I seem to be going through one of my dry spells again, I haven't painted anything in a couple of weeks and there's no word on any further paintings for the restaurants in Florida.....not sure whats going on there.

I found another art toy today :-) a camera lucida.

Listed on this site which sells them at $218......what I paid?.......$3.99 at Salvation Army, ya gotta love that!  Honestly I had never heard of these before, maybe I'll draw more often now.
There's a new smaller even more portable version called the neolucida that will be available soon created by these guys and funded on Kickstarter.

More troubles with the car.....sigh.  I was driving down the road a couple days ago and she stalled on me, thankfully no one was behind me and I was able to drift to a stop and restart, quite scarey when you have power steering.  I'll drive slowly and carefully (and avoid highways) until I can get her checked out......this is rent week so it has to wait.  So sooooooo tired of being money poor!
Which brings me to my newest distraction, trying to figure out where and how to live as cheaply as possible.  I've been looking online doing searches for cheapest places to live and I think one of last years picks in one report was Ashland, Ohio outside of Cleveland.  You can rent an entire house for way less than I pay for this tiny two room apartment I live in.  I realize the economy is suffering in small towns like Ashland (hence the low rents) but for an artist who sells online its not really an issue.  My thinking is that I'll be collecting social security beginning in September and it would be great if it could cover my major expenses.  OK.....it won't be much since I never made much money on my own but it would actually pay the rent plus some bills if I were to go to a place like Ashland and I just want to be able to live without stressing (and whining) about money all the time.  So I'm looking for that perfect town and I'm open to suggestions.

I hope this is my last issue with the car for a while.....Tuesday I went to leave for a job and the battery was dead....damn.  There's a switch on the dash near the steering wheel that controls the interior lights (which are on the floor and barely visible) and if you accidentally hit it the wrong way you've unknowingly turned the lights on.....which I did and have done before.  Fortunately about an hour later the property's landscapers came by and I was able to get a jump from them :-)

Remember these?

Stools I made when I had my shop a couple of years ago

I miss that shop.  Anyway I got a surprise last night, someone ordered one, I got a notice of a deposit to my paypal account.  Of course I refunded the money (I don't make them anymore, no room) and I'm hoping the woman will email me back and let me know where she found them for sale because I can't remember all the places I may have listed them.   They're right when they say 'once on the web, always on the web' my goodness.

The squeaking was driving me nuts so I stopped over at my new mechanic's place around the corner and they just called to say I needed new front brakes, now why wasn't I told that when it got inspected not even a week ago?!  I'll not go back to that inspection place again.  So good news I have enough for him to do the brakes today :-)

See that green parrot magnet over to the right ->  Its my first sale on Cafe Press, I made a whopping 38¢.  I also learned something I didn't know, the price of the magnets is less in the Cafe Press 'marketplace',  I thought all sales went through my 'shop'.  I couldn't figure out why I only made 38¢ and it took me searching through several pages to learn about marketplace pricing and shop pricing.....I'm more convinced than ever that I have A D D........I think I'd better go back and read some more.

Just as I was beginning to feel less stressed......

I left Florida over two years ago and I've just gotten my PA drivers license and finally got the car tagged and inspected.  Yeh!....my 22 yr old car passed both the inspection and the emissions test, this was last Wednesday.  And now?.......I'm hearing noises under the car when its in motion, its like a chirping sound in time with the rotation of the tire......just great!
Now with all my money spent on the above (plus the eye Dr and glasses I needed in order to get my license!) I have to wait to have it looked at and hope its nothing that will leave me stranded on the roadside in the mean time.  I wonder what its like to have money.

My two 5"x 7" paintings did not sell on their first listing so I'm trying again.  Do you think $29 is too much?  I'll drop the starting price to $15 and see if that makes a difference.

One of the relisted ACEO's finally sold

Prints of the ACEO's are proving to be a hard sell.  I think I may just start tucking in a freebie to the buyers of the paintings.
Maybe I'm just delusional.  You know how you don't really know what you look like until you catch a glimpse of yourself when walking past a department store window?  Maybe its the same with my painting, I see it as beautiful while others see the lack of skill and training.  No, that can't be right, didn't the Art Museum just have an exhibit of work by self taught artists?  I need to look up who or how that got put together.
I need to change the title of my blog to My Daily Whine........sigh.

More Paintings for ebay

I got two paintings done today...figs and pears, they always seem to be popular.  I decided to go a little larger this time and did them on 5"x 7" canvas boards (thank you Janet :-).
I went online to piZap and added frames to the images to post on ebay.

I'm also going to put a couple of ACEO's back up that haven't sold in the past.

Never too old to learn, I discovered this website the other day geared towards beginning artists which I still think of myself as (never having had any formal training), and its one of the few that works with both oils and acrylics.  There are free lessons as well as 'pay for' lessons and support.  There's also some youtube videos.  The artists name is Will Kemp.

Apple booklet arrived....

Well, you were right Theresa, the Apple booklet is superior to the other two.  From the care in packaging.....

to the quality of the booklet itself.  The cover and the pages both are printed on heavier paper than used in either of the other two and the images are much cleaner and more true to the original paintings.  The booklet measures 3 and a half inches wide by 2 and five eighths inches.

I would definitely order from Apple in the future.