Talk about weather change. We had frost warnings last week and it was down to 30 degrees a couple of days ago. Today it hit 96, thats a little to warm for me this early in the Spring. I decided to stay inside where it's cool. One of the advantages of having a stucco house is that in the summer it stays pretty cool. The big problem is that it is cold in the winter.
  I've been working on ACEO's that last few weeks, trying to do a better job of marketing and getting them seen. So far it hasn't been to successful, but I'm going to give it awhile. I have been thinking about going back to doing some bigger paintings and  maybe some pastel portraits. Those are what I really enjoy doing. It's a bit harder to get business for portrait work then it is for some things.
Here are a few examples of my work.

Rainy Day
 Another cold rainy day in MO. Looks like I'm going to be working inside again today. It means more art and more spring cleaning. I'm more inclined to do the art then the cleaning. I need to have a garage sale and get rid of a lot of things I don't really need. I could use a good garage sale manual and someone to help me. I don't actually mind the getting it priced and ready, I just hate sitting out there waiting for people to come and reject my rejects. When they leave empty handed it's like they are saying your stuff is not good enough. I need a successful sale to add to my buying a new car fund. I think I have enough now that I can get a model  car if it's not over $20. I thought it would be so easy to raise money for a new car when mine died. It's a 92 Toyota Celica and it's served me well for over 10 years. When the car started over heating I found out not only did I need a new thermostat I also needed a new radiator and it as possible I had a leaking head gasket. The total would have been over $2000 and the car just wasn't worth that much. For now it is sitting in my drive waiting for someone to buy it and take it home to restore. The replace the car fund has just never got very far, so now is the time to get serious. A garage sale would be a good place to start. That might get me up to a pedal car at least.
  I've been working on some different types of art and have been using a lot of black paper. It really makes colors pop and the style I have been doing works really well on it. I have started doing what I have been calling faux mosaic. It's fun and once I got the hang of it pretty easy. Here are a couple of examples. These are all ACEO's, which are 2.5 X 3.5 inches.

I was listening to the news last night and heard that Missouri had not had snow in May since 1907, and the warmest  May 2nd we had ever had was in 1937 and it was 110. Talk about extreme weather. Today is still cold and we have had some light rain and it's just down right gloomy out. what do you do on a gloomy day? I know what I like to do. Curl up with a blanket and read a good mystery. I'm very fond of mysteries, and have been reading them since Nancy Drew, Trixie Beldon and when I was very young I read the Box Car Children and all of Enid Blyton's books. I always aspired to be an author, but I'm not sure I could sit still long enough to write a book. I did write a few poems and this is one of my favorites.

Murder She Cried
Guilty! Cried the judge.
As guilty as can be.
I sentence you to years
Of one hundred and three!
Then up jumped the woman
All dressed in bright red.
I did it! I killed him!
I'm glad he is dead.
Very quickly I did it
As he lay in our bed,
I used an iron skillet
And bashed in his head.
Various parts of him
Down the disposal they went.
The rest made into relish
To his relatives he was sent.
I'd never have been caught,
No body would have been found,
If it weren't for Aunt Bessie
Saying pickle relish ain't brown!
Now the moral of my story
Is sad, but it's true.
Don't pickle your husband
Unless you relish Aunt Bessie too.


If
If I were pretty,
If I were thin.
If I had great hair,
and a white toothy grin.
If I had been born
silver spoon in my mouth,
or groomed to preside
in the White House.
If I could win
the lotto today,
or if Ed McMahon
would come out my way.
If I could add,
multiply and subtract,
clearly it's left brain
function I lack.
If I could write
an award winning song,
or have a bottom that
looked good in a thong.
If I could play
a good lead guitar,
or sing like Alanis
I'd be a big star.
If it weren't for If,
all those things would be true.
So I am replacing the word IF,
with "Yes I can do".

