspiring me, so I'm trying some other things I've had on my "to do" list.  For today, that means using "under-papers" to create an abstract collage. Under-papers consist of the cheap newsprint or wax paper that I use to protect my work surface, clean off brayers and stencils, or lay under final pieces when I spray them with acrylic sealant.  I've been holding onto one piece of wax paper that I especially liked, waiting for the right mood to strike.

The letters along the bottom and the filigree image on the right were left by stencils when I cleaned them off on a piece of newsprint.  I cut out certain sections and adhered them to my index card.  I then overlaid a piece of wax paper with the wonderful red, green and black spray ink remnants.  The shimmery lime green circles are from another piece of newsprint.  The black hand drawn circles, the asemic writing at the bottom right, and the splatters were made using a calligraphy pen and India ink.  I am thrilled with how this turned out, as abstracts do not come easily to me.

Asemic writing is defined by Wikipedia as a "wordless open semantic form of writing" and by its creators as "quasi-calligraphic writing gestures."   I just call it scribbling.

I hope you had a great weekend.  My mom and I spent most of today on an adventure in the country.  I'll tell you about that in a future post, once we get my mom's purchase back from the framers.

Thanks for reading my blog!