Trying something new, I'm putting some of my ACEO paintings in a small 3.5"x 2.5/8" soft cover book that I can create using iphoto.  I like that the size is just a hair off the original paintings and the price is right.  Pricing starts at $3.99 at that size and they are sold in a 3 pack and if you want to go beyond the photo limit they base their price on you can add more at 29¢ a page.  I put this one together rather quickly but then there weren't a lot of design options at this size to make it tedious. This is the simple book cover I created and this is about the size it'll be......

the inside is simply photos of the work, no text (although you can).  There are 34 pages and with shipping it was a little over $30 for the three books.  I'm quite anxious to see the quality, I'd like to offer them for sale on ebay in the ACEO paintings category.  I consider this book one of two that I'll do featuring still lifes and I'd like to do a separate one on the birds I've done.  I think this book option may be more appealing to buyers than buying single prints.

Yeh!...the two paintings below (previous post) sold!
No painting this weekend, just catching up on things neglected, running errands, and surfing the net.

And now for something totally unrelated to art.............I was going through iphoto cleaning out pics I no longer needed/wanted and came across these pictures of a relative, I may have posted these before.  I'm not sure if he's a blood relative as there's always been this secret question as to my fathers parentage.  I'm not sure why I didn't do this before but I decided to see what the writing on this particular picture referred to.

Sesqui Centennial Exposition, I had no idea there was a 1926 World's Fair in Philadelphia (I never was much of a student;).  I also learned that the now gone JFK Stadium in So Philly was built for that fair, I worked a couple of concerts there back in the 70's as the hospitality coordinator for Electric Factory Concerts but I digress....... this is 'Shorty' Hetzer aka Joe Hetzer aka Cowboy Joe aka Little Joe professional rodeo performer and guess he would have been my dad's uncle?  One of these photos was a postcard sent to my dad's mom if I recall correctly (I don't have the originals). 
According to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (and this next photo 1924 ca) he was a champion bulldogger, that looks to be a goat in the photo.

In this photo the woman at the top is Bonnie McCarroll a professional rodeo rider.

Fascinating!

Well yeh, I got two paintings done today and up on ebay, you can see all for sale HERE.

I actually did three but one.......well.....it just wouldn't photograph well so that one will hang here :-)

I did some googling last night to find out the most common reasons for 'check engine' lights going on and interestingly enough one of the top reasons is the gas cap not being on tight.  I actually remember stopping for gas the other day and thinking to myself as I got back in the car that I didn't put the cap on tight (I think it was raining at the time, so I was hurrying) so I'll check that first thing before I leave for work in the morning, fingers crossed that's all it is, if it is the light should go off while I'm driving.

I've really gotten bad at posting lately so lets catch up.  First these three ACEO paintings just sold on ebay....yeh!

And I'm waiting for a check for the paintings I've done so far for the two restaurants in Florida.  I'm also unfortunately on hold for future works until an agreement is reached between the business owner and the property owner....I really hope this doesn't fall through.
I know its been two years since I left Florida but I still haven't changed my license or car registration, being able to renew things online has made it easy to ignore, but now my registration expires at the end of this month so I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row.  I went to a drivers license center the other day to transfer my license to a PA one and although I don't have to take a written or driving test I did have to take a vision one........and I failed :-(  Just another reminder I'm getting old.  So I'm given a form to take to a Dr to get an eye exam and I call Walmart believing they'd be the least expensive place to have it done.  I called first and asked if they had just a price for the exam itself and was told no, it would be $49 for the exam and glasses.  OK, sounds reasonable right?  Long story short I get there, go through the whole process, only to find out its $49 for the exam, $49 for the glasses, frames start at $9 and an extra $10 to fill out the form for the drivers license place.....that was a sad surprise.   Even so I had to laugh when I was told the glasses would be $49 and the frames would be extra,  I wanted to ask her if I could just buy the 'glasses' and tape em to my face!........it seemed so silly to me that $49 glasses wouldn't come with frames........I'm new at this buying prescription glasses thing obviously.
So that expense out of the way now I have to wait for the glasses to come in (a week to ten days) before I can go back to the drivers license center.  Then I get to pay for new registration, new tags, inspection, emissions test.........I think it would have been cheaper just to move back to Florida!
Oh........and on my way home from the eye doctors, my check engine light came on......damn.  Hope that check arrives in the mail soon.
Nothing else to report, I've been trying to paint today but its just not happening and if I'm not feeling it the work just suffers so I'll see what tomorrow brings.
Oh and here's something I learned at the eye doctors......I have dry eyes.....who knew, not me.  But when I was taking the tests, trying to read the letters and complained they were blurry she told me to blink a couple of times and just for a second or two I could see the letters better (because blinking wet the surface of my eyes).....I was fascinated by that.  She told me if I used drops a couple of times a day it might even improve my sight a little.  If I had known this before I probably could have blinked my way through the vision test at the drivers license center and saved all that money.   Still my vision is a little off so it'll be interesting to see how glasses (not bought at the Dollar Store) work for me.
Have a great weekend everybody :-)

I woke up to three paintings sold on ebay this morning, a raccoon, a hummingbird, and a still life with copper pot, blue mason jar and tomatoes.  I had to post the last two a few times so I'm really glad they finally sold.
So today I did a few more birds and listed them.

