30th of 30 days of Art....

Well, what do you know...? We are in the 30th day of 30! I didn't do much painting today, but I managed to do a bit of collage, a bit of editing in a video, and took a picture for the blog. Which by the way, I worked also on my blog remodeling and new buttons, coming up sometime after Oct 10th.
For the past few days I have been playing with all kinds stuff to incorporate to a mixed media painting. This project could end up being a tutorial video. But time -and editing- will tell :o)

For now, here's a photo of a work in progress. DH says I should stop right there... I want to keep going a bit more. We'll see at the end how it looks!

Work in progress Mixed Media Acrylic paint

Thanks for visiting! These 30 days to get your art on were awesome for the creativity point of view; it was a great wave of energy for me,  but it was also a bit stressing with all the computer drama and other stuff, and feeling that I had to come and post, even if it was 10 pm like right now! So... you won't see me tomorrow! But I will be back with more to share! ♥

Oh wow... I have 389 blog friends! That's too close to 400. Sounds to me like it's time for another Giveaway!

Mermaid WIP 29th of 30 days of art

Today was a weird day. We were going to do one thing, but we had to do another... and I the end, we did neither. I pretty much stayed home with a kid still getting better of a cold, and another with a bunch of homework, while my husband went to see his mom at the hospital. I didn't want to take a sick kid and make grandma feel even worse.

So anyway, I worked on a video that I will post next week, did a bunch of house work, and managed to kinda sorta begin to ink one of my mermaids. Her hair is coral... with ink her eye difference in size can be more noticeable.
Maybe with a different technique I feel more inclined with following this line. Ink and diluted acrylics are not calling me for this one piece in particular. (-'_'-)

I also worked in some "social media" buttons for my blog, like youtube, twitter, facebook, etc. I guess it's that time of year when I get itchy for changing things around, only that I don't have a lot of time for it right now, but it is in my mind :o)  When I made the ones for my website, it took me forever, but hopefully this time around it will be easier.

Thanks for coming by!

Feel like spammer... and my 28th day of 30

One of my plans is being more active in my videos again, and invite people to be part of it, if they are interested. I very rarely send bulk emails. And I just sent one. It was to a list of friends, not strangers but I still nevertheless, feel uncomfortable now :oP
I suppose I can put together a newsletter and have people decide if they want to sign up. Maybe that will remedy the spammy guilty feeling :o) One more thing for my "to do" list I guess.

The art part of this post consists of a series of sketches I made based on mermaids. I absolutely love mermaids, and in fact, they were one of my favorite things that I drew since I was a little girl.

I started these a while ago, but never got to the ink part of it, because I hesitated in the new character with one eye smaller than the other. I wanted to create something different than what I usually do, and at the moment I liked it, but then I thought.... maybe not so much. It would be, if anything, just a small series as opposed an ongoing theme or character, that I think is better, in the sense that you get to be known for "it", whatever "it" might be.
Which is another of my constant goals: to have some common thread in the style, or some main theme that will be recognizable, and not something so variable, random and hotchpotch that not even myself would know who made it lol :oD

That's the problem when you like doing too many things and too many styles I guess.
Have a good day!

PPF and 27th day of 30

Getting close to the goal of 30 days! Hello PPF!  I actually rushed to have this video ready to show for this party, I hope you like it! I am aiming to be more actively making videos, so you might like to subscribe to get them in your youtube page.

Remember. Woman with calla lilies

I hope you have fun visiting blogs! I know I do, for the whole week ♥
Thank you so very much for all your comments!

Check my available art and online classes get my newsletter

Halloween ACEOs for the 26th day of 30

I want to say, the best part of a challenge is to push the regular schedule and get out of the comfort zone. It's been close to a month for this 30 days of art, and I have enjoyed the challenge even with all the household and computer drama, because I felt a new wave of creativity in my mind.
I do not work fast, and I don't know how some people have a video ready each week, with all the complicated taping, editing and working.... so far I am in the second video, of the 3 I challenged myself to make. It is a very simple video, mind you. But will upload in youtube tomorrow.
The other thing to challenge besides painting daily, is adding them to Etsy...! so I listed 2 ACEO today that I painted a few days ago, click picture to see listing:

Funny Paper Bag Costume

Pumpkin Balloon

I think their little dresses turned out cute. I am not always happy with the dresses :o)

At the end of the challenge, I will go back to post every other day. I think that leaves the post with a bit more time of exposure, although some people get the post by email.
But definitely I need to list more, so I can paint more!
Thanks for visiting and see you soon ♥

