Cheese Trees and Beached Hippos

YES - an abnormal title for abnormal art!!!

I have started a new swap over at ATCSforall and I decided to try and create a truely random set of cards. My aim was to have three seperate list of themes and to choose randomly from each one of them to try and draw on a tiny ATC.

So here is my first one - Beached Hippos find themselves amidst a desert of rainbow melting cactus!

2.5" x 3.5" Original ACEO - Hippos beached rainbow cactus

This can be found on Ebay here.

And my second one - Giraffe wonders around on the moon and finds a rainbow igloo amongst the cheese trees. (I loved drawing the cheese trees and also igloos have become one of my favorite things to draw!

2.5" x 3.5" Original ACEO - Giraffe finds a rainbow igloo and cheese trees

This can be found on Ebay here.

I am really enjoying really surreal art because you can make the stories up afterwards - I do love the idea of cheese trees growing on the moon instead of the moon being made of cheese. So many ideas!!

Creative Tuesday - "I want to go to"

Every time I hear the phrase "I want to go to" I nearly always think of the moon.... so hmmm... I decided to draw all of the giraffe family hanging out on a rather Mars looking like moon (what with the bright red colours). Well we can all bend the rules a little!!!

2.5" x 3.5" Original Art ACEO - Giraffes on the Moon

 

 

 

 

Head on over to Creative Tuesday's little corner of blog land to see other inspirations for this fortnight's topic :)

 

 

You can find this piece of art for sale here in my Etsy shop.

 

I have also kept myself busy with this month's NFAC Theme: All in a Row

 

Check out my Elephants - Giraffes - Pigs

All on eBay now!

 

Rainbows on an Envelope

Here's another altered envie - with this one I used an old envelope which hadn't been written on. I quite enjoy being thrifty like that - I have boxes full of off cuts of paper, stamps, cardboard. I save wrapping paper that I'm able to peel away without ripping. I also save every last bit of bubble wrap and foam. I figure this way the only cost to my art hobby is postage and time and that's alright. Anyway this is an envie I did for somebody over in Spain - the theme - rainbow of course. I have to confess I had to look the colours of a rainbow up to remember the order of the colours. Reminded me of the song you sing in school although I'm sure they mix the colours round to make it rhyme!

Rainbow Altered Envie

 

Linking over to the Playroom once again for other rainbow themed art - enjoy.

 

Only one day left for the free ATC giveaway - I am giving away an ATC to two lucky winners. Just follow the instructions on my Facebook page - look for the post pinned to the top - you can't miss it.

 

Have a great day everybody!

Illustrated Childhood



You might notice a bit of a running theme with my artwork. I do paint a lot of Barmouth! Well if you've ever been there you'd see it has perfect scenery and for such a small town it has a lot of neat landmarks.



Barmouth Dolphin Fountain - ACEO

This is the Dolphin Fountain which can be found at the end of the promenade as it turns into the harbour. Interesting sculpture and a nice filler for space, its in a little section which overlooks the pier. Popular place to sit and eat your fish and chips or icecream (or both??)



Barmouth - The Roundhouse - ACEO
 

One of my favorite places to roam as a child - The Round House. It used to be a jail, with a prison cell either side of the building. Now it's a tourist attraction and people can stand at the doorway (which is barred sadly) and look in to see a plaque of history and a manikin staring ominously back at you.



Barmouth - The Bath House Cafe - ACEO

The Bath House Cafe, I believe the building used to be a bath house hence the name but since has become a cafe. They used to host laser shows at the new year in the early 90s but they had to stop because it was too expensive. Such a pity, I really enjoyed them.



Barmouth - St John's Church - ACEO

 You might have seen this before, St John's Church, big church in the centre of town, when you come to Barmouth by train you can see this church so clearly in Barmouth's skyline. Very pretty.

 

Well I think that illustrates some of my childhood.

