Aceo of the day - Dawn

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - dawn

This is my first attempt at an Illustration Friday challenge. The subject was "new" which got me to thinking of dawn as a "new day" so here's what I came up with :) Now that Christmas is over and things have started settling down I should have some more time to draw - especially when the little one goes back to school :)

On a more personal note - I have now recovered from my op :) the doctor thinks it was a complete success but there is a chance the problem could re-occur. I'll have a checkup in 3 months and hopefully get the all clear. Yay :)

New Christmas designs

New Christmas designs

Digital stamp - little shepherds

digital stamp - little angel

I've been keeping myself busy lately coming up with some more Christmas designs for my digi-stamp website/blog. I have a couple more ideas but I don't know if they'll be completed in time to be made into Christmas cards. Still even if they're too late - there's always next year :)

To get myself back into Aceo mode I've decided to start trying the challenges on Illustration Friday as Aceos - maybe using my whimsical houses. It'll be an interesting diversion and should be fun :)

New blog/website up and running!

New blog/website ready for launch :)

Yay! Finally all the work is done and my new digital download website is ready.

 Click to visit my new blog!

 It's been a lot of work, seeing as I have no idea of using html codes or anything  ( google has been my best friend ) but I'm happy with how it's all turned out. It's all very simple and basic, as i didn't want to complicate things and get in over my head. 

I have a busy day today to I probably won't be able to do much promoting ( am helping the mother in law move house ) but I should be able to make time over the next week or so. There is a freebie Christmas image for any digtal crafters among you to use and links to my download store which I have also put into the sidebar of this blog *points to the right* :)

On a personal note - the hospital have postponed my operation to the 18th December. Not too sure I'm happy about it, I don't really want to be still recovering over Christmas, but at least it's a bit more time to get Christmas shopping and stuff done. We'll see how it goes i guess :)

Nearly ready for new blog/website launch

Images of the day

Whimsical cats - kitty stocking

Hopefully sometime in the next week I will be ready to launch my new blog/website featuring my designs as digitals stamps for download. This is the image I decided to use as a freebie for the first post of my new blog ( without the watermark obviously ;) ) Christmas is just around the corner after all :)

I have also come up with a banner/button to use for advertising:

I may need to mess around with the sizing a bit but I'm pretty chuffed with how it turned out. Pretty simple - but at least it's clear to read and that means it should work in smaller sizes. I may put the little dragon design up for sale with the others on the website too. It seems a shame to just put her on the advertising and leave her to languish in my pictures folder :)

I'll be heading to hospital a week on Tuesday for my op - I'll try to get everything sorted and go blog hopping to promote myself before then. If all goes well I'll be home again by lunchtime the next day though I may take a few days off. The other half has ordered me to "take it easy" for a while afterwards so I plan to make the most of it :D

Images of the day

 Images of the day

whimsical houses: choo-choo train

whimsical houses - Australia

whimsical houses - cave painting

These are the latest aceos I've gotten done. The first one was suggested by my other half, the second came about after watching Masterchef Australia and I guess the discovery channel could be blamed for the last one :)

Images of the day

Images of the day

 

whimsical houses - cornfield

whimsical houses - beehive

 

It's been a while i know :) I've finally gotten a basic website made using my linework as digital stamps.

http://saffiredragoncrafts.webs.com/

I'm awaiting feedback from the person who first suggested it, so am making a few aceos while I have spare time in the meantime. There may not be many though for a while, I have just had a date come through from the hospital for a small operation on my heart that I've been waiting for since the Spring. I'll be going in on December 4th and am even now extremely nervous and finding it difficult to concentrate on painting/art. I'll see what I can do though so watch this space :)

Image of the day - Tiara

Image of the day

digital stamp - tiara

This is about the last one I'll be doing for a while i think. Now comes the process of tidying them all up to look as proffessional as possible. :)

Images of the day

Images of the day

Digital stamp - duvet day

Digital stamp - kitty heart

Digital stamp - little princess

The next few that I've gotten pretty much done. I'm on a roll now I've figured out what I'm doing :) I'm getting a lot more comfortable with the paths tool now and I can get things done quicker.

