Oil painting for landscape

Some new ACEO paintings for ebay

Well, its official I will be losing two clients soon, one at the end of August and another three weeks later.  I'm happy for them both but especially for the young family with the stay-at-home artist dad.  They sold their current home in less than 24 hrs and had their offer accepted on a home they wanted the very same day, how cool is that?!.....and their new place sounds just perfect for them, complete with a studio over the garage!
I got my phone switched over to Consumer Cellular and here's a surprise, I just used my mobile banking and it was so much faster than AT&T.  My car insurance has also been switched and I've decided to keep the basic cable and not use an antenna, I tried it out and the picture just kept breaking up ........ funny that didn't happen on my smaller set, the reception was really good, oh well its only $10 a month for the basic cable and there's always Hulu and other online options for other shows etc., my mac mini is hooked up to my big tv.

I plan to paint all weekend, five of the six ACEO paintings I posted on ebay have sold so I'd like to get some more up.

Peanut Butter and Jelly on ebay

Have I mentioned I may be losing two of my cleaning clients?  How ironic......I moved here to be close to my work and now two may be leaving.  In preparation I'm making a few changes to try and save some money.  I'm changing my car insurance from State Farm where I'm paying $71.51 a month to Nationwide where it will be $35.50 a month, a nice savings.  My contract is finally up with AT&T so I'm dropping them, another $70 and change a month and switching to Consumer Cellular for $20 a month......I hardly ever talk on the phone.  Still debating what to do with regards to cable service.  Making these changes has really shown me how stuck I've been in my comfort zone and that makes me very uncomfortable.  We seem to get this weird sense of loyalty to these companies even when we don't benefit........very strange.   Anyway I'm hoping making these small changes and getting more focused on my artwork will keep me from having to fill the void these departing clients will be leaving with new clients........wouldn't that be nice :-)

Three Olives

I was watching some art marketing videos on YouTube this morning while having my coffee and there was lots of talk on branding and focusing on what you do best.  There were also discussions about having the freedom to just paint what you love to paint versus painting just to earn money to live.  Suddenly a new name for a website popped into my head and fruitsofmylabor.org is now the new address of my ACEO paintings website.  With my strong leaning towards painting fruits plus the 'need' to earn a living it just made sense in several ways.  Of course I wanted fruitsofmylabor dot com but it's currently up for sale/bid and currently stands at $1,477.00 lol.....not doable.......dot org?.....$12 and change.

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday.  I hadn't checked in on ebay since I made my last sale a few weeks ago and I wasn't notified of any messages/problems, unfortunately.  When I was listing my new paintings yesterday I noticed I had a few messages and two were from a buyer who was trying to reach me earlier in the month, she was concerned about not having received two paintings she had bought. Then there was a third message from her saying she did indeed get them but after waiting for two weeks.  She was kind enough to acknowledge that I had mailed them when I said I did via the postmark and why it took two weeks to get from Philly to California will be an unsolvable mystery to us both.  The damage however was done,  by not being available to her inquiries two negative comments were left in my feedback which bumped my perfect 100 score to 98.3 :-(  I sent her my apologies of course and will from now on follow all my sales to completion.

Yeh!.....got my car's floor fixed and back home today.

And got a few new ACEO paintings up on ebay and I'll do some more tomorrow.

Finally finished porthole painting #3 and got them all mailed this afternoon.  The client did end up wanting more color so I added the coral and clown fish.

I had a short work day today so I came home and checked out some painting tutorials on youtube and came across this video, painting a silver cup.  I won't post the video here, its about an hour and a half long so you may want to go to youtube to watch it......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQr1knUDKKc
I've been wanting to join the Bright Light Fine Art website to access David Leffel instruction videos but $50 isn't in my budget right now so I've been watching little short clips of his on youtube, that's how I came upon this other artists videos.

