Some new ACEO's up on ebay.

A lot has changed in these past few months.  My perfect little situation I created for myself by moving back to where I am now has fallen apart.  Coming back to an area I love, being closer to work hasn't worked out after all......why?......things change, its a given.  Permanently losing two work days a week in the fall was a disappointment but I could still manage, now though I've lost yet another day and this is not good.  Working only two days a week outside the home is not going to be enough.  To add to that I was also bumped from the healthcare.gov program.  I was told my income was too low now to qualify for subsidies and I'm forced to apply for medicaid.  I'll learn if I qualify for that in a couple of days.  I just shake my head.......everything was so perfect.  Time to find a new perfect I guess.
I'm trying to get more disciplined about doing my artwork and I'm considering trying to resurrect my mural career.....I don't hold out much hope with that though, the onslaught of availability of printed murals is a bit tough to compete with.  If you do a search for murals online the websites for printed murals far out number the websites for mural artists now.....its sad.
I've got some new planning to do!

My ACEO cupcake painting sold today :-)

And I've got some new ones up on ebay........

My newest gift to myself, an ACEO watercolor from Vilnius, Lithuania off ebay.....

Isn't she charming.  I think she makes an even dozen ACEO's I've bought now, its fun to support other artists and an affordable way to collect art.......she was $7.

This is my 900th post!

I got a few pictures today of the restaurant in Florida that I painted those three 'porthole' view murals for.  Its nice to see them again........aren't they hung a bit crooked?

Anyone know of a good licensing company that would be interested in my ACEO images for magnets?

For some reason I can't picture them being used for anything else because they're so small and I think enlarging the images might just show imperfections.......of course there's always photoshop/editing?

Well I got little accomplished in the last few days, it was one of those times where the painting just wasn't flowing easily so it was put aside.
I got an unexpected day free today and I've been surfing the web looking for inspiration.  You know that I added some of my ACEO work to button magnets and I was wondering if I could do some in a circular format so I started searching for an easy online photo editor where I could crop images into a circle shape without having to deal with photoshop or similar perplexing applications.  I came across this site, tuxpi.com, where you can crop into several different shapes including a circle,

 but they also have some other fun effects to play with.
Remember this painting I did for the Florida decorator opening a restaurant?

I was able to with one click turn it into this......

What fun!  And I could easily do this, which I'll add to my sidebar as a link......

They even have a fake newspaper generator........I'm thinking I've seen some of these effects put to use elsewhere, wish I had discovered it sooner....share people, share!
Anyway, I'm going to go play with some images now :-)

Todays work.....

.....that and simplifying this blog lay out and look :-)

I've also got my CafePress shop of ACEO Kitchen Art Magnets up and running.  If you're interested you can click on the ad/photo to the right to visit the shop.

I'm spending this holiday weekend painting, no surprise there, its what I do most weekends.  I'm happy to say the ACEO paintings, although not selling for big dollars, are consistently selling and I'm am grateful.  Here's one I just did this morning (and some others) and listed on ebay

I've also been working on building a shop on cafepress.com putting my small ACEO paintings to work as magnets.  I've done this once before but never put time into promoting it and I'm hoping to do better this time around.  I ordered a couple for myself before I had listed them the first time (to check the quality) and was really please with how nice they look.  I decided a long time ago that these small ACEO paintings aren't good subjects for larger prints, any small imperfection suddenly becomes a large imperfection when blown up, so these magnets are good fit.
I had been wondering about being able to make these magnets myself but when I looked into the cost of the equipment there was no way I could afford to do it myself.  The manual 'machine' alone costs in the neighborhood of $1500-2000 and then you need the supplies to make them, so I opted to give cafepress another try.

I was thinking that if I were able to do them myself I could participate in some local craft shows, selling both original paintings and the magnets.  I have close to 200 ACEO images, I can't believe I've made and sold that many!!
I'll keep my eye on Craigslist, ebay, and other sites to see if I can find a used one.

Well, better get back to work :-)

All sold except for the Pepper

Sold

I think I've mention craftsy.com before but for any beginners who want to learn a lot about drawing, hue and values, establishing color, composition, painting etc, I just purchased access to the online lesson The Oil Painters Handbook, and yes I'm an acrylic painter myself but I'm getting so much from these over 3 hours of lessons.  Its on sale now if anyone is interested.

All SOLD

New ones.....

Getting some new ACEO's done for ebay....

A quiet Sunday today.  I got some ACEO's up on ebay this afternoon....

I snapped this picture Friday morning at a neighbors across the street, its hanging over the fence on the street side, I'm surprised no one has plucked it off.  You can just see at the top of the fence he's also got corn growing in his yard!  Who says you can't grow veggies if you live in a city.

I even have a client a couple of blocks away who's now raising a half dozen chickens in her back yard along with having a vegetable garden.  She'll start getting fresh eggs sometime this fall.