ACEO Theme Week Entry for September

Here is my entry for this month's ACEO theme week contest on eBay.  This month's theme is Fog / Fog Walking / Moon.  It's an older piece, but I thought it fit the theme.  Click on the image for a larger view and click on the link below it to be taken to my eBay listing.  I hope you like it.

 "Mister Moon"

https://www.ebay.com/itm/153163357010

To view other entries in the contest, please search ACEO TW SEP in the eBay search bar.

Prayers and good thoughts needed and art sale

I go in for surgery to remove a cataract in my right eye on Tuesday, April 17th and one in my left eye on Tuesday, April 24th. I started eye drops for the right eye on April 14th. Never having used drops, it has been a challenge to get them in my eye. It's four drops a day now and even more later. Anyway, I could use prayers and good thoughts that the surgeries go well with no complications or eye infections and my vision is improved. And that I'll get the drops in right. Thanks.

On a happier note, I did sell a pencil drawing, "Modern Vampire," at Madicon on March 11th.  Unfortunately, my job wouldn't give me the vacation time I requested for the con so I didn't get to attend.  My daughter and husband entered my art in the art show.  They both got to go.  My thanks to them both, especially my daughter Amanda.

Two More Faces

Here are the next two faces I've done for the 29 Faces Challenge run by Ayala Art (click on the face in the upper right for more info and to view other entries in the challenge).  The first is a doodle I did with black Micron ink on smooth Bristol board where I kept the pen on the paper (I did retrace over lines at times).  It was an interesting experiment, although the results weren't stellar by any means.  This piece is ACEO sized (2.5 x 3.5 inches) at its normal 300 dpi resolution.  The version below is 100 dpi.

"Face Doodle"

My fifth entry into the challenge is another ACEO using two different origami papers.  The woman's silhouette is cut from blue metallic paper (not sure if you can tell in the scan) and glued to a floral origami paper.  Then I glued the floral piece to a piece of heavyweight Bristol board paper.  I may decide to embellish it further, but for now I think it's an interesting piece.  The original scan is at 300 dpi resolution.  The version below is 100 dpi.

"Silhouette"

I feel like this piece needs a better title.  What do you think?  Anyway, click on the images for larger views and  I hope you enjoy looking at my faces.

Faces 2 and 3

My second entry in the face challenge (click on the face at the upper right for more details about the challenge) is an alteration of a portion of a photograph of me taken in 2010 at the Frontier Culture Museum by my daughter.  First, I resized the photograph in Paint Shop Pro 8 to 2 by 3 inches at 300 dpi resolution.  Then I ran Posterize on it at the 3 levels setting.  Next I reduced the picture to two colors, with the red components selected, Stucki Error Diffusion and the Weighted palette chosen.  Then I made the image Greyscale and adjusted the color balance by running Black and White Points Cool.  I ran JPEG Artifact Removal, Low, with a crispness of 50 and followed that with Moire Pattern Removal at Fine Details 2.  The result is below.

"Portrait of the Artist"

The version posted above is at 72 dpi.

My third face is an old sketch originally done in black ink on tracing paper, which I decided to scan, resize, and alter a bit in Paint Shop Pro.  The original piece is about 3 by 5 inches.  I decided to resize it to fit an ACEO size (2.5 by 3.5 inches), clean it up a bit, and give it a beige background that I hope looks like aged paper.  I altered the color of the ink to give a more aged appearance too.

"Vamp"

The uncopyrighted image is at 300 dpi resolution.  The one above is 100 dpi.

I'm working on using this image to make a colored Halloween flavored digital piece at ACEO size.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed looking at these pieces and do check out the other entries other people have been making (or even enter some yourself).  Click on the pictures for larger views.

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.

Reflections

One of the eBay aceo groups I belong to has weekly challenges. The current one is reflection so I decided to relist at auction this combination original sketch and digital art ACEO I call "Swan." Click on the title if you want to view the listing in greater detail.

Earlier today (well, since it's after midnight, yesterday) after work I went to the local arboretum. Spent a few minutes watching the pond frogs trying to catch and eat baby fish. They actually caught some. Lots of dragonflies flitting about that the frogs ignored. It was hot so I didn't stay long. Wished I'd had my camera though.