Video, and 25th of 30 days of Art

One of the paintings is done, and the video is up:



If you like it please rate thumbs up at the youtube site! :oD

Fail Monday , Better Tuesday, 24th of 30 of Art

Well, I am glad yesterday is over. Some Mondays are like that. I was able to be online a couple of times for a couple of minutes but I had my poor baby sick, so I had gatorade in hand and a mission to make sure she would drink it. She grew another inch this past 2 days she was sick!
Today I send her to school since she had no fever but told her to call me if she didn't feel good. I am on call. And later this afternoon is my son's Senior pictures, so he better not get sick too! :o)

I painted yesterday but at the end of the day, didn't even post. Oh well. All it took was an intention to blog for 30 days in a row to have all kinds of calamities falling down on my head LOL I give up! There had been a bunch of times when I can do it, I come to post, I have the art, and nothing happens, but for whatever reason these past few weeks went nuts. :oP

I am actually working on a couple of videos, but not done taping, and it takes time to edit. But I have a scanned picture and here it is:

 

Still needs more shadowing but so far I like the eyes.
Thanks for visiting and for your comments :o)

The chicken story, WIP Art, and the 23rd day of 30

Sorry guys! I thought I had posted about my long distance black chicken pet before, but I didn't!

Here we go: Months ago, probably close to a year now, going down the Avenue towards the Highway, I saw what looked like a very chunky crow, but in a closer look, it was a black chicken, running free down the road! We were laughing about it, wonder how it got there, and I "adopted" her as a long distance pet. She is my black chicken.
Some weeks it disappears and later on I see it again, eating by the curb. We even stopped once to try to catch it, but it runs too fast with her long legs, she is a funny silly thing.

We took pictures of it with the cell phone but are tiny. In the ways things go, the days I have the camera, the darn chicken is hidden from view, just the shadow or nothing... and the days I am busy or can't take a picture there she is sitting pretty by a bush LOL
There is also a kid fox in that same spot, but they seem to ignore each other. and like 300 squirrels that roam around that side of the fence. There's a canal on the other side, and an oil pump, so no one will be building anything. 

There she is, ornery thing... hiding from my camera

Somewhere down the Highway there's a place where they sell eggs, chickies and feed, we think somehow it fell from a truck or maybe even ran away from the shop.

Now, moving to the Art part of the post, this is the other lady from the video:

Now please wish me luck, because my daughter seems to have the same thing my DH had.... poor baby :o(
She spent the day with fever, but the good thing is that she went to the fair already, if we had waited for today like I wanted, our plans would been ruined.

WIP, the Fair and 22nd day of 30

This is one of the little paintings I had in the video, and is just in progress, Looking at it in the monitor I see some details I have to work on, like the eye, which is not visible when you look at it in person, but somehow, looking at an image on the monitor, or printed, even just turning it upside down, it helps to see proportions differently. If nothing else, holding it in front of a mirror helps a lot too. I am planning to do some fun stuff when all the colors are painted, but I will show it later, not telling what it is :o)

We went to the county fair today. Just my younger kid and I, since the guys were still under the weather, and thank goodness the weather was nice (for those in the north my weather was probably horridly hot, but for us in the south, it was better than out typical day in the 100s lol), because I really didn't want to go so early, but her friends were going at that time so.,. got my umbrella for a shade, and went to the 90+ degrees heat, armed with a bottle of water.
We had fun, and I of course went to all the crafts booths and the Art exhibit where they have at least coolers, because I was not going to survive a 6 hours walk in that weather ;oP
I wish I had taken my camera! I had the cell but the pictures are tiny.
We went to see all the pigs, sheep, cows (they had a baby calf 1 day old!) and the chickens. That reminded me of my "long distance" pet, a black chicken. I think I have talked about her before. It's a funny story:
Now I better post this before I run out of Saturday!

Running out of time for the 21th day of 30

Today was a crazy busy day. (Not such a Paint Party Friday) Started around 1 AM with a sick husband (food poisoning, not my cooking though!) And continued with late-for-school kids, a hair apptm gone wrong, running with wet hair to pick up a sick kid from school and then making a quick doctor visit because said kid couldn't see well in one eye. Have you ever heard of migraines in the eye??? I never in my life heard of such a thing, but that was the doctor said.
By the time I was getting out of that visit, it was time to get my younger kid, then food, homework, errands (to get more gatorade for the poor DH) run to the post office and by the time I turned around it was time for dinner, and frankly, art was not in my list of things to do, just in my mind. Sometimes that's all the juice you'll get from a day.