OK that's it for me today, I'm going to go find that book and blanket and enjoy a cup of hot cocoa while I'm reading.  Might even find some time for some art.

Well this has started out as an interesting day. Yesterday my son Jamey came over and  mowed my yard for me. It was the first mowing of the year and the grass was thick in spots. We have had 80 degree weather for the last few days so he was out in his shorts working up a sweat. My flowers are all in full bloom and my crab apple is blooming and looking quite pretty. It rained and stormed most of the night, and for about  2 hours now we have had big huge snow flakes coming down. It's 35 degrees out and it just feels weird to have snow falling in May. Looks like I am going to stay in and do some art today. Max my Westie is in his favorite spot, on the back of the love  seat looking out the front window. even he is not excited to go out in this weird stuff.

HAPPY MAY DAY

What a beautiful morning, it's 67 and the sun is shinning. It was a warm 85 here in MO yesterday and the day before. Now the weather is suppose to drop down in the low 40's and rain with a snow mix. What crazy weather. Today is May Day, and it made me remember as a kid we used to make May baskets out of construction paper. They were easy to make, just strips of paper woven into a sheet then folded to make a  basket and glued in place. You were suppose to hang the basket with flowers on a door knock on the door and run. what fun. I have a metal basket on my door year round and have flowers for the season in it, This is what it looked like this morning.

Back

Seems as though I got caught up in life and just let my blog slip to the bottom of the list of things to do. I'm back so watch out, here I come.
  I"ve been busy doing all kinds of things. I have worked on my house, I put down a brown paper  floor in my kitchen and that was a big surprise for me that it turned out so well. I had to pull up old tiles first so that was the hardest part of the  job, then tearing the brown paper up, putting glue on it and sticking it to the floor. Then you cover the whole thing with at least 2 coats of poly to seal it. Turned out great and easy to take care of too.

  My art has been moving right along,  I've found I love the way black paper reflects certain colors and have become addicted to using it for all kinds of art. I have also come up with a faux mosaic style. I will post pictures.

 We went from sunshine to rain. All week has been rainy and cool. It seems like I don't get much done when it rains. I belong to a group on ebay for people who do ACEO's, we had a challenge to do an interpretation of a photo of a street in France. I did manage to get 2 done. One a watercolor and one a digital. it was fun to see all the different ways people saw the photo. The damp weather has put a halt to any work on my kitchen floor. I am afraid it would take to long to dry and not set up good.

  

The weather this week has been beautiful, which means I didn't stay inside to much.I had intended to work on the kitchen floor but that got put on hold while I do a few other things. I painted doors and some woodwork and did a countertop in my dressing room using a silver paper and coating it with the poly. I used about 5 coats on it and it looks pretty neat. I think it's going to work real well.
  Today was take Max to the vet, and that was an experience I do not want to repeat for a long time. He peed at least 3 times on the floor, then when I wasn't looking he hiked on my leg. Not a good thing. He managed to pull out of his harness and I had to redo it tighter. He really gave the vet fits trying to escape. Who would have thought a  20 lb dog could cause so much trouble.
  Here's a picture of my little guy. This is his favorite napping spot.

Today was a start on Spring House cleaning day.  It was nice and warm here about 65 or so and great for opening  windows and airing the house out. I went to Ace Hardware this morning and got a free quart of paint. They are giving away a free quart any color every Saturday this month! I got one last Saturday and have been painting my dressing room a raspberry and today I painted a dry sink and old cabinet in  Blooming flax which is a pale blue. Turned out really good now I need to get some new knobs for the drawers. Tomorrow I have to finish painting the dressing room and a wall in my bedroom. I have to use a ladder so I saved the high stuff for one day.
  I managed to paint a couple of dog portraits today but decided I need to clean more than I need to art, so if it  rains tomorrow maybe I will work on some more art.

