Bird and Binder

I've been very busy this week painting out new birds. The latest complete one is the little chaffinch pictured below and I have one in progress at the moment of a humming bird. I really enjoy painting the birds but I'm doing a few sketches as well of some other ideas that will complement them. I'm also excited to say I've sent the first couple away to the printers for some giclee prints so we'll see how those turn out later in the week.

 

I have also found a new way of storing my ACEOs. I used to keep them all in a little white box but I've started to put them all in a binder in little pockets together. I got the idea from my son who collects football cards in these little pockets. I liked the look of the album he was making and thought I'd have one too, only with all my coramantic minis!

 



Flurries of painting, flurries of snow

The snow hit St Andrews today, it's been on and off in little flurries and it's very chilly. I've been wrapped up warm and busy painting away. I've painted out a few more ACEOs and also been working on a 7" x 5" acrylic painting of one of my little ladies. Here's a quick peek at the action on my desk and yes lots of mess with paint.

 

 

 

 

I've been painting some of my ladies with softer muted colours and others a bit wilder. I absolutely love this bright orange red - it's great for cheeks and hair.

 



A Nip In The Air

It's very chilly here at the moment and we definitely feel like we are well on the way towards winter. I quite like this time of year, when the leaves fall of the trees and you can walk along crunching them in the cold autumn air. My wardrobe agrees with me and around 70% of my clothes are winter clothes, I love knitwear, boots and wool coats. Halloween and Guy Fawkes are always exciting too- my son has his skeleton costume lined up for the Halloween party and we have a pumpkin just waiting to be carved. Last year we went to a huge fireworks display on the 5th November so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a similar event nearby this year.

In terms of new work I have been creating a few new ACEOs lately that I wanted to share with you- with quite a winter theme.

 

 



I hope you like them, they are still quite light and whimsical but with a slightly chilly feel. I'm not sure what I was thinking with the last one but she made me laugh when I saw her appear on the paper- I thought where did you come from running round like that in the cold, but she seems quite pleased with herself!

 

All these ACEOs are available in my etsy shop and at the moment, for a limited time (until I run out, I only have a few) with each order in my shop I will pop in a free surprise Christmas card and matching envelope- just mention the offer on etsy at time of order- It doesn't matter how much the spend.

 

 

 



 

 

Back to birds...and bubbles

I showed you in my last post some of the swallows I had been sketching so I thought I'd pop back with some of my painted versions. This one is called 'A Little Bird Told Me', painted with quite cool tones of pink, blue and lilac.

This painting below is a little lady in her pyjamas dancing through bubbles with the moon and the sun.

I'd love to know if you think any of these would work well as prints...or not. I'm trying to think about my target market a bit more at the moment. I'm hoping to create a larger variety of work as I plan to reduce the amount of originals in my etsy shop as I introduce prints. I won't be getting rid of all original work though by any means, once I've got my first few prints sorted out I plan to create some new aceos. For my current ACEOs I'm having 30% off for the rest of the week with code BIRD30 for blog readers and facebook fans.

I have a busy couple of weeks ahead as we prepare for my son to finish up at nursery - lots of meetings and trips and things. Then that's us into the school holidays for a whole six weeks! I'll pop back soon to show you some of the other paintings I've been working on.

What are ACEOs ?

I recently carried out a little survey on facebook to see how many coramantic fans knew what ACEOs were, the results came back that about a third did not know what they were. I thought I would share a little ACEO info over here for anyone who does not know what ACEOs are or would like to know a bit more about them.

 Red Head With Glasses ACEO by
Little Nore

Do you remember as a kid having a sticker book, or trading cards where you would try to collect them all and build up a great assortment, it was fun finding the ones you needed and great swapping doubles with friends. ACEOs are a bit like this, only maybe more for grown ups (well I say that but anyone can collect). If you like art and have a favourite artist or two but really you don't want to be buying large pieces of art from them all the time then ACEOs are the solution. You can also buy albums and sleeves especially for them.

 

 Baby Crow At The Spa by Magic Love Crow

ACEOs have one main rule and that is that they must be 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches in size. I usually make mine from card with mixed media including gouache, pencil and ink but they can be made loads of different ways - collage, acrylic, watercolour etc. ACEOs can be original art or prints and when buying them it's important to check which one it is you are getting because prices can vary greatly. I like to only create originals personally as I feel collectors can build up their own unique collection.

 The Hunter by Nightsparklies

Etsy is a great place to find ACEOs you will find all different, wonderful styles, all the ACEOs in his post are available on etsy. One warning with ACEOs though - they can be addictive!

ACEO Love

I've spent the last couple of days making some new ACEO's, I really enjoy making ACEO's - I love working on a small scale and I can be quite spontaneous with them. I make them by painting out a background in gouache then drawing on top with ink before putting in any solid areas of gouache and finally adding pen and pencil detail.

Here are a couple of the final ACEO's I made and below shows a little bit of the chaos that goes into making them ;0)

These ACEOs are both for sale in my etsy shop and I also have an offer in my shop at the moment where you can buy an A4, A5 or A6 original illustration and get another one free - just until November 11th.