ICAD2 Finale... ICADs #56-61

ICAD #56

Little bits: leftover words, cutout octopus, and BIG collage cut into pieces.

ICAD #57

Playing with little treasures and letting my fearlessly fishie character loose.

ICAD #58

Somedays all I want to DO is scatter bits and see where they land...

ICAD #59

Sometimes I wonder if fish dream of flying?! Scraping the bottom of the pile...

ICAD #60

Sorting out my collaging bits and found a few for ICADs.

ICAD #61

All of the bottom is made of tiny bits from recent paintings. 

Loved Embrace wrinkles...they add character quote so I worked round that.

This has been quite an eye-opening experience.

All 61 have a HOME in a wee sort of see-through pocket folder. 

I DO BE Grateful for this experience the past 2 months.

Thank YOU Tammy!!

Improbable Pairing for Photo Art Friday 27 July

Sometimes I have too much fun... Such is the case with this week's Improbable Pairing. As soon as I heard about this I thought about Gracie and her very good friend Heidi. 


Although we have moved East and South, and Heidi and Elizabeth moved North, for an enchanted time we all lived in the same place in Arizona and met daily for Playtimes In Potty Park or a good long Walking & Rolling Round...


I did play with these photos back in 2009, so Elizabeth could have some, but Now that I am learning more than I ever imagined knowing about digital fiddling, I wandered off first into Picasa and then Pixlr Express to see how to tell this story without too many words...


Drumroll Please!!

It's nice to have friends and nicer still to remember good times with them. Improbable a pair though they may have been, Gracie & Heidi were Very Good Friends. Glad we don't have to forget and gladder still for photographs that return us to those wonderful days...

Funny Fishiness for Collage Obsession Challenge

Barracuda Eats Stowaways

Submarine Paradise

Back in May & June I dug out a National Geographic from 1956 that had all sorts of wondrous NG-type photographs of an undersea World, divers, and more. I started to play with them, then got drawn back to an Under the Sea diptych I did in 2010 and suddenly I was springboarding into an entire UNDERSEA World of my own imagination. 

I did 12 of these 4 by 4 inch canvas boards experimenting all the way with textures and collaging and then de-collaging. I ended up scanning them all in and fiddling with them in Pixlr which was great fun and taught me so much about the ways to play with such digital fiddling programs.

It just seemed too serendipitous for me to learn of the Fish Are Jumping Collage Obsession Challenge from Michelle V. Alkerton's post http://brainangles.blogspot.com/2012/07/something-fishy.html so I just decided to drop in and share them!!

ICAD #49-55

ICAD #49

Fun with leftover bits and inverting colours in Picasa.

ICAD #50

More bits from here and there and a long ago favourite Timmy-face.

ICAD #51

Leftover from fishies on a bit of patterned paper with poeming words.

ICAD #52

Loving this turtle and a leftover line from "Under the Sea" paintings.

ICAD #53

Fiddling with some OLD scraps and bits and posterising in Picasa.

ICAD #54

A weird little gathering together of thises and thats.

ICAD #55

Playing with the more "normal" version of #49 without inverting colours.

This past week has been a delicious muddling about in PLAY. ICAD-making BEfore bed makes me very ready to sleep deep and NOT have my busy brain waking me. I love that discovery...

Somehow this DOing things daily is snow-balling in my little World. I have been nearly unstoppable and having so much fun it is hard to remember I don't know a whole lot of what I am DOing.

Tricky and Sweet!!!

I Remember Water - Photo Art Friday 20 July 2012

I'm continuing to experiment and learn and discover, sometimes, HOW TO DO what I did!! I know that when I put on my Big Girl Panties and really give PSE8 a fair shake, I will surely have a result I can say I got by DOing this and then that and this other thingie... For Now, though, I am learning by DOing and having an idea that I try out and that's what this is.


I have another blog called 366 Daze of Grace where I have each day of 2012 posted one of the gazillion and seven photos I have taken of my dear Golden, Gracie Mae. This past week I have been venturing back to 2009, during our move from Arizonie to Florida, partly BEcause I found one photo in there, the one I started with here, that just seemed to tell what I think you might see if the "lights" went on in her wee brain.


My girl LOVES the water, whether it's the muddy of Dry Creek after a summer rain, the Pacific Ocean, Lake Tahoe, a lake out BEyond Philadelphia, where this photo was taken, or her new love, da beach, less than a mile's walk from home. I tried once again to put one photo over another and then another and then adjust the opacity [BIG WORD!!] and while I am hoping that "making a BEautiful mistake or 4" will eventually bring me to digital fiddling nirvana, I'm actually pretty happy with this For Now Result...

My ICAD Practise: # 43-48

ICAD #48

Reverse order today, just to see if I can still go backward ;~D... The fun of this ICAD made today is that it sums up exquisitely what the past 6 days have been for me. I've been inspired, making all sorts of art, even writing up a storm. For anyone who has ever felt like creating is like swimming up waterfalls or herding cats, just commit yourself to making one itsy bitsy index card a day. 

