My car broke down yesterday, major bummer! I was stuck down in center city Philadelphia and needed to get myself and the car back to home territory, Germantown. After trying to reach close by tow companies to no avail, I finally reach one even further away but available, cost?......$175. On top of that I could not reach my favorite mechanic and ended up having the car delivered to a Midas station which was walkable from my apartment. They determined it was a dead starter and a poor battery, their estimate $1265 and change. No way. I did some investigating. I checked out how much Midas mechanics make an hour in Philly (about $25/hr). I checked out the prices of starters. I checked out how long it takes a qualified mechanic to change out a starter (about two hours). No way did things add up to $1265. In a panic I was finally able to reach my regular mechanic and had the car towed yet again over to his place another $140. My car is ready! His price.....$725. So much better. However as all this was going on I was down to $55 dollars in the bank. Yep $55. I reached out to one of the two house cleaning jobs I do, yes at about to turn 75 I still have two homes that I clean regularly (artwork doesn't provide a steady income). So I reached out to one and had them advance me next weeks pay and then I contacted my life insurance company and grabbed $600 that was available in my policy. Lets hope I don't die too soon cause I just rendered that policy dead. Anyway the car is ready and as soon as the money gets into my bank I can pick up my car. I am completely drained from the panic and stress. Not what any person living in our now stressed out Country needs.
So lets catch up on the art work side of life. I haven't had any success yet selling the second sheep painted chest but have just relisted it on Facebook Marketplace. Fingers crossed. There was one person interested in it but things kind of got messed up and she opted to have a similar painting on canvas done. See below the chest. She said she'd send a photo when the framer is done with it. I'm anxious to see it frame. I don't do 'hang on the wall' paintings very often.
I bought myself a older model new Epson printer about a month ago and I have to say its great! I can do so much more with a printer that can accept heavier papers. I can print my own cards in various weights depending on what I'm making. I always had prints of my ACEO paintings printed by PrintFirm but now I can print them here myself.....I love it. I've turned a lot of those prints into playing cards, a matching card game. I've made a standard ACEO card size game and a mini version (so cute).
The mini set of cards:
And the regular size ACEO cards:
Today I spent a little time throwing together samples of work I've done over the years onto a collage template from Canva. I'm going to post that on Facebook and advertise for commission work painting furniture that folks already own. Finding pieces to paint is really hard and adding to that I'm not as strong as was in my younger years and living on in a second floor apartment with no elevator makes delivery to and from a real issue. Gosh I miss my younger self.
