Good bye 2012

This year that is coming to an end, had many blessings, and some really bad things. In a personal level...
We said good bye to my mother in law, and even when she had been ill for a long time, it still was hard to believe that we won't see her anymore. A great part of my family memories happened around her or in her house. Couldn't ask for better  in-laws, they both were a blessing in my life.
My dad fell ill, but is doing much better.
My son graduated from HS with good grades, my baby girl turned 15... my husband and I celebrated happy 20 years together ♥ All of these are blessings.

In an artsy level, I feel I grew more as a painter in some ways, but procrastinated in others. Like I have said before, balance doesn't come easy to me, but I at least try to enjoy the battle.
Celebrating the leap year with portraits was a wonderful experience, and I had the pleasure to play and meet so many other art inclined people, from all over the world. What a joy!

I guess life is like that. Along with the good, comes the sad, and mixed with the tears come some smiles.

My wish for you, my dear blog friends, is that you have more smiles and joyful moments than sadness. That you have always good company and health to enjoy the time together, and that you will always find the beauty around you and the time to capture it on paper or canvas with your brush. (or pencil... or mouse... or camera... you get the point).

I will not make unrealistic resolutions, since most of them fall to crumbs within weeks then I feel bad. But I do want to keep doing the best I can, as much as I can, for as long as I can. In the most positive and constructive ways.

I hope you will continue visiting my blog, and also participate in the next "29 faces" coming next February!  Hugs and blessings.

The moon

What a beautiful moon we have! I took some pictures yesterday and tonight, such a lovely moon. I got a new digital camera for Christmas and it has a bunch of effects. So far I am loving it even if I'm not sure how to use them all the right way :o)

These are some of my shots of the full moon, enjoy.

Thanks for visiting ♥

Love

Whatever you celebrate this time of year, may you find many reasons for happiness.
And much health, loving company, extra cash in your pocket for 2013!

Nothing much

So.... we made it. I knew it before hand because my buddies in Australia and New Zealand told me so lol

Anyway, I am happy that the last 2 nights we had frost, which is necessary to get rid of all the unwanted bugs, that brings a cold but crisp day afterwards. Which is unusual this time of year where we usually have gray fog. It helps with my holiday issues.
Do you have the winter blues? (no, not you guys in the South Hemisphere!)

I get the ups and downs... too many sad things going on, but I am blessed with my family so I can't complain...:oP

In case you have not noticed, there's not much art going on at my table lately, but I managed to make the text-image posted here with one of my cool fonts :o)

Are you ready for Christmas???

Ouchie

Hello friends! I had a break from the blog mostly because I have not really been able to sit for a long enough time at the computer. I had some dental work done and was more than I imagined and more pain that I cared for, so I have just short times when I go to FB and post or read a couple of things.
I'm feeling better and hopefully tomorrow they will take the stitches. I look like chipmunk with a puffy cheek :o,

Anyway... here's a WIP of an ACEO

I also want to share some cheerful Christmas songs, enjoy!

12 12 12

I can't believe we are this far into the year, but it is fun to see repetitive dates. I guess this is the last one in our life time, unless we add another month and year XoD

Oh well...
I have been listing holiday ACEO in my new shop, click the pic to see!

Thanks for your comments and have fun, whatever you are doing!

Changes

I made some changes, like I mentioned before. I was aiming for quirky and a face looking in the distance, but after a while I decided that I like it better when the portrait is looking at you.

So, I am retaking photos as well.
Thanks for visiting!

OMG! December...

What happened to my year! It was brand new not too long ago...

Well, at least we have nice weather. Just a hint of rain and cool breeze.
I went out to take pictures of my flowers before the real winter gets here and most of them go dormant. I had my photo assistant cat following me and directing the shots :oD

 

 Click after the brake to see all the images...

Blog image storage?

Hey guys, I recently heard that picasa/blogspot have a limit on their storage, and after you run out of space you have to pay. Some people have ran out of space, but they are recent bloggers, and I have been here for 7 years and still have not run into that problem.

See how little room I have used in 7 years of posting? and I always include images.
That got me thinking.... It has to be the size of the image, not the amount of pictures.

Sure enough, after a little bit of searching, I came across an article that pretty much says that: if you keep your images small or with less resolution, like in 70s or 80s size, you are in the safe side.