More aceo's  using the letters that I found. This is getting addictive. I stopped for awhile and went out and bought some rolls of brown paper and a couple of sponge mops so I can try the paper floor this week end. I bought a gallon of polyurethane from the local rehab store for $17 compared to the 40 + that the hardware stores want. All you do is use white glue to lay torn pieces of brown paper on your floor then you coat it with several coats of polyurethane. I have a small kitchen and I am going to make an attempt to do the floor in there.  The paper was only $1 a roll and there is 15 ft on each roll. I got 3 rolls so I am figuring the cost of a new kitchen floor will be under $30. That's a lot cheaper then new tile or carpet! I will post pictures if I succeed in getting it done over the weekend.

 I think I have Spring Fever, I haven't done any writing for awhile, and the sun was out and it hit 70 today. I have been doing some aceo's using old letters I found from the 1940's. I recycled some old aceo's I didn't like and pasted parts of letters on them. Then I used water color and painted over the letter letting the writing show through. I really liked the effect.
  My granddaughter who's a senior in high school, gave me a hair tip yesterday. It seems tht having different colored tips of hair is the new trend. It's expensive and not temporary, so someone came up with a different solution. You dampen the hair you want to color and using chalk pastels (I used Rembrandt, it helps to be an artist some times) you rub it over the hair till you get the look you want. I had a pretty pink strip for awhile. Then you use a curling or straight iron to set it with heat. it washes right out and even little kids can have bright colored hair.

 Today the weather was not nearly so nice, it seems to be hovering around the high 30's. I worked on a few dogs but nothing seemed to inspire me today. Some days are just like that. I guess sometimes you just have to do the mundane things like clean house, cook and wash clothes. I have managed to do some reading on my Kindle between  working. The Kindle was one of the best gifts I have every got. I read 6 -10 books a week and now I can read what I want when I want without having to make a trip to the library. I really enjoy it. What I don't like is the price of the covers and skins they make for it. I wanted a cover, so after a bit of thinking I decided it would be easy to make one. It is very easy and they look just as nice if not better than the ones you buy. All you need is a hard cover journal(they generally cost $5 or so) and then take the pages out and you can attach elastic on the inside to hold the kindle. Experiment and you can customize it to your own taste. I made several and they work great. I'll post a picture of one a bit later.

Saturday seems to have slipped past me without my notice. It's Sunday and I haven't accomplished much of anything. I did manage to make a visit to Michaels and found this really neat luminous water color paint. I had to try it out of course. I did a couple more dogs to list on ebay and used the paint on the backgrounds. It shimmers in the light but from the scans it's hard to tell. I am fascinated with dogs that have blue eyes and I did a bulldog and a Catahoula Leopard dog that have blue eyes. The last dog is a Finnish Hound.

  

 I've found that one of the worst things about retirement is you no longer look forward to Fridays. Week ends are just like any other day. With that being said it snowed here in the night, so I woke to a dusting of snow. It was 61 degrees here just two days ago, this has been a strange winter.
  Today I am going back to work on the dog series. I have done several large sized dog portraits 8 X 10's and would like to do more of those as well.  These are pictures I did of a friends black lab, and then another friends shiatsu's

.

I've been doing ACEO's (Artist Cards Editions & Originals) for about 4 years now, and finally decided to get serious about doing and selling them. I am working on a series of dog pictures, I will post several of those every day. I sell mostly on ebay and also do commissions. I love dogs and have had West Highland White terriers as my last 3 dogs. My current dog is a Westie named Max who will be 3 years old. He's a happy loveable guy and I will post some of his pictures later. The dogs below are a Walker Coon Hound, a American Pit Bull and a Scottish Terrier.

Here is an example of a portrait I did of a friend's parents.

I have always been told the first sentence in anything you write is the most important. The sentence has to grab your attention and keep you interested to read more. I could not think of a brilliant first sentence, so hopefully you will continue to read on. I'm an artist first, a writer, a reader, and just basically a very curious person. This blog is about my art work and a few other things thrown in for good measure.