 

So when I popped on this morning I discovered a potential free giveaway at Jessie Lilac's Blog - oooh how I love a freebie but I'm also glad to help others to gain recognition. It's a great idea and not one I considered, maybe I could give away a set of ACEOs for free in exchange for a bit of publicity, can't harm. What do you reckon?

 

Also finally got the hang of Google + and followers etc (some bloggers have 100s)! Only to discover this is a redundant feature? It's not that popular apparently? I beg to differ, every art blogger has it. Hmm I'm stuck with my Google + circles which apparently is what we have to try to use instead. Is this the same? Who knows.

 

Anyway thank you for popping in, yawn - I might go make coffee now to keep myself awake.

Discovered ATCs

Top 3 ATCs are Mine - Bottom 3 ATCS traded for

So while out searching for ACEOs I discovered ATCs which are Art Trading Cards. Apparently that's what an ACEO used to be before it became commercial. I can't recommend trading highly enough, I am always itching to buy ACEOs on ebay but really can't justify the cost - perhaps thats why mine also didn't sell. I have been on ATCs for All for little more than a week and not only am I hooked but I have traded all of the cards I own already! Well now I realise how much of an expensive hobby this is. Sure you don't have to buy them but you still have postage and when you have to mail out 6 different trades to the USA it all adds up. So have been spending today working out how I might manage this hobby without letting the money go out of hand. I think one method is to only trade in sets. Anything above 3 is good because its better value (as it were) per card sent. If I had the money I would just trade all day long! It's a wonderful site and met a few people already - no money issue shall really stop me! In the above image I traded the top 3 ATCs and received the bottom 3 images with a cute thank you card :D It's all good and I wonder how large my collection will get?? What is your experience with trading Art Cards?

Barmouth Harbour completes the set

Barmouth Harbour - 9" x 12" Acrylic on Chunky Canvas

 And here it is, full of colour. This panting is one of a set of 4 which I've now fully completed. They're all 9" x 12" but two of them are on chunky canvas since I had no more flat canvases. I wonder which I prefer - blue skies or yellow? What do you think?

 

4 Paintings of Barmouth

A Work in Progress

Barmouth Harbour - Work in Progress

Another painting of Barmouth - this time it's the harbour. I didn't think this one would be difficult but Barmouth harbour is pretty complicated. I decided to choose a less dense area overlooking Fairbourne and the Bridge once again over the estuary. Mainly because if you pan around to your left there's a lot of buildings, bridges and impossible perspective angles. You'll see what I mean from an earlier blog: The Calm before the Storm. I don't think I'll finish this tonight, I find it better to do the colours when I have natural light spilling into my room. However I could be busy this weekend, sister is coming over and I have a baby shower to attend!

Barmouth Harbour - Work in Progress

Barmouth Bridge

I'd like to start by telling you all about how I got featured on the Art Promotivate Blog: Katie Hone Featured Artist - They have an awesome blog which gives lots of interesting tips and tricks about how to sell your work and promote yourself. I'm still pretty new at it so any hints are of great use to me.

 

So I may not have mentioned that I'm 37 weeks pregnant, trying not to let that hinder the creative process but now I get quite tired. However I did manage a new painting this week!

 

A friend of mine asked about doing some paintings of my home town Barmouth. All of a sudden my painting hat went on and I got right underway and started. Given that the last time I did a Barmouth Bridge painting got so much good feedback I decided to do it again (different this time also).



Barmouth Bridge - Work in Progress

This is how I typically start with a painting like this, get all of those all important black lines in. Similar to the ACEOs I have a very obvious black outline to a vibrant scenery picture. The only difference with this and the ACEOs is the medium. I adore watercolour but for canvas painting I much prefer acrylic - you can get brighter colours and paint over any mistakes!





Barmouth Bridge - Work in progress





Then I add colour, the fun part! I usually spend some time before adding colour working out where all the colours will go. I don't like colours to clash too much but I don't want to deviate too far from the standard red, blue, green and yellow palette.