And while I was visiting youtube I came across a tutorial on how to get TV channels without paying for cable.  I was really pissed when Comcast started scrambling their signals so you had to get a decoder after I had recently bought a TV with a built in tuner, I really felt like a hostage.  I only pay for basic cable anyway so I thought it'd be fun to try and see if this works, and to my surprise IT DOES!  There are two videos, part one is just making the cable but I already had several spare cables so I didn't need to make one,  I just cut one of the ends (connector) off to use as the 'antenna'. 


I didn't even add the additional copper wire that this person in the video uses.  I just used the existing wire inside the cable.

I attached the cable to the TV and I just put this end in my window and look at the picture....crystal clear, and 31 channels.  Remember to change your 'antenna' settings on the TV if you try this and it helps to live within the stations signal range, I'm in Philly so no problem getting reception.

I'm finally getting my car's floor pan fixed this week.  I found a welder who is only charging $203.04 Philadelphia Welding Co.  I was running out of time to get this done, its time for inspection/registration, and I surely wasn't going to pass inspection with the floor hanging down.  I'm so glad I didn't commit to the expense of buying a new car. This weekend I will get back to doing my ebay paintings :-)

I've sent a picture to the client and I'm hoping this third one is finished.

hmmmm.....the left side of the bottom dolphin looks a bit too dark, needs correction.  Taking pictures of your work is always so helpful in pointing out problems.

Good news (for me anyway) is the opening of the Florida restaurant these paintings are for has been delayed a few weeks which gives me a bit more time to get this third one finished.  I've said it several times before, how I envy artists who have a partner that supports their career.  I find it so frustrating to have to focus on work to pay the bills rather than immersing myself in painting.
Anyway, here's how #3 is going.

Not too far from finished.  I obviously have some work to do on the bottom dolphin and then I'll add a lot of bubbles and let it be.  I'd love to get this finished this weekend so I can get back to my ebay paintings, today though I'm going to go visit with an older gentleman who's having some physical/mobility issues while his wife takes a bit of time for herself......tomorrow should be enough time to get this done.

Yeh! All my ACEO paintings listed in the previous post sold during the week :-)  And today I'm finishing up Porthole painting #2

I think I just want to add a colorful fish (I did, a parrot fish) across from the lower turtle for balance and more color.....or maybe a jellyfish? Not sure yet.  I've got to get #3 started and done by the end of the week and get them all in the mail.
I've started a little gallery wall in my hallway/entryway of ACEO paintings I've bought from other artists.  I haven't bought many but hope to purchase more soon.  The little blue bird came yesterday after I had just email the artist that it hadn't arrived yet, go figure.  I didn't realize it takes so long to get mail from England.
Well, better get going on #3.