That said, I want to share an awesome video "one more thing, on more time" of one of the coolest people out there:

Click to see video 1mt1mt

His videos are not only motivational and inspiring, they are also artistic and funny. If at the end of the video you are not half in love with Josh, you need to take more vitamins! LOL  (Check ALL his videos!)
Hope your Friday was better.... Have a beautiful and healthy weekend!

*You probably want to see newer posts if you come after Friday... I actually have art uploaded! :o) Click on the top banner and see what's up, Thanks for visiting!

20th day of 30... so fast?

It's hard to believe that I am on day 20 of this challenge. Everything that can be going wrong, has been going wrong.... I think that has to be a new online Murphy's law or something :o}
From computer problems, to blog problems... to forgetting to post (We had the "back to school" night so I was in a hurry) then finally a day with no internet, because somehow one of the cables was pulled out of the thingie. Took me all day to figure, actually, I didn't figure it out, it was my husband. Probably the kids kicked it or pulled it accidentally, the thing is, I had no internet, but plenty of time to do stuff around.

For now I have the last of the Fall inspired ACEO:

Paper bag costume

Pumpkin balloon

I  think these two are my favorite of this group. I am working on some videos, but it takes time to make them and edit them. If I finish that this century, I will post them :oP 

Skeletons! 19th day of 30 days of Art

Day of the Dead ACEO finished.
Skeletons do not like dogs, I'm sure you knew that, but just in case, this little guy has a sign ;oD
Click pic to see listings

And how could I spend a fall celebration without making a Frida ACEO?

I am posting this late, but I had no internet yesterday till very late, so here you go.

Witches ACEO and 18th day of 30

Here are the couple of ACEO I finished today, two little witches! I wish I had purple boots. I already have the spiky black hat trimmed in purple cackle cackle!

Lollipop bat

Butterfly in the hat

Well, this is silly but I never clicked to post this. Oh well...

WIP ACEO and my 17th day of 30

Art I made today, so exciting to me...

 

Why? because I can finally manage my ink pen again! My thumb is getting better; I can bend it to the front, but not yet to the back... I had to run and make some ACEO with Halloween and Dia de los Muertos Art :o)
I think the funniest card is the one with the paper bag costume heheh You can't tell yet, without the color, but I will show more tomorrow.

There was no posting yesterday, on Sunday. We spent the day driving to see my MIL in the hospital and it was a long drive both ways, 7 1/2 hrs. I hope she feels better soon, it is sad to live away and have a dear family member in the hospital :o/

I hope you had a beautiful Monday. I did.

Water Mixable Oils vs Acrylics and 16th day of 30

I can't believe today I start the second half of my 30 days of blogging daily of art... wow!

Today I want to talk about my personal experience with water mixable oils, vs Acrylics. If you have been with me for a while you are probably going to hear a repeat, since I have talked about it before in other online places.... But here we go:

Although I have doodled with art all my life, when I started to paint more "seriously", I was like many people undecided about which medium to go with or what substrate. I started with watercolors on paper. They are sweet and I love them, but that didn't fill up my hunger. So I quickly moved to oils because they are the "real thing".... right? The traditional, classic, real art.

Oils on canvas was the thing..... Only, it was way too stinky for me. I almost quit art right then and there, because there was no way I was going to be using that near my children. But then I was introduced to the water soluble oils about 10 years ago. I took a workshop, and loved them to pieces. I didn't try anything else for a long while, but the thing that bothered me was the time to dry. I don't always want to paint wet on wet, being afraid to mess up one particular corner that I like the way it looks, don't want to touch with a brush again and ruin my master piece (Isn't it always the current painting our most treasured master piece? hehe).

Paint Party Friday and 15th day of 30

Welcome Paint Party Friday! Hello to my old friends, and great to meet new visitors. I hope you click around and find something to entertain you for a while, and make you feel like coming back '(-._,•)`

I have been working like a maniac! Isn't it funny how some times you are completely blocked, and all of a sudden the muses attack you? Well, my muses are in inspiration mode so I have been busy.

This is my current mixed media painting, which had started as a close up, didn't convince me so well, so after a few weeks I painted on top and the result has me feeling happier:

This is how it looked like before, as you can see, I pretty much changed everything. I wish I had remember to take a picture in progress of when I started the changes, but I didn't. I basically added texture and collage elements with matte medium and acrylics.