Here's hoping the streak continues :-)
I've got a busy week coming up, tomorrow I have two cleaning jobs and the second one is downtown I'm dreading finding a parking space, its going to be a long day.
I also have to get my car and my license updated to here (PA), believe it or not the car is still registered and tagged for Florida so I'll try to get that all done this week.  The registration expires at the end of the month and since I already had switched my insurance to an agent up here I can no longer renew it online for Florida.....no record of insurance there now, I didn't think of that when I was changing it......oh well, its time it was done anyway. Oh, and I have to get my 21yr old car inspected and I'm really crossing my fingers on that when it comes to the emission tests......Florida is a no inspection state so I don't know what to expect.  I hope she passes cause I'm not going to have money to have any work done on her after paying for the license, registration, emissions test and inspection.....ouch.....the main reason I haven't done this sooner...money!
Wish I had more time to paint this week.

Lovely..........both parrot cards and the fig card sold on ebay. 
I've decided to change how I've been mailing them to end the frustration I've been having at the post office.  When I was living in Narberth my local post office had no problem mailing the stiff 5"x 7" 'photo' mailers first class 'letter' plus 20¢ non-machinable fee for almost a year, but my local post office just two blocks from where I live in Germantown insists its a 'package' which has a higher postage at more than double the cost to mail as a 'letter'.  Since I still work(ed) part time in Narberth I would just wait and mail them there to save on the postage but now one of their tellers is insisting its a package and there was no convincing her otherwise though the mailer (even though its larger than most people think of as a letter) is still in all the required measurement perimeters of a first class letter.....length, width, depth and weight.   So now I've taken to cutting the stiff mailers I already had to fit inside a standard letter envelop and hopefully now everyone will be on board with first class plus 20¢ non-machinable..........geesh!

I took a break from working on the paintings that will go to the Florida restaurants, here's what I have so far.......

and I finally got some new paintings done and up on ebay today.  I actually got a message on ebay from someone asking if I was still painting the ACEO's. I hadn't put any up for a few weeks now and its nice to know that they are missed.  Here's what went up today.....

parrots and figs seem to be popular :-)
I also posted two paintings (16"x 20") that I painted with the restaurant in mind, the Egret and Blue Heron, knowing I could always paint others if they happen to sell.  I'm testing $250 for each.

I'll spend tomorrow on a cleaning job in the morning and then try and get some more ACEO's up on ebay in the afternoon.  Have a Great Memorial Day everyone :-)

I got one of these today :-) I stopped at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop after work today and spotted this for $24.95, a great price....they sell new for about $100. Looking at the box it looks like I got one of the first ones made and luckily all the parts were there and it looks as though it was never used. I've always wanted to be able to mat my own prints so I'm so happy with this find.
And being the visual person that I am there's also a how-to video on youtube...perfect!

I'm still making tiny adjustments to both paintings as I study them but for now I'll move on to the next one.

Alright so I'm lazy, I decided to go ahead with working on this egret instead of facing him the other way, I will just do another one that would pair better with the heron.  I wasn't able to get this one finished yesterday so he's on hold until Friday afternoon, today is my all day job.......ugh.

OK.......it's been driving me nuts since I posted the picture......I've got to face the egret in the other direction, then I think they could be sold as a set if wanted......diving in before thinking......AGAIN!

I started working on the egret painting today.  I planned this one a little better, I'm starting on the background before doing the bird :-)

Yesterday I stopped at a thrift shop on my way home and found Pier One's hundred dollar faux grandfather clock for $13.50, I couldn't have made one for less than that!

Tomorrow is another two hour cleaning job so I hope to finish up the egret painting in the afternoon.

There, that's getting better, now he's the star of the painting :-)

I started on a new painting today.  I keep having to make adjustments because I didn't plan it out first, I just started with the heron and a blue water background.  I ended up not liking the light blue background but didn't 'dirty' it up until everything else was added......what a pain.  I keep trying to add more things to the scene to cover as much background as I can, I'm just not happy with it yet.

I just have a two hour cleaning job first thing in the morning so I ought to be able to finish this one up tomorrow.  It measures 16"x 20".
I also want to do an egret and a pelican.

Now that I have my computer hooked up to my tv I've re-discovered instant purchase/viewing on Amazon.  I like the idea of not adding to my physical collection of dvd's and having the option to just purchase videos and have them stored on Amazon to watch whenever I want.  Yesterday I purchased The Six Wives of Henry The VIII originally aired on PBS in 1970.......it is so good!

Ebay paintings on hold while I start doing paintings to hang on the walls of two restaurants in So Florida.....I've got all summer to work on them but I'll be doing a lot of em!
The client has requested fun and funky paintings for one of the restaurants (a wine and cigar bar) and tropical (but still fun and funky) for the other one which is on the water.
So fun and funky it is and she's partial to animal paintings so here's the start..........

I did the giraffe one first then the monkey and I really like the blue background (as you can see ;-) so I think I will be changing the giraffe background to match the others.  I've got more of these to do but I'm bored so I'll be switching gears and doing some larger tropical ones starting tomorrow......the ones above are 12"x12".
Not much else new........if the paintings sell well I may plan another move, I'll know more in the fall after the restaurants open in October.  I'm thinking the Jacksonville area this time, it will put me within easy drive time to my son and his family in Atlanta (5 hrs) and to my friends in So Florida, again 5 hrs......it would be nice to be in a milder climate again.