This is one of my wildly wacky under the sea critters that I have been working with the past few months in my paintings as well with the kids at Kickin' Arts Camp last week. This week I am taking them to a whole new level...

ICAD #47

Another of my funny fishies with a message to myself that I sometimes forget.

ICAD #46

This is actually a bad printer copy [the inks were dying from thirst so I changed them yesterday] of a collage I made with "leftovers" on Monday. I had been working on a painting and was having such fun with it that I just kept on keeping on...

ICAD #45

After a busy BUSY week last week, I slid into the weekend and just wanted to marinate in the peace and quiet. Sometimes I find cutting and culling through paper to make my "paints" is more soothing than a massage [of course it has been way too long since that happened, so I could BE exaggerating!!] so I did a LOT of both. I was working on a painting inspired by Santorini. NOT that I have ever [yet] been to Greece, but I have it in my head that it would BE idyllic... With a LOT of leftover "paint" from that painting, I started to play with my ICADs, making the blues of the water and sky into a mini oasis...

ICAD #44

I was playing here, too, with my leftovers as well my lines that I have been poeming the past 48 days [no I am NOT kidding, I started with 50 lines and I will BE done on Friday!!!]. I love this little note to myself about failing BEcause goodness knows I DO it enough. Funny thing, since I've started DOing it with ENTHUSIASM my "mis-takes" are BEcoming wondrous sideroads...

ICAD #43

Although I was fairly cross-eyed last Friday, Friday the 13th no less, I had my eyes open for inspiration. It was that day when I finally decided to start my painting which I had had in mind for awhile. Some of the wee houses I had cut up to use for the hillside effect left BEhind some cool bits. Thankfully ICAD2 has given those little bits a home...

This is truly a keeper of a practise. I love Tammy's suggestions for other ways to take it, too. For me, especially, it seems to have given me a focus and a way to "finish" things. I don't know that "finishing" is really the point, but I noticed that I wasn't finishing things BEcause, then what?! Now, with this new habit in place, that is moot. BEsides, sharing with you all is well worth it.

Thank YOU times a trillion, Tammy!! You're making a BIG difference in my Life!!

Photo Art Friday ~ The Fences Outside My Windows

The Fences Outside My Windows

I got a bit bolder this go. I cannot really explain all of how I got this together, but I know a few things:

1. Bonnie inspired me to search back in my photos for fences or fencing or what have you. That got me realising that I actually have quite a lot of "fodder" for digital fiddling. I got a little lost in the past, however, so I came back, looked up, and realised that there is fencing all round about the Wee Cottage, out every window, and one of the things I DO most days is spend time watching the activities of squirrels, lizards, birds, AND somedays the 3 wee ones living up in the front house, when they come out with their mama as they did today... 

2. The fences surrounding me here in the Wee Cottage are more a little nest, a definition of space, and BEcause of them I have extraordinary freedom from the street, other houses. I suppose I am generally content in my little bubble existence. Funny I hadn't noticed the "fence right in front of my nose!!!"

3. I am learning, albeit in my own 2 steps forward, 3 back style, to navigate the digital fiddling tools. Today was the first time I played with combining two photos, two that I took just for this, and I did so in Pixlr Express, though all the various steps or anything remotely like a "recipe" were nothing more nor less than luck and BEautiful Mistakes!!

Other than that, I am excited to have got this in ON FRIDAY!! And that I took the 2 photos, uploaded them, and fiddled as I know How-To at present, without getting lost in the weeds of "NOT enough" or "as well as..."

ICADs #35-42... What A Week It's Been

ICAD #35

I was having myself some good fun cutting out words that I'd planned to use for Kickin' Arts Camp this week, along with a bunch of very wee octopuses [it should BE octopi, sorry Mrs. Meader my Latin teacher] and fishies, seahorses, and whatnot, and I came upon these words from one of the acrostics I wrote last summer for Girls' Empowerment Camp. The photo is of a VERY MUCH younger ME. 

ICAD #36

This is a NOT-quite-so old picture of Timmy riding his CHiPs cycle some 32 years ago. I happened to have it in the box that came East with me in 2009 that I've been learning digital fiddling on. I can hear his little voice saying, i BE Vrooming and just seeing him in that wondrous orange and purple sweater makes me smile!!!

ICAD #37

I've been playing with a piece of fabric I got what is Now Forever Ago. I've scanned it and fiddled with it, I've made it into backgrounds, and I even used it for Kickin' Arts Camp cutting seahorsies and other under the sea creatures out of it. Another learning or practise piece, I liked using it for an ICAD AND adding the poeming I did on the day I used this photo in my Gratitude sharing. This particular incarnation seems very underwater-ish to me.

ICAD #38

Another double, er, triple-duty ICAD. This is one of the photos I took of a Very Cool house/studio up the street from where I lived a Very Short While in Mesa, Arizonie, prior to my move East. Initially I pulled up the batch of those photos for Photo Art Friday and fiddled with them. I liked the funky feel of this one, so I also used it in my Gratitude along with this line ~ Forgive. Pause. BEgin Again. as my poeming prompt.