That is great news! Number one, for a faster downloading of your pages for your visitors, it is always a good idea to keep the images small, and also to try to keep the image-grabbers to get your work then use it somewhere else (which can happen anyway but it helps to keep low res.)

So this is a new reason why keep your images small. They recommend less than 800 pixels, I use about 400 most of the time. And my videos are embedded from youtube.

How much room do you have left? click HERE to see directly your own storage level.

If you see you are close to the limit, you can: go each post, check the image size, edit, re-upload, re-publish. Lots of work, but well worth it.
or, get a photobucket free membership, and bring the code to your post.

Let me know how much space you have! (◠‿◠)

Update:  About editing images....
Most computers come with Paint program, or you can download a version online of a photo editor, there are many for free but you have to try a couple to see which one you like best. Once you have a program --I personally love an OLD version of MS Photo Editor because it is very basic but does all I need. Lets say we do "Paint" for now: you open your image there, and look in the menu for "Resize" and/or "Crop".
If you have too much empty space in the image, crop it out with that tool.

If you have a nice composition or don't want to crop anything, just go to Resize and select a percentage. Most of the time you do around 50% but sometimes it can be more, depending on your camera settings. The more quality the image, the larger it will be in the computer. In some programs you can go to "Properties" and make the image have less "Resolution" which will make it even lighter to upload, store and download, which makes for a faster page to open. A light Resolution is around 70 to 80. But if you are into giving photography to readers, or backgrounds, you will need a huge resolution for better quality!

Once you are done with the editing, always do "Save as" and not just "Save" so you keep the original as well.
Then just go back to the old posts, change the images for the lighter version, and make sure you delete the larger images from the Picasa  files. Ta-daa!
 
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Second part

I finally gave up on youtube's weird act. I uploaded the video several times, saved it even in different ways and it still looks tiny to me! I think that it is some kind of dysfunctional relationship with firefox, because it looks fine in explorer. ( ¬_¬)

 So, if you go to the channel and looks tiny to you, please try explorer. I think it looks fine in Chrome as well.

Here's the Part 2 of the video.


That's it for now, have an awesome day and keep your paintbrush wet!

New shop's listings

I have been listing in my new ACEO shop, here are some of them... Some are a real low price! All of the originals. Just click to visit ٩(- ̮̮̃-̃)۶

ThanksGiving

Even when so many sad things happened this year (in so many levels: personal, local, national, global...) I want to make a point of being thankful for what I have.
Thankful for our health, for our family, friends... including my wonderful online friends!

Also thankful for our needs are covered and we are able to help others, if only in a small way sometimes.
Although this is a US celebration, I wish for all to find something to be thankful and feel lucky for something in their lives ♥

Hope you had a nice day with some yummy pie. (◔‿◔)

Video, finally

It has been such a pain to upload this video in YT, I think my browser is the culprit, but also some new upgrades in youtube. I can see it well in explorer, but it shows just some tiny screen on my firefox.(o.0) I hope you can see it well in my blog, if nothing else.

However, I hope that if you like it well enough, you will subscribe to my channel.(^_,^)
I will be battling, I mean uploading the second part shortly...


Thanks for visiting!

Portrait WIP

All these past days were very stressing with the elections, and I have not been inspired in the least with the results. I just keep praying that there is a reason to the events. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Now, the fun part of the post is all the colors I have been adding to this canvas, which has been on my table for quite a while. There is a video of it coming soon, hopefully ;o)

WIP. This is how she started:

 

This is in the middle of the process,  when I noticed one of her eyes was off kilter, and she was not looking at me directly. I fixed it and also was not happy with the hair, but got stuck and had no idea where to go....

 

So I decided to play with a couple of ideas and elements. Different hairline, washes and I was very tempted to paint a bird....

I am much happier with it now. She is looking directly at your eye; I like the halo, but still feel I'm not done. I will keep playing for a little while longer.

Thanks for visiting and keep an eye over here, I will be editing the video to post it maybe in a couple of days, even if youtube takes forever to upload :o)

Chat and Art

These are some ACEO I have been working on between running like maniac with kids errands and house stuff (I am so thankful Friday is around the corner!!)

