5 things I learned from making art every day for 2 months (ICAD)

I'm one card away from finishing a two-month community art project -- ICAD, or "Index Card a Day," sponsored by artist and blogger Tammy Garcia. Each day, Tammy offered a creative prompt and hundreds of artists made small works of art on their 4 x 6 flimsy canvases.

I'm behind -- my last card was due on the 31st. I'll finish it (I'm a neurotic completer). But today I wanted to record some of the things I've learned by participating in this 2-month-long creative marathon. 




1. Flickr, where ICAD participants posted their cards, is a pretty good photo sharing app, especially considering it's free. Today I even figured out how to create a slideshow and embed it in a web page. Like this show of all my ICAD cards:

<if the show doesn't appear on your device, you can see the cards here>

2. Looking at all my creations together, I spot a could of trends: I gravitate toward warm colors like red, orange and yellow. That surprises me -- I thought I tended toward "cool." Maybe it's a reaction to living in a place with a constant grey-blue atmosphere. And I'm not afraid of tilting my canvas into portrait mode.

3. You can never tell what people will like. One of the cards I liked least got the most favorable reactions. This one.

(The prompt was "zebra" in case you can't tell.)

And one of the cards that I'm most proud of got nary a notice. Below is my interpretation of the prompt "Harry Potter." Okay, I admit it was a stretch. "Harry Potter" made me think of good vs. evil, which made me think of Carl Jung's theory of the Shadow Self. Which of course ended up with me combining the faces of Shirley Temple and Lizzie Borden. Of course.

4. I learned that I like prompts. (I liked school term papers too, so I'm a dork.) They provide enough direction to get me going, and enough freedom to let me take the path I want. (Tammy is a master at creating prompts -- she even sells prompt packs here.)

5. There are different ways to work with a prompt. 

• Start drawing. When I had the germ of an idea, but wasn't sure where to take it, I started sketching. Sometimes, a more interesting image would emerge. Not always.
• Do research. If I had no ideas, I would Google the prompt to see if learning more would lead to inspiration. That's what I did with "maple leaf." I ended up learning a lot about the Canadian flag and its controversial history. Here's my card.

• Get personal. Some prompts triggered a memory or an image from my own life. These turned out to be my favorite cards, and the most meaningful ones. But sometimes they were the hardest to share. I made the card below from a copy of my great-grandparents' naturalization papers, when they became U.S. citizens. 

• Percolate on the prompt. In some cases, I stashed the prompt in my subconscious for the day. In the evening, I'd plant myself in front of a blank card and pencils, pens and papers, hoping that an idea would appear. Usually, it did (like the zebra at the beginning of this post).  

5. I learned as much--maybe more--by looking and commenting on other people's work as I did making my own cards. I noticed that I was drawn to the work of the same few artists, most with a sense of humor and irreverence like my own. Others tried techniques I would never have thought of, and it was always interesting to see how others interpreted the same prompts I was struggling with.

Here's the entire set of my own cards.

If you took part in ICAD or a similar project, what did you discover -- about yourself, your creative process, your ability to stick to a daily practice?