Barmouth Bridge - 9" x 12" Acrylic on Stretched Canvas





And here it is! I am thouraghly pleased with it and have now got one more to do of Barmouth Harbour. Will probably make a start on it this weekend some time. Has anyone been to Barmouth before? It really has loads of landmarks considering its not a very big town, an impressive beach and a huge amount of cafes! I do miss living there.

 

Welcome to San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

So as promised I turned my attention to San Francisco for my next collection. Not entirely sure what compelled me to do this city next, perhaps its because I've watched nearly all 8 seasons of Monk on the trot! So a few of these landmarks I knew about already, the Golden Gate Bridge is after all pretty famous, as is Alcatraz Island. I've never been to SF so my knowledge of the landmarks was pretty limiting. However with a few searches I found some pretty amazing places. Most people I showed didn't recognise Lotta's Fountain, perhaps it isn't well known but I thought it was simply too beautiful and complicated NOT to paint! What a challenge that one was!

Lotta's Fountain - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

This one was also interesting - it hasn't got a speck of green in it. I do like to balance colours out; red, blue, green and yellow. I also have a general rule of blue for buildings and yellow for sky etc. But I couldn't paint the fountain green! So true to it's real colour I opted for a copper theme which turned out better than I imagined.

Others in the series include the cable car, I think that was my favourite part about watching Monk, the rolling hills and the long stretches of tracks for the cable cars, so iconic. Not sure how much I'd really like to live somewhere which is so up and down. I used to live in Bath and one great hill was enough for me.

City Hall was wonderfully symmetrical, perhaps why I tilted the image to make it diagonal - I don't like things to be too dead centre!

Alcatraz Island also had to be introduced some brown elements since I didn't want the stone to be confused for bizarre shaped buildings. I would really love to go visit Alcatraz but I couldn't go on my own that's for sure.

Cable Car - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

City Hall - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

 

Alcatraz Island - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

So initially I was considering Chicago next, however this time I'm thinking of doing a city I've actually visited and can add a few more personal anecdotes to. Barcelona might be a winner, many interesting buildings and landmarks to cover. What do you think?

New York ACEO collection

Statue of Liberty - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

 I've known about ACEOs for a long time, yet never really took them seriously. So before this collection I tested the waters with a few random pieces, a few bunny ones, local landmarks and a lion! I'm always trying to figure out the next big thing and wanting to stick with my bright colours I pushed the landmarks up a notch. However I've gone to watercolour, which is unusual - unlike acrylic you can't always achieve the same sort of colour vibrancy however the textures look a lot more fluid and interesting. I've painted landmarks before but I've always opted for local places, great for my friends to look at and recognise but perhaps a limited market. So how about New York, I've never been there and many others haven't either but who hasn't heard of the Statue of Liberty? I'm sure they're not all recognisable, the Green Wood Cemetery (3rd picture down) is new to me but the building is beautiful and iconic. I did these all at once, it saves time to put all 5 pieces of card down, outline them all and only have to mix the appropriate colours once for the session. Also embraced a looser style, normally I'd be really accurate with the lines and colour, not letting any spill over. However watercolour looks quite good when you're ever so slightly messy with it.



Library of Columbia University - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

Green Wood Cemetery - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

General Grant Memorial - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

Brooklyn Bridge - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

Stay tuned - I'm working on the San Francisco collection next.

The Calm before the Storm

A drawing I did a few weeks ago - it is a quiet day at Barmouth harbour. But not for long - in the midst of summer this place will have no place to breath. The cars will be driving slowly, the four cafes along the main front will be heaving and the sea will be so bright you can barely look at it. I used to spend a lot of time drinking coffee and enjoying the atmosphere here. I prefered it of course on a mild day when its not blistering hot - but then that's me. I used to work in one of these cafes - a very hot job working near a griddle all day long. I prefer to be the customer any day. Now I am far away from the sea and how I yearn to smell that fresh sea air more regularly.





At the Quay in Barmouth - 16.5" x 11.5"