And a song so you feel happy.



Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful creative weekend!
when you are ready go to the rest of the Party

The Fall sale, the art and the 14th day of 30

Hey there! I want to tell you about my fall sale in my Etsy shop! 15% off for every item, plus if you check, there are some pieces with free shipping! The code is Fall15off, so come take a look and see if there's something you like: http://www.etsy.com/shop/AyalaArt

I was told by a friend that reads the blog by mail, that the links on my side bar are not visible,  there is no way to know of shop, auctions etc... Maybe, I should start posting them in the body of the actual blog, not the side bars.

I am also getting ready to post bigger pieces.

(Hours later....still not done with the post )
OK, I had to go out, run errands, deal with a couple of unexpected things. Ran out of time to actually do what I meant for today, then it was time for the kids to come home, braces appointments... stuff.
The good part is that we stopped for ice cream in the way back :o)

I will leave you with a WIP of a Madonna I'm painting:

No, I am not going to stop there heheeh

Day of the Dead ~ Dia de los Muertos. 13th day of 30

I am running a paper doll challenge, everyone is invited. It is a very early Day of the Day/Dia de los Muertos celebration, and I am posting here because being it a hand made paper doll, I had to paint and it's turning out cute, if I may say that myself ;o)

Here's the doll, free had drawing on water color paper, then outlined in black. a Micron, Sharpie, or any waterproof pen can be used. I wanted a thick line, but a thin line could work too.

A coat of matte medium is good, but also gesso can work for more texture. In this case I did not want bulky texture. Color with watery acrylics, for a watercolor effect that won't get ruined by weather if moisten later. Or by an accidental drop of the whole container on the table, like I have done in the past :oP
Cut along, fix the outline where needed for a finished look.

 

Keep reading after the brake...

When to stop.... and 12th day of 30

Out of the many different ways to start a painting, I follow two. One, by making my drawing of whatever I want to paint, and then add color. This way I know 90% of the time where I'm going and I have "room to wiggle" in the colors, texture and last minute elements added. But I know what it is, and pretty much, how it will look like. I like to do it that way.
The other way, is to make texture and a background, then paint something spontaneous, well, kind of spontaneous considering that I always want to paint a portrait! lol This order of painting is more free, a bit scary, and 90% I have no idea how it is going to look like at the end, or if I will just stare  at it in shock after making a mess. why? Because of not knowing when to stop.

That's the tricky part. Learning when you have to stop.

I can work on the same piece for a LONG time. Last night my husband told me to stop at the point where I had basically just started a new one. Perhaps he's right. Coming from a more realistic style, it's really hard to go to abstracted art, which is something I want to try, even if it's not totally abstract art.

When I make my ACEO I typically do illustrations, I just have so much fun that way. I have several painted as well, with oils on canvas... but seems like they don't have many fans, as I still have them after I listed them :oS

Maybe it is time to make a video slide-show, if the paintings I had the time to photograph before the "next step" which is something I often forget :oP

And after many more steps and layers...

I guess depending on how abstracted we want the end result, is when we stop, one way to say it. Although in abstract paintings you can have a zillion layers and never know when to stop I guess `(o.O)'
What do you think?

Mondays, Pricing and 11th day of 30

Today was a weird day. Started with my cat being sick and making a mess, which is never a fun thing... And continued with house work, and by the time I was ready to paint, it was almost time for the kids to come back from school. I still managed to sit and work, but a question that comes to mind of many, popped into my head: Pricing of our work.
How to price, how to have an atractive, yet fair price, and don't feel like we lost our best friend if it sells.
I have read articles, have come to my own decisions, and when I ask Etsy, all they tell you is to charge more.
I had once a person asking to lower a price. I have friends who have that happened too. One of them ended badly, since the buyer turned around and re-listed in ebay the work! :o(

To charge more, you really need to have a lot of demand, and still, it's always more incentive to start low and go up in an auction. At least that has been my experience. And to charge less is wrong, if you will end up with tears while shipping. There has to be a happy medium.

With this new way to search in Etsy, I have not figured yet WHO was benefited, because it certainly was not me! LOL My hits went slower, and that is never fun.
And I guess they know, otherwise they would have not come up with the coupon codes, rigth? That's my conclusion anyway :o)

Here's an image of some of the mixed media work I did today:

That's a detail in the corner, the rest is still too messy for words.
Oh, and for those who asked about my thumb... it's still not 100% fine, but getting there.
Darn spiders..... :o)