My 1st ACEO

The Huntress

2.5 x 3.5 colour pencil on drafting film

It has been my intention to try my hand at ACEO's for quite a while now but for some reason or other just never got round to it. Well, if I am being honest selling on Ebay had a lot to do with it as I haven't a clue how to set up as a seller, and that's just to start with - no point doing ACEO's if you don't try and sell them on Ebay and to do so it helps if you know what you are doing. Readers of my blog will be aware of my issue with time and lack of it so hence my delay in jumping on the bandwagon as it were.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with ACEO's let me enlighten you. ACEO's or Art Cards, Editions and Originals are a very popular way to collect art that is affordable. They can be drawn/painted on any surface using any medium with the only rule being they must measure 2.5 x 3.5 inches - the size of a trading card. Both originals and prints can be sold on the Internet.

As it turned out 'The Huntress' did not start out life as an ACEO but as an experiment using colour pencils on drafting film (will talk more about this in another post). Again, this has been something I have wanted to try for a long time with my excuse this time being I could not track down drafting film. Although a small drawing to begin with, 5x8, I decided half way through to crop it down to the size of an ACEO, preferring the crop to the original. All I need to do now is figure out Ebay and how it works - yes there are still some of us about - while I work on more ACEO's.

2 more make 4

Leaving 1 still to do. Yes, I am talking about the guinea pigs. So without further ado here are Raffles (2nd time around - different pose)

And Ailsa (my favourite, I think)

Atten - shun

Something else I have started working on after being pencil sharpnerless and thought I would share with you.

And a close-up

This is taken from a photograph I have been wanting to use for some time of 3 beagles (all related to Bru - you may remember the oil painting I did of him chewing a stick). I just loved the way they are all sitting to attention waiting for that certain order.

Wanted to try my hand at watercolour again (it's been a long time) and thought this would be a great one to start with. It was/is my intention to loosen up more and not be so detailed and had to stop myself a few times from getting out my 000 size brush!! Still got quite a bit to go on this when time permits.

Scratchboard Cats

With one thing or another it has been a busy last few days but not so much on the art front. To start with my trusted electric sharpner suddenly died on me - no sharpner, no colour pencil drawings - and as it turns out everything I have on the go at the moment is using colour pencils. Yes I have 2 children who I am sure own a pencil sharpner of some description somewhere but, as with paper and sad as it may sound, I guess I am fussy when it comes to sharpners too!

Anyhow with school shows and all the duties that go with being a mother I couldn't find the time to go out and purchase a new one straightaway so, while the colour pencil commissions took a back seat, I thought I would work a bit more on my scratchboard cats.

Scratchboard cat 2, if you remember, was finished waiting to be 'painted'. Now managed to get this done but I'm really not happy with it.

I obviously have loads to learn when it comes to this stage as nothing seems 'vibrant' enough next to the black. I think that I'm perhaps not scratching enough and leaving too much black but am always wary of overscratching and losing the tones and form.

Colouring Scratchboard cats 1 and 2 has put me off doing the same to 3 which is now nearly finished and I am therefore going to leave it as it is for fear of disliking it. I like having just the eyes in colour anyway - more striking - and not really sure why I added colour to cat 2 in the first place. Here is where I am with cat 3 (feel much happier with this one)......

Oh, and by the way , I now have my new sharpner so it's back to my commissions.

Horse on Black

Well here she is in all her glory and what a joy she was to do too.

As I have already mentioned in another post I have really enjoyed working with colour pencils on black paper even if this would not be my ideal choice of paper (Daler Rowney's Canford). So I am now making it my mission to find that perfect black paper to work on which could prove a bit of a problem as, you will soon find, I am soooooo fussy when it comes to paper.

I wouldn't have this problem if Fabriano did the decent thing and produced one in their hot pressed watercolour range! Until that day I will continue my search and keep you posted on my findings.

I've been Googled!!

3 months and 12 days my website has been floating out there in cyber space fighting to get noticed and it has finally happened. To say I am happy is an understatement - after all I am competing with thousands of portrait artists out there trying to get a top spot in the search engines and I've done it - well for the time being - you can never tell with Google can you? Couldn't tell you under what search my website comes up in as in my excitement I forgot to ask. Ask? My potential client who phoned to enquire about completion dates. Fingers crossed it - my website - keeps getting noticed.

Anyway enough of my euphoria. Made a start on my guinea pig commission and managed to complete 2 this week - 3 more to go but in the meantime here are Raffles and Iona.

While working on the guinea pigs I have started a colour pencil horse on black paper that was shouting "Please do me, please do me..." from amongst my 'must-do' pile. Having given in I actually found working on the black very enjoyable and something I will be doing a lot more of I am sure. Here is where I am with it at the moment, probably 3 hours work later.

To do this on white paper would probably take me twice as long (if not longer) so really likeing the 'quickness' of it. Mind you I would know instinctively what pencils to use on white but they don't look the same on black so a big learning curve here. Next time I will try the colours out first instead of jumping straight into the drawing!