Painting ACEO's

Still painting ACEO's -  Never heard of them?  Well it stands for

Art Cards Editions and Originals

Art Trading Cards basically measuring 2½" x 3½"

Inspired by photographs in Paint My Photo to
whom I have thanked the relevant photographers



....and another William one, I might do a series of these ...

"Sat enjoying the view with dad"

~ Have a great weekend ~

New blog post added ....

I have just added a new post

to

www.usefulpaintingtips.blogspot.co.uk (click for link)

Pop over there via the above link,

or the link in the sidebar .

Low Tide - High Tide

We've had a series of very Low tides here followed by very High tides!   Although we are at the sea, the best place to view these changes was in Ilfracombe, the rocky coast and the harbour made the comparison so very obvious.   We went over a couple of times to capture the low and high of these and here are some of the pictures....

LOW TIDE - SATURDAY 21st March

HIGH TIDE - SUNDAY 22nd March (around 6.30am)

Hey....has anyone else come across this.

Seems to be happening quite a bit lately.  I have blogs I follow in my sidebar, but when I click to view them, I get this message....

Permission Denied

"This blog is open to invited readers only"

It continues by having the Blog name I have tried to view ... where the http://  is in the picture above.

Then it says:

"It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog.  If you think that this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation"

But trying to contact the blog author as it suggests isn't possible, if I don't have their email. 

At the bottom it says  "You're signed in as .........(my email)......"

So that leaves me unable to view a blog

I've enjoyed reading and commenting on.

Any ideas on this anybody, and have any of you had the same. 

Okay, if folks don't want me to view their blog I accept that totally,

but it just seems a bit strange at the moment,

or is it just that particular blogger has decided to

close down their blog!

 

 

Paintings from this week....

Busy this week getting into ACEO cards.
What are ACEO cards?  well, basically they are small
collectable cards measuring 2½" x 3½"

I painted 2 ACEO's for the

Facebook group 30 ACEO's in 30 DAYS

and separately a fun ACEO of
William (well I couldn't leave him out could I)

Over at Paper, Paint, Pencils & Pens 

we have the

SPRING theme until the 31st March

so I started with this Daffodil on
my homemade khadi paper sketchbook

 ~ both these were inspired by photos on

Paint My Photo 

Andre van de Sande & Frank Greenough respectively ~

and
Spring Lamb
(from PaintMyPhoto by Clare Smith)

Linking today to
PAINT PARTY FRIDAY
(with many thanks to EVA & Kristin for hosting)

Tips and techniques

I had set up a blog some time ago when my own had a hiccup...

since I haven't used it in ages I decided to

revamp it into

www.usefulpaintingtips.blogspot.co.uk

Hope it will grow into a blog full of 

helpful information.

The Virtual Paintout - Location : Greenland

My third drawing for this month's Challenge in The Virtual Paintout.(click link)... I thought this red house was so cute, so that decided it....a drawing it became.

Link to the Location(click)

Did you know you have a Picasa Web Album

I have posted about this before, but recently the subject came up again and I found that some people still didn't know about it. So I am doing another post (sorry folks if some of you remember hearing this before)

IF YOU HAVE A BLOG YOU WILL HAVE A PICASA WEB ALBUM RELATED TO YOUR BLOG
......................EVERY BLOG HAS ONE........

Have you ever wondered whether you posted something specific into your Blog and can't find the photographs.  Well you can look to see ALL your Blog photographs in one place as they are all kept in your own

PICASA WEB ALBUMS

The photo hosting site.

Every Blog has one.

Go to Picasa Web Albums, you will be met with a screen looking like this:

Sign in as though you are signing into your blog and up will come your Albums....nice and easy to scroll through your photos and find the ones you are looking for.

Additional Note:

Go to Google Search. Put in Picasa Web Album and then open one of the links. There is a list obviously in Google search that come up....go to the one that comes up with the window like the one I showed in my post. Then sign into it like you were signing into your Blog. That should get you there.



Hope this info is of some help to you.

Travelling along the Rhine in Germany

....sorry to repeat myself {{blush}}  I have added this post to Paper, Paint, Pencils and Pens, but felt it would be nice to add it here too.

Joining in with 

Paint Party Friday today (thanks EVA & Kristin for hosting)

+

joining in with 

the Queen of Creativity (thanks Kate for hosting)

 

***

We went on a River cruise along the Rhine some years ago in Germany.  There had been extensive flooding in the area, which you would think would be fine, it was a river cruise after all.  Sadly not a good thing as it turned out!!  Because the river had risen, towns along the river were at greater risk from the swell of boats travelling along it, hence our cruise boat couldn't travel from its dock in Cologne.  So instead of travelling horizontally we actually travelled vertically on the Rhine, the river was still rising when we were there.   That could only happen to us and the number of times I have told this I could not count {{laugh}}

We always see the cup half full, it's a wonderful way to travel through life. We benefited from this
event in that the Tour company arranged for a coach to take us along the route of the Rhine and stop at wonderful towns and villages along the way.  We gained, as ever, from the unfortunate weather.

Because it was such a lovely holiday, this is a place I would love to go back to.  Either by cruise boat or just independent travel along the Rhine and take in the wonderful scenery again.  (can you imagine the fun I would have sketching ahhhhh).

Painting the planets

A bit of fun, but this turned out to be an interesting experiment,

and you never know what design or pattern you will end up with.

So, this is what I did...

with some scrunched up paper (the glossy magazine kind is best)

or just use a tissue scrunched up...

either option is good, and just dab it quickly on the paint

then take something small like a bottle top and hold it on the painting....

and paint around the outside with some dark paint...

when you lift that off you have a planet...

then I just blended the edges a bit and

splattered white for more planets in the galaxy...

although I do wonder if 

I have a problem

when the Shape I see in one exercise

looked a bit like a

Lurcher!

Or am I becoming a bit

OBSESSIVE!

Portable mixing palette

Many of us take a small watercolour palette out with us, be it a homemade version or a manufactured one.   By virtue of having a small palette, it doesn't allow much room for actual 'Mixing' of paints, so I've come up with my version that I find quite handy.

 ~ I laminated a piece of pure white card stock ~

 ~ Makes for a great portable mixing palette ~

~ and is easily wiped clean ~

~ and can be slipped into the pocket of my moleskine sketchbook ~

Cleaning up a palette

This is a tip I saw online some time ago and

having tried it myself, I found it does work.

(I think it was the

artist Jeremy Ford, but having searched online I've been

unable to find his reference to it)

 ***

We've all been there,

the palette got messy, so we clean it up,

but it leaves a stain.

Of course, porcelain palettes clean up pretty good, 

it's the plastic palettes I'm referring to.

there is a simple and easy solution to it...

Cooking Oil

Just add a few drops to a tissue.

You will need to give it a firm wipe,

but it does clean up

Look...

The Virtual Paintout

My second contribution to The Virtual Paintout (click link)

Pen and wash

This month the challenge is set in

GREENLAND

Although there doesn't seem to be much green!