Images of the day - Whimsical kids

Images of the day

Digital stamp - little pirate

digital stamp - little ballerina

Finally I've redone all the ones i had already done and have started on new ones. They'll need a little bit of a tidy up still but the quality is a whole lot better in my opinion :) Hopefully soon I'll have enough done and tidied to actually start seriously thinking about getting myself a website to sell them :)

Image of the day - New and Improved Alley cat

Image of the day

 

Digital stamp - alley cat

 

Finally I am back after taking a week off to play Mists of Panderia the new World of Warcraft expansion. I have revisited my little alley cat because yesterday I found a tutorial online and figured out how to make my curved lines smooth using the paths tool :D I was soooo happy. Now my images actually look fairly close to proffessional ( in my opinion anyways ). I'm not sure you can actually see much of a difference at this size but I have been printing them out at A4 size to check for wobbly lines etc and the difference is Huuuge. The downside is of course I have to go through every one that I've done so far and do them again. Not sure if I'll put any more up here until I get through the ones I've already done and start some new ones, as I don't want anyone getting bored. I just wanted to let everyone know how I'm getting on and that I haven't vanished :)

Images of the day

Images of the day

Digital stamp - stripes

digital stamp - sitting dragon

Still having trouble getting good quality digital linework. These are my last two attempts - The dragon didn't work very well as the drawing I'm tracing from is a lot larger than my usual aceo size so I need to fiddle with brush size etc to stop the lines looking too chunky. 

The cat I tried scanning in at 600 dpi instead of my usual 300 - not sure if it made a whole lot of difference :s

image of the day - little devil

Image of the day

 

digital stamp - little devil

 

This one probably needs a little more tidying up than the previous ones. My tablet/stylus stopped responding towards the end of my drawing time and there wasn't time to restart the computer and get it working again before I had to go off for the school run. Still - it's probably enough to be going on with for now :)

Image of the day - cat's choir

Image of the day

digital stamp - cat's choir

This is what I managed to get done today. To be honest I'm surprised I got as far as i did - I was expecting it to take a lot longer with there being 3 cats instead of one ;)

Image of the day - bathtime

Image of the day

digital stamp - bathtime

Today's attempt at linework - as before, it probably needs some last minute fine-tuning. I am trying to get each image done as well as I can in the 2 hours or so I have spare before going to pick the little one up from school. When they're all done to a somewhat similar standard I'll go through them and give a final polish.

Images of the day

Images of the day

Digital stamp - alley cat

digital stamp - angel cat

Over the last week I've been working on adapting some of my images to be used as digital downloads. It's taken a fair amount of work just to figure out how to get smooth(ish) linework happening. These probably still need a bit of last minute tidying up but I think I'm getting there. The watermark may change - I haven't figured out what to call my website - to - be yet so I just used my usual internet nickname :)

Anyways - just put these up for people to see that I am still working, but my aceos have had to be pushed to the back burner for a while :) I've had to take a break for the weekend as I was starting to get a blister from using my tablet stylus so much but hopefully back to work on Monday.

Aceo of the day - Chinese whispers

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - Chinese whispers

Part two of my two part commission. This one is based on China - A great wall, curious panda and mountains of carved jade :) 

For the next few days i will probably be making a start on the process of maybe getting an online store set up for digital downloads so there wont be any new Aceos for a while - unless I get bored ;)

Aceo of the day - Passage to India

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - Indian Palace

I was asked by one of my e-bay buyers wether I could do some aceos based on India and on China. This is part one of the two part commission - India. Spicy colours, Indian elephants and a splendid peacock :)

Aceo of the day - spacewalk

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - spacewalk

This one was another suggestion from the other half. It's my attempt at a tribute to Neil Armstrong who sadly passed away recently. A bit daft maybe but at least our son liked it :)

Aceo of the day - Back to school

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - back to school

Seemed to be a pertinent subject as most kids went back to school today. :)  Luckily for him - our little man doesn't start back till tomorrow because of a teacher training day. He's looking forward to going back to be honest though, I don't think the miserable weather has helped much this summer.

Aceo of the day - zoom zoom

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - zoom zoom

This one was a suggestion from the other half. No idea if i drew the right kind of cars as I'm not into any kind of car racing, but it looks pretty cool so that's what matters :)

Aceo of the day - Moo!

Aceo of the day

Whimsical houses - Moo!

It's been a while. I have done a few more aceos but I haven't gotten round to scanning and posting them. I will scan and post them over the next few days. 

I have also been in touch with someone who suggested making a website to sell my designs (uncoloured )in the form of digital "stamps" or digital downloads for the crafting and card-making market. I will begin working on that once the little man goes back to school on Sept 5 so I may not be posting/painting as many aceos for a while but I will still be doing them but probably at a slower pace and maybe not daily :)

Anyways - this one was inspired by my son's visit to his great uncle's dairy farm. Moo!

Aceo of the day - D.I.S.C.O

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - Disco

Told you there may be a few of these :) This one is ( obviously I hope ) 70's based.