Thanks for visiting and remember not to eat all your Halloween candy in one sitting! lol
We spend the evening at the book store, and tomorrow will go to a Dia de los Muertos show down town, can't wait to eat a sugar or chocolate skull! ♥

How was your week so far?

Well, the days are just too fast but I'm not having fun, so i don't understand why five... what, six days went whooooshh! past me...
Anyway, my DH is better, I have been able to sleep a little bit more, and finally the video I mentioned weeks ago is finally done, I had problems with the editing, somehow the music didn't want to cooperate with me until I did it the 4th time; also I have been filming for another class. I would cross my fingers for it to be ready fast, but then how would I keep working, right? :oB


I hope you are not too cold where you are, we just started to get some cool breeze and cold nights, but nothing compared to more to the north.
Have a great weekend!

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Halloween stuff

I listed some Halloween goodies in my new shop, and in ebay
 ACEOs....(Be the first one leaving me feedback?)

The mask I posted about earlier is in ebay:

 This little guy is Wendell, he lives in a tiny gourd:

I will be listing more Art in my Etsy shop. Wish me luck! ♥

And plenty of all kinds of orange hues ... for Mandarin Orange Monday! 

We have 2 winners!

Here is the video of the "almost 600 giveaway" I didn't want to post without a video, and the site was too slow, I had to start again today. All is good.
Thank you ALL for participating, for visiting, for making my little blog a place I love.
I really hope you find something inspiring that will inspire you to create and have fun.

Maybe it is a good time to suggest ways of searching in the blog (and make you wait a bit more for the winners result... hehehe)

tip: I have buttons to click on the top menu, there's also random older posts on the left side bar, and there is the label cloud, also on the side bar, with a bunch of tags and labels you can click to see all the older postings.

And now... Ta Daaaa... the video!


Thanks for visiting! ♥

FaceBook note, and art

For some of those in facebook, you probably noticed a new little link that invites you to promote. Not everyone is seeing it yet, but I'm sure it is a matter of time.
When it is a business page, well, that might be ok, but for a personal page? I don't think it is right, specially when they will charge you about 6.00 dollars just to let your own readers see your post. More about it HERE
In any case, if you want to keep seeing my FB page, do the following:

To keep on RECEIVING POSTS you have to OPEN THE PAGE, hover the mouse on the "Like" button near the gear symbol. In the pop-up select "ADD TO THE INTEREST LISTS".
So, "Like" the pages you want, then do step 1 and 2.

 Doing so will assure that you continue getting posts from ALL pages you love. Hopefully I will be on your list  (☆◠‿◠☆)

Now, the art part of this post: These are the sample hair I made, to see what I'd like best for this particular page. I'm going with the pink so far.

 Thanks for visiting!
 

Regrouping

I am so happy the past week is over. First we had bunch of birthdays, one of them mine on the 9th, which I spent busy doing a surprise party for my daughter, and I was a bit sentimental because I miss my family. Then right after it was my DH's birthday as well, and right after that, a surgery he needed. He is fine, but it was a stressing week. I felt completely spread thin and splattered in a bunch of directions, like mercury.
So right now I'm regrouping my emotions, my creativity time, my goals. I am so behind so many things aghhh!

I have been missing my blog, was not planning on skipping so many days! But I have been checking on FB here and there when I can come to my desk. No, I don't want the internet in a cellphone and spend more time online! :o3

Thank you so very much to all the good wishes I got for my cake-day, you guys rock!! ♥
I'm sharing this yummy teramisu with you all:

Don't forget to click HERE to post and participate in the giveaway! One winner for the US, and one winner for an international participant ♥ The 15th of October is the last day!

Orange

I am re-posting an image, from the WIP of the art that is for an international winner of my "almost 600 followers giveaway" which, we are 3 more over by now, thanks! Don't forget to click and post there, to play)
... And welcome to my blog all new readers! Feel free to ask questions, make comments and click all over the links and older posts.

So, the reason for the post is "orange" which is about this awesome blog I was invited to participate in, for Mondays. I do love the orange color, it is one of those hard to place, but oh-so-happy when you see it in art!
I use it often. As under painting like this case, or as a background, or in details.

Visit the MoM Mandarin Orange Monday blog and have fun too! (Greetings to all my Australian friends!)

