July 31, 2012

WIP Hearts

I decided to list some of the 31 Hearts ACEOs that I haven't finished since today's the last day.  These are all photographs of the original art cards.


 "Fairy Heart 1"

There are three hearts in this.  It's pencil and watercolor pencil on Bristol paper, but I'm going to add silver gel pen and Micron ink pen details.


 "Fairy Heart 2"

Just a pencil sketch on 140 pound watercolor paper right now.  One heart.


 "Pink Heart"

This is watercolor pencil on Bristol paper.  I don't know if you can tell there's a silver gel pen outline around the heart.  I haven't decided what to do with the background yet.

These WIP hearts bring my total hearts to thirty one.  Sorry the picture quality isn't the best, but I hope you get an idea of where these could go.  I do plan to finish these.  Thanks for the inspirational challenge.

Hearts 11 and 12 (and more)

This is the final day of the 31 Hearts Challenge run by Ayala Art.  It's been fun.  In searching through my files, I discovered a couple of ACEOs I've done in the past that have hearts in them.  Here they are:


 "Celebrate America"

This ACEO is a scan of the actual ACEO I did for a swap back in July of 2007.  It's digital art using a lot of picture tubes in Paint Shop Pro.  The heart is my original design as is the entire design itself.


 "Vintage Cat 1"

"Vintage Cat 1" is a digital ACEO I created for a card (the two of hearts) in a deck of playing cards made by the ACEO ~ Art Cards Editions and Originals group on eBay.  One of these days I will list it for sale with the extra deck of cards I got just for that purpose.  There is and will be only one laser print of this card and the picture above is a scan of the actual card.

I do have this design without the added hearts as a limited edition print in my Etsy shop though.

Well, if I count hearts, I'm now at 26.  Hope you enjoy these entries.

July 30, 2012

Hearts 9 and 10 (or more)

Since time is running out for the 31 Hearts Challenge, I decided to take photographs (can't use the scanner right now) of some of my original heart art pieces and post them.


 Hearts A Poppin'

"Hearts A Poppin'" has been finished for a while and is done on Bristol paper with Prismacolor markers and black Micron ink.


 Lucky Hearts 

 "Lucky Hearts" is a pencil sketch done on 140 lb. watercolor paper and colored with watercolor pencils.  I may yet decide to do something with the background. 

There are actually seven hearts total in these two pieces (both are ACEOs, by the way).  So if I count the total number of hearts in my posted works, I'm at twenty-three. ;)

I've been enjoying this challenge and I hope you enjoy these entries.

July 29, 2012

Hearts 6, 7, 8?

Hi, folks,

I had yesterday and today off from work and spent a lot of Saturday working on more hearts for the 31 Hearts Challenge. Since some of these have more than one heart in them, I wonder if I should count the individual hearts in each work? If I do that, I'm actually at sixteen hearts at this point.

Anyway, here are my latest digital offerings.


 "Dream Heart"

 "Cold Hearts"

 "Neon Hearts"

I've been working on some hearts on actual papers, but it's been a bit slower going (and more frustrating) there. Will post them when I can.

These are all ACEO size at 300 dpi resolution (these versions are 72 dpi).  Hope you enjoy them.

July 25, 2012

Hearts 3, 4, and 5

I had the day off today and decided to work on some digitally created hearts for the 31 Hearts Challenge.  I created three.  Here they are:



"Abstract Heart 1"

 "Abstract Heart 2"

 "Watery Heart"

These are all ACEO size at 300 dpi resolution (these versions are 72 dpi).  Hope you enjoy them.

July 20, 2012

Zoo Pictures

I finally uploaded pictures from my visit to Virginia Safari Park on July 13th.  Here are a few highlights of my trip there.  From the walk through part:

A peacock

 Kangaroos

My daughter took these next two pictures:

Giraffes (you could feed them but we didn't)

Flamingo house

My daughter feeding a parakeet in the parakeet house.  My husband took this picture.

These next pictures are from the drive through section of the park. 

 Wildebeest

Up close and personal

Zebra

Camel

Wide view from the car

I hope you've enjoyed these pictures.  There's a lot to see and if you ever get a chance to visit the Virginia Safari Park you should go.

July 16, 2012

31 Hearts Take Two

This ACEO is another entry in the 31 Hearts challenge.  It also fulfills a 7 Card Draw challenge.




 It is available for purchase on Etsy here.

31 Hearts Challenge

Ayala Art is running a daily art challenge for July called 31 Hearts.  I found out about this on the forum for 7 Card Draw, an Etsy team I belong to.  If you want to participate too (you don't have to post one every day), go to Ayala Art and click on 31 Hearts.

Anyway, here is my first entry, an ACEO I did back in 2009.




I hope you can see the heart shape formed by the swans heads and necks.  This ACEO is for sale on Etsy here.

July 15, 2012

The Zoo Trip

As I mentioned earlier, I'm on vacation.  Friday the 13th, my husband, daughter and I took a trip down to the Virginia Safari Park.  We had visited it before, but that was a few years ago.

Basically, it's a drive through zoo where you can buy feed and feed the animals. We didn't buy feed this visit because I wanted to get pictures and the critters can be more aggressive when they want food. 

The Park has added a walk through section with caged animals so there was lots more to see.  There was a reptile house, a parakeet house where you could feed them right out of your hand, a flamingo house, and you could also feed a giraffe (but we didn't).  There were monkeys, tigers, tortoises, farm animals, kangaroos, cheetahs, and peacocks, to name some.  And one large white cat was prowling in the grassy area behind one of the monkey cages (I don't think it belonged to the zoo :) ).

The drive through part has various kinds of deer, camels, llamas, elk, wildebeest, camels, bison, ostrichs, and zebra, to name a few.

We took lots of pictures but I haven't uploaded them to the computer yet. 

The day was cloudy, but the rain held off until after we left.  We had a great time.

The Big Storm of June 29, 2012

The evening of June 29, 2012 brought a big storm here which the weather forecasters called a derecho.  It brought high winds of up to 80 mph that did a lot of damage.  We lost some roof tiles off our apartment building and two trees in the front yard were damaged, one so severely that it had to be cut down.  I took pictures of it before that happened.  Here is one of them.  Click on the picture for a bigger view.


We often parked near this tree.  Fortunately, it fell in the grass and not on our car.

The power went out for at least two and a half hours ( I went to bed so I don't know when it came back on).   Some folks in our area were without power for a week afterwards.  It was definitely scary to watch in the dark.  But our cat, Smoky, found it fascinating and kept getting up in the window to watch. 

We had the TV on when the power went out and it got fried.  All we saw on it when we turned it back on was a horizontal line.  Take my advice and don't turn on your TV during a storm to check for any emergency messages.  Keep a battery operated radio for that.  We haven't bought a new TV yet and it's been a bit strange without one (we're watching things on our computer).

Anyway, we consider ourselves fortunate.  Things could have been much worse.

I'm Back!

I've been neglecting my blog, but I'm going to try to post more frequently.  I'm on vacation right now (have been since Friday) and figured it would be a good time to get back in the swing of things.  There's been some interesting things going on which I'll detail in some catchup posts.  But for now, hi, and thanks for reading.