The last two days have been an adventure, and not one I plan to experience again in the near future.  I was lured into the car dealership with an email about a pre-Memorial Day Sale.
Day 1, I wasn't there very long before I was told I was approved for a $15,000 loan.....really?.....how's that possible with my not so good credit score.....wow! How indeed, it was a 21% interest rate "reestablishment" loan.  After seeing the plethora of used cars available on the dealerships website I felt a tingle of excitement, albeit still resistant to going into debt again after being debt free for the last several years and trying to block out that pesky 21% interest rate.......but let's play the game shall we.  I was escorted outside to be shown a $12,000 used Prius, what a funny looking car, I wasn't impressed and even less so when I sat down it, pressed a button to start it and nothing happened!.......dead battery.  Walking back into the building I told the girl showing me the supposedly one car available to me because I had no money to put down (only my car), that I did NOT want to spend $12,000 on a used car or make $400 payments every month, I didn't want to spend more than $200 a month on payments, well that got a giggle out of her as you can imagine.
I was thanking her for her time and about to walk out when suddenly another car was in the offering...amazing (not).  This one was $10,000 and $300 payments.....enter the guy who arranges the loans with the banks with the testimony on how lucky I am to be approved for a loan with my low credit score and how hard he worked to get this approved, I'll never find a car like this with only 40,000 miles on it, heaven forbid I should walk away and something happens to my car, and of course there were two other people interested in buying it...blah, blah, blah...he wore me down.  I climbed in this car which hadn't been detailed yet and wreaked of old cigarette smoke and took a drive around the block......a 2009 Toyota Corolla, a reliable car, good milage but oh so boring.  I reluctantly decided to take the plunge and purchase the car, the deciding factor being all that is wrong and borderline dangerous with my current car.
Day 2.  I return to the dealership car title in hand and we begin the process.  The young lady left the office to work with the 'loan procuring guy' and briefly stopped by my door to show me the loan agreement with the bank (I'm sure she's kicking herself now) and I asked for a copy, she obliged and left me to sit there reading it.  Whats this??  I'm not buying a Ford Focus or paying that price for a car???  I go to the next room where they are sitting getting all there paper work together and question this 'mistake'.  Oh........don't worry about that he says and I can't remember the words after that.  I go back to the other office and sit there with this uneasy feeling coming over me and the girl finally arrives with the pile of paper work ready for signatures.  I say "Let's take a look at each paper".  I look at the contract and the first think I notice is the price of the car $11,999 (not $10,000).  The second thing I notice is they listed my rent as $325 not $960 and my income was 'enhanced'.  She shows me a paper with 'extras' listed that can be purchased saying I'm not obligated to purchased any of them but I see three items were checked......that was it.  I mention my concerns and disappointment in the process and she goes to the other guy's office to see what she can do.  He comes in and starts saying all the things he said the day before only with a little less conviction and the profound statement that this is how things are done in this business and I wouldn't have qualified any other way and this was all done for me.........right.  I left.
So back to plan A, get the hole fixed in the floor of my car and stay living close to my mechanic ;-)

Got some painting done this past weekend.  I started painting number two of the three for the Florida restaurant

and then took a day to work on a few ACEO paintings for ebay (its been too long).

I finally got a weekend to spend on and finish up the first of three porthole paintings (unless I hear otherwise from the client), they'll all measure 34" in diameter and will be framed on site.

They'll all hang on a wall that will go up a staircase so painting number two will hang higher and not have an ocean floor and it will feature a large sea turtle and some fish.  The third one will be even higher (closer to the surface/top of stairs) and will feature dolphin.  I'll start number two tomorrow.

I was suppose to visit a car dealership tomorrow after work but canceled it (lack of funds).  Have I mentioned the bit of floor hanging underneath my car?  Well, now I have to be especially careful because I could see light through the carpet last time I drove it.....a little scarey.  I'm once again stuck between a rock and a hard place......the car is not in good enough condition to cover a down payment as a trade-in and its so old (23 yrs old!) do I really want to spend the money to fix it?  My only immediate hope would be getting some of my deposit money back from my previous landlord, but she wasn't very clear on whether that was going to happen (because I left the lease early).  There was a new tenant to replace me but she can still withhold it according to the lease........never sign a 12 page lease!

Other than that things are good.  I'm so happy to be back in Narberth!

Once I recover from the financial output from moving I plan to indulge is some online art lessons, here's one I'm interested in.

Well I'm in!  The move went very quickly, a total of two hours....these guys were good!  Of course it helped that everything was packed and ready to go out the door.
If I thought I had accumulated a lot of stuff before its even more obvious now......where to put everything?!
I've managed to set up a comfortable area but trust me, every other spot out of view is a mess.

The kitchen has a total of 3 upper cabinets so I haven't bothered to grocery shop yet....there's no where to put everything!  So I went thrift shopping yesterday after work to try and find some useful storage pieces, and lucky me found a nice, very traditional style, apartment size hutch cabinet for $95 that will fit nicely in the kitchen, it'll be here Friday.
Work this morning is delayed an hour or so, which is welcomed.  Between doing my 'regular' jobs and cleaning the apartment I left, my poor hands are so red and sensitive from over exposure to cleaning products (my bad for not wearing gloves).
I could so use some time off but I need to get this place settled and in order and keep my work schedule up......living in this nice little town has its price.....high rents. 
And I've got the restaurant paintings to get back to, they need to be delivered by the end of the month.