Hello And Blue Bird Tags

There are some new Blue Bird Tags now available in the shop featuring tiny prints of "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" They are super cute, tied with pale blue embroidery floss, and would make excellent additions to your presents and gifts.
There is also a new ACEO print available titled "Hello" featuring a very sweet Odie mouse on a vivid blue background. He comes with a white border or a black border, your choice.

Both available in my shop.

Winter Bird Cheer On Frosty Lines

I didn't get around to taking pictures of the rest of the new ACEOs except for this little gem. It's called "Winter Bird Cheer On Frosty Lines", and it was created with a lot of love and whimsy when I was in a particularly festive mood recently :)

These cheerful little blue birds are celebrating the holiday season in candy cane striped hats and stockings hung from their icicle strewn telephone lines. Very cute, n'est pas?

It is available in my shop.

I Got Featured On ACEO Showcase!

Hey, sweet! One of my ACEOs, "Why does it always rain on me?" got featured on ACEO showcase! Thanks, Lynsey! (Isn't her name spelling cool?)ACEO Showcase is a new blog that "showcases the very best in Art Card, Editions and Originals (ACEOs)". I'm flattered to be included :)

New ACEOs in the shop!

I just finished 3 more ACEOs today. I'm working on my "Putting Down Roots" series, but I'm just not happy with them yet. These other ones are quite nice though.

There's "Dancing in the rain", "A pretty bouquet for the lady", and "Will you boo my Valentine?"

"A pretty bouquet for the lady" follows in my usual style of watercolour with just a lot of detail put into drawing the flowers. I like how the flowers really fill up the top of the image. I was happy, too, with the way the light pink worked out for the tissue paper under the flowers.

"Dancing in the rain" is a bit of an experimentation for me in watercolour. I've been studying some of the other watercolour artists and they seem to know how to use the medium so much better than I do! I love to paint in Photoshop and I tend to layer on different colours in washes over different sections of the painting. The result is appealing to me, so I tried to do something similar with "Dancing in the rain". I like how the colours look more vivid when I layer them, but I think I could do a better job if I had some bigger, soft brushes to do some light washes over the painting. I will see if I can improvise with a smaller brush in the meanwhile, but I'll have to look into some new brushes in the future.

"Will you boo my Valentine?" is a fun piece in light of the upcoming V-day. I've been drawing a lot of pin-sized eyes lately with the mice and birds, so it's nice to come back to the big, cartoony eyes. I like the background in its bright red in contrast to the pink, soft meringue-ness of the ghosts.

They're all available in the shop.

Make sure to check out the Origami Heart Envelope Tutorial, if you're in the mood for something Valentine-y! I had fun drawing that out :)

New ACEOs in the shop!

I finally had some time this weekend to finish up some paintings. They are now in the shop!

I call these Mrs. McRooney's Library in Sepia, Lemon Sherr Bird Collage, Mrs. McRooney's Pantry No.1, and Why does it always rain on me?

UPDATE! Mrs. McRooney's Pantry No. 1 is sold! That was a first. Actually, this year has started off pretty well. I've had 3 sales so far already this year. I only had 5 sales in total last year (I guess because I was just starting off...) It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that someone likes my artwork out there :D

Hopefully, I'm getting better too!

Skipping down the ACEO road

Today, I finished my first ACEO's. I'm really quite delighted! I've been thinking about making some ACEOs for a while now ever since I discovered that there are collectors for the specific canvas size of 2.5 by 3.5 inches (trading card size). I figured I should experiment with ACEOs too.

I had finished some paintings of Lemon Sherr Birds to be made into stickers, and I found that I could just cut 3 of the originals into the correct size for ACEOs. I glued the paintings to pretty paper backings, trimmed them down to size, and drew some lovely swirls, dots, and stitch lines around the borders (I do adore stitch lines!) Then I coloured the borders with a blue pencil crayon. For the back, I designed and printed out some "official" looking labels so that I could write the title and date in a neat format. I've also signed each one.

I'm not sure if these ACEOs will sell well or not in the store, but it's a fun experiment. In any case, I like the idea of making these ACEOs because they let the paintings stay as collectable art, rather than something more practical like bookmarks. I like art for art's sake sometimes.

I hope you had a good Remembrance Day holiday. I went to the local Legion. Every year they fire a canon 21 times as young folks from cadets and other related groups line the streets in salute. Of course there is also the traditional trumpet song and some songs by bag pipes.

A small boy in front of us cheerfully cried, "Mommy! Daddy! Mommy! Daddy!" repeatedly as he high fived them back and forth. I found it ironic as I thought of how many children lost their mothers and fathers in the wars. He also freaked out every time the canon went off.