Trip to the Museum

Don't forget to visit HERE to participate in my giveaway!

We spend a wonderful day yesterday, visiting the Getty Museum, a couple of hours drive from our town. It is such a beautiful place! First thing I wanted to do, was to see one of my favorite paintings:

This was a happy day for Vincent, I think

 In previous visits, it had been too windy so we never really spend time in the gardens, but this time we had perfect weather and we enjoyed all the colors out there too.

Their exhibit for this fall is The Art of Devotion, from the middle ages:

 

 

 Don't forget to click after the cut to see more photos of exhibit!

October news and Giveaway!

I spent tons of hours the last couple of days, opening a new Etsy shop, and listing dolls and ACEO. That is just part of what I had mentioned days ago.
I do not know if it is crazy to separate everything, instead of keeping it in the same shop.... but people keep saying not to mix different art (And some go as far as not to mix styles or different mediums... I am not to go there, forget it! :oP)

So, all my little art and tiny dolls have a new nest. Called ACEOandArtDolls. Can't be more specific than that (✿◠‿◠)   Click HERE to see and wish me luck :o)

And now for the Giveaway!
Update: Winners HERE 
  The "almost 600" giveaway... so exciting!

These are original paintings, acrylics and medium, lots of texture and layers, on heavy watercolor paper.

For my US friends 11.5x9 inches :

For other countries I have this (All countries can play!): 11.5x9 inches

If you want to play to win one of them, you can:

-Post here and tell me to add you, here in THIS post.
Additionally, if you want...
-Share in FB and come to post you did
-Share in twitter, come and post here
-Share in your blog with the button, or just a post;

..if you like something you see, follow my FB PAGE or my YT CHANNEL
But ONLY if you like it, you don't have to! :o)

-Post or share in any other network you like, and that will be another entry to win!

 ~~*~~

 So that is a bunch of chances to have your name drawn, increasing the chances.
If there is a lot of people participating, I will add more art to giveaway.

I will randomly select a US winner and an international winner on the 15th of October.
Make sure there is a way for me to contact you! Private profiles won't allow me a way to notify winners.
And more close-ups of the art HERE

Close ups for Giveaway

Here are some fun close-up of one of the giveaway's paintings. They look like cool abstract work, hey?

Click HERE to see the giveaway post and participate. Open till October 15th
Any comments in this post are not entries But I appreciate them anyway :o)

End of month

In the spirit of 29 faces, I want to close the month's challenge with a very old drawing. This is something I made for my husband, back in 1992, before our wedding. I made it as a self portrait, in a letter that I sent to him, telling him how my thoughts were all sunshine, birds flying, stars and clouds. All the cute things a girl thinks of her boyfriend, or in this case, fiance. ♥
This was before I knew of internet, zentangles or any of that stuff. Something triggered in my mind, after the ink face I made couple of days back... I knew I made a similar thing long  ago. And the best part is that he kept it all these years Xo)

Do you have old drawings? Isn't it fun to see old art work?

Three dear friends

These are my last faces to complete 29. I was in shock to see there were some missing, since I took extra time to finish some of the pieces. But anyway, with this little painting, I'm all done :o)
I decided for the coming holidays and because I like the Mexican folklore, I was going to do another Day of the dead art. This is a postcard size acrylic painting.

Their names are from Left to right: Hope, Faith and Charity.

 
They love to chat over a cup of tea, only that Faith insists on having their tea outdoors, because Hope and Charity make a mess, with them being all bones and that.

~*~

I want to thank everyone that participated in this last 29 faces challenge of the year ♥
So much fun, joy, learning, experimenting, and sometimes stress, shock and disappointment... but hopefully we all did something new, something difficult, met new friends, and learned a bit more about ourselves in the process.

Shall we do it again next year, in February?

Bunch of friends

These are 4 faces today! Cartoon style.
My version of the story:
Tommy took his girlfriend (and her friends) to watch a funny comedy to the movies but she was all teary eyed, while one of the friends was stealing all the popcorn and the other was all mad.
Over all, this was not a good date for Tommy.

My daughter said: "There are all strangers. Tommy is looking upon the uncalled for tears of the girl in purple, while the girl in pink is SO into the scene that she is eating the popcorn of the polka dot woman, who is not a fan of the movie, and is deeply disturbed, at a stranger eating her popcorn, which is very expensive at the movies."