Aceo of the day - Flower Power

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - flower power

Taking inspiration from style decades - There may be a few of these :)

Aceo of the day - Mountain zoo

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - mountain zoo

 My next idea in my whimsical houses series. had a bit of a break for the last few days as it was my Birthday :)

Aceo of the day - Whimsical Wigwam

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - whimsical wigwam

As I sold quite a few "houses" cards over the weekend I'm going to have to replenish my stock soo.... back to houses for a while :) This is the first new idea I've had so far, hope to get a few more done in the next week or so - ready for the next ebay free weekend.  I'm not having much time to paint lately with the little one being on school holidays and the other half disappearing for driving lessons on his days off, but I shall do my best.

Aceo of the day - Phoenix

Aceo of the day

Fantasy doodles - Phoenix

Todays doodle - a phoenix amidst the flames :) Hopefully looks a tad oriental as that was the mood I was going for.

Ebay listings have now closed. 12 sales this week - mostly houses. Will have to paint up a few more for next time :)

Aceo of the day - Red dragon

Aceo of the day

fantasy doodles - red dragon

 Another dragon - this time a red one to make a change :) Am having fun doing these little fantasy "doodles" -  it's been a while since I drew fantasy just for fun and I think my pen and wash type technique seems to work quite well. I'm loving the vibrant colours that watercolors give too :)

A reminder before I go that my e-bay listings will end tomorrow afternoon so anyone wanting to bid or buy please head on over.

Aceo of the day - Winged Unicorn

Aceo of the day

fantasy doodles - winged unicorn

 A bit of a darker one today :) This one was basicly an experiment - I wanted to see what sort of effect I could get with dropping rock salt into wet paint. Interesting if nothing else :)

As Ebay had another free listings weekend - my listings are up and original aceo art can be purchased here:

Elaine's e-bay listings 

Aceo of the day - Twilight unicorn

Aceo of the day

fantasy doodles - twilight unicorn

Today's doodle seems to have turned out unicorn shaped :) This is what I came up with while watching Britain's next top model earlier on. Makes a change from dragons I guess lol.

Aceo of the day - Dragon in flight

Aceo of the day

 

fantasy doodles - dragon in flight

 

 

This one turned out a little brighter than I expected *puts on sunglasses*. I do have a soft spot for blue dragons so you'll probably be seeing a few of them over time :)

Aceo of the day - Sea dragon

Aceo of the day

fantasy doodles - sea dragon

Another fantasy style doodle - this time a shimmering sea dragon. I haven't used this pen and wash type technique for fantasy art really before but I think I'm starting to like it :)

Aceo of the day - Golden dragon

Aceo of the day

 

fantasy doodles - golden dragon

 

Having a break from doing houses and cats for a couple of days and going back to drawing fantasy as I haven't really done any for a few months. With it being the school holidays at the moment, painting time is limited so I may not be posting daily again until September.

Aceo of the day - raven blade

Aceo of the day

Raven Blade

This is technically not an Aceo card - my other half asked me to make him an avatar for a gaming forum he uses. This is what I came up with :) it's a little wonky but he likes it so that's all that matters really ;)

Aceo of the day - Snakes n ladders

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - snakes n ladders

Was kind of at a loss for ideas today - you can probably guess where this one came from :)

Aceo of the day - bathtime

Aceo of the day

whimsical cats - bathtime

Time for this little kitty to clean up :) If this was our cat he'd be chasing those bubbles and looking ever so surprised when they burst lol.

Aceo of the day - Red white and blue

Aceo of the day

Whimsical houses - red white and blue

This little house was inspired by the collages we did a the other day. It looks a bit American now it's done but I didn't plan it that way :) Anyways it seemed to work ok so when I go into town on Monday I may get some scrapbooking papers with patterns on to actually collage the border and paint teeny tiny little houses to go in the middle for a few cards. It may work - it may not but you'll never know if you don't try :)

Ebay listings have now ended - 6 sales this time :)

Aceo of the day - Just us chickens

Aceo of the day

whimsical houses - just us chickens

No clue where this idea came from - but at least I have a fineline pen that works now :)

Aceo(s) of the day - crafty collages

Aceo(s) of the day

collages - chocolate heart II

collages - chocolate heart

collages - flower petal

collages - star and stripes

Today my 0.05 mm black fineline pen that was on it's last legs yesterday died a death so I decided to get crafty with some collages using bits and pieces from my bits box ( old greeting cards, stick on crystals etc ). Our son wanted to join in too so I gave him a couple of aceo blanks to get creative with and I said I'd put them on mummy's computer for him so here you go :) 

Davion ( age 5 1/2 )'s art cards

Davion's art - One with a "G" on it

Davion's art - One with "13" on it