I'm going to pause here to say again how amazing I think ICAD is. It has been a treasure trove of possibilities and a wondrous serendipitous springboard for ideas and seeing connections... THANK YOU TAMMY!!! And also a little thank you shout out to TERRIE for making ME aware of it. You've both made my World delightfully larger in surprisingly tiny ways that keep on rolling rolling rolling day after day.

ICAD #39

I was totally and completely spent, used-up, and worn-out on the 9th, Monday, after my first of 2 mornings at Kickin' Arts Camp. It was Very Hot, NOT that that is unusual or unexpected in any way for South Florida in July, I'm just saying... and I was walking in and back which is just a hair over 2 miles each way. It's NOT usually such a drain to walk, but Monday it took every last bit of me. Perhaps it was the full cart I was pushing. Anyway...

This is a cropped and digitally fiddled-with version of one of my first layer collages that was the part that came AFTER Monday, for me... I had thrown my collage of some sea lions I "met" in Monterey in 2009, showing the Where My Inspiration Comes From piece of this project. It was nearly impossible to SEE the sea lions, which was partly the effect I wanted in the BEfore part.

I brought back all of their collages on that hot walk home Monday afternoon but I could NOT drag myself to the lappie to fiddle so I waited until Tuesday, when I was again exhausted from my walk BACK FROM DOing laundry, this walk BEing a shade under 3 miles. [when I had a car I knew these mileages, and since BEcoming car-free I walk them a LOT more BEcause the bus isn't always on my schedule or, well, whatever...] The entire walk was going south and the sun was in my face the whole way, but I had to stop at the Vet's office, halfway-ish, so.

Anyhow, I came home and scanned the collages and played with Gracie and then, finally, when it was too near bedtime, I started the digital fiddling. Which was fun. Which I love. BUT... NOT so close to sleep BEcause my birdbrain gets too wound-up... The results were and ARE amazing, but I digress... The one here is my "old seal called Lucille" who I wrote a limerick about BEcause we were DOing limericks in Part 2...

A Very [and I'm thinking TOO] Long explanation, but still, as I said above, this whole experience has shifted me in amazing and startling and wondrous ways. Knowing how very simple and quick an ICAD is, I am bringing that attitude to other things I DO and finding ways to accomplish BIG DREAMS in one-a-day and one-at-a-time ways...

ICAD #40

This one is another triple-duty, the "background" BEing one of the ways I make paper to paint with, the words, Carry On. Grow. Look Within. and my poeming from that line in my 50-line poem in my Gratitude. Short story... LOOOOOOONG appreciation ;~D

ICAD #41

This was my other "layered" sample I made for Kickin' Arts Camp to demo the project [let me say here that I was working with 18 kids ranging in age from 5 to 15 though the older than 12 ones were, ostensibly, counsellors...] and pretty much as it was, sans digital fiddling. The kids [and counsellors] all had unique takes on this project, and despite my exhaustion at this point, I am really grateful I had the opportunity to participate. 

Again I have to say that ICAD gave me some chutzpah for the project, helping me to see that nobody needed to take this project all "seriously" and like the BE-all and END-all... I know a few other of the artists got very serious about their DOings, and noticing that [which is all I mean by it] LAST summer, I entered into this one with an altogether unclenched attitude. The limerick piece yesterday was a thunk, fizzle, blah, but I learned a LOT from it that I hope to take forward. And I absolutely had amazing experiences with each kid and counsellor, some on BEyond amazing, and this lifts my sagging spirits in extraordinarily delicious ways...

AND FINALLY... until next time I link...

ICAD #42

A few months back I heard this quote in a call I was on and it has stuck with me. BEfore I'd heard about ICAD I'd crossed paths with Zentangle and Tangling, and ZIA [Zentangle Inspired Art] and found this to BE a Very Good Thing to DO BEfore sleep as it quiets my busy birdbrain very nicely. I decided to make "word art" in Word from quotes I like and then basically doodle inside the letters/words.

I've felt an uneasiness since yesterday's thunk and dud, but framing up the kids' collages gave me time to let that "blow the stink out" more than substantially. And, so has writing this post. I've had the distinct pleasure of revisiting the past 8 days and finding within them so much that makes me BEyond happy. I've seen that each day in and of itself was/is a gift, something that ICAD has brought into focus in many respects.

Thanks, Tammy, and for anyone who hung in the whole way to here. 

Photo Art Friday ~ Architectural Explorations

Once upon a time... I lived for a very short while BEfore moving East in a tiny apartment where my mum lives. It was Very Populated with people BEyond 80, so I had to find other ways of entertaining and amusing myself...

Up the street was this wonderful home and studio that I would spend hours daydreaming about. I love how it is built with all sorts of leftover stuff you'd never really think of using to build a house, unless of course you have an imagination that doesn't listen to Can't and Shouldn't type thinking.

I'm showing you one of the actual photos BEfore I started playing about with it in Picasa. It was A BLAST!!! I really love how the colour makes it all that much funkier and impossibly wondrous.