What is your story version of this drawing? :oD

Funny exercise

I used all the left over paint from the last face, just smooshed it up in the paper, and then I made kind of shapes. Today I made the face features, and I was going to leave it like that, but then I went a bit more detailed until I got stuck in the hair part hehehe
I will see what kind of hair I will give her tomorrow :o)

Ginger? Brunette? Blond? I'm thinking of a wild color, to match her style :o)

Renaissance funk

 I have no idea how to call this portrait. It started as a mildly renaissance style lady (sans all the details!) and then decided to go without a sketch. The results is pretty funky, don't you think? The first layer is black gesso, which is not my usual.
After looking at it for a while, I like the end result. She is not pretty, but has something that catches the eye, maybe the intensity of color.

.... 4 more days!

zentangle

I don't care what they say... this was not relaxing! lol
I made a zentangle doodle face for my 25th day on the challenge. It was hard for me, took me a while to get into it, and the best part was inking.

I admire the people that can do it and looks so effortless...  But anyway, my intention was to make her like a mermaid, and somehow has an oriental look.
Can you believe we are just 5 days to the end of the challenge?

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Almost finished old portrait

This face went through a big change. The old stained paper collage is not even visible... something that I wanted to keep, but splashing color was ore fun at the moment hehehe
I wish I had a matte crackle finish! Mine is shiny and I don't like that for this particular page. Even if I cover with medium, will remain glossy.
If you know of a matte brand, let me know :o)
I'm still working on her, she needs eyelashes and a couple of more things, but tonight is Back to school night so I better run, and do the marathon all over the campus till like 9 pm :oP

Video coming soon....

So many styles, so many thoughts...

You know how Scientist discover laws that everyone already knew about, or thought about, then they name them after themselves?
Well, here's a new one for ya...
Martha's law: Thou shall not Selleth, what thou doth not Listeth.
In other words--I'd better start filling up my Etsy shop!

But there's this thing... I don't like to stick too long to a style or medium. I tend to run from one style or size or substrate, to the next almost opposite. And when I hear they recommend to "do one thing and have only one style in your shop" that kinds of pokes a hole in my inspiration...
I recently heard Gotye saying that he likes to explore whatever he can in music, and he only gets excited  to work in the next project if it is significantly different from what he was doing last... and that is exactly the way I feel.
It was so relieving to hear that from someone else, in some other unrelated form of art.

I was not kidding when I said in the PPF blog that I suffered from "Quoque plures penicullus incompositus" which is fancy Latin for "Too many styles disorder". I term I coined and translated into Latin, to give it a fancy twist ;o)
Although I should say I enjoy the condition, not suffer from it. That little change can make a world of difference.

That has been stopping me from offering and listing all my recent work.  The thought of "who's going to like it" or "who's going to even find it" comes to mind after seeing that most of it doesn't even look like it came from the same pair of hands...!

But the answer will always be no one.... if it is not listed and offered, right?

So, for better or worse, and with the best of wishes, I will be listing and reopening my Etsy shop, (...and an online gallery I have been quietly working on for a while, but, shhh! Not quite ready to talk about it just yet)

With all that said, this is my collaborative face for today. My daughter finished the details of this sketch titled "Stop the negative thoughts!"

I invite you to do the same. Stop any negative thought and keep your art going ♥

Paper bag face

We went to the bookstore and of course I had to get a chocolate fix :oD
While sitting there, I started to doodle a portrait of my daughter. At the end, it didn't look like her, but whatever... I kept it to bring it home to the scanner. I like the image with the bag and all ;o)

 

Portrait on collage

I'm liking this one face! I collage a page of "old paper" and made a charcoal face, in the style of the old encaustic portraits:

I will add some color. I'm thinking of ochre, burgundy, gold, and black. The rest of the blank page, I think I want it in dark blue, maybe, not sure yet.

Working on Dali

After so many kind comments... here's what I re-worked today:
The cat is gone, replaced by a clock, more his style. I will ad water soluble wax pastels.

 

I added water soluble wax pastels:

The problem with a journal page for me is that I'm always and forever running out of space :oP 

Well, if nothing else, this page is funny.