Shppping fun and ACEOs

This is the first ACEO I've finished in ages.
The purple wasn't intentional, but... whatever.

Wow. I was a busy bee this evening. We went back to the big box store, where I found three more Nailene Gel Perfect polishes, which I managed to grab for a whopping total of 51 cents. Gotta love a coupon! Now I have 6 of these, four in awesome spring shades (Grape- a very pretty lavender, Salsa- a warm hot pink, Tango- a bright orange, Bayberry- a sky blue, and Lime- a gorgeous green) and one in a deep shimmery, almost metallic dark blue. That comes out to $3.68 for $65.00 worth of polish!!

I also decided to share the art cards I've been working on. I've been needing LOTS of pain management, and my meds just aren't cutting it all the time, so I'm doing lots of art. There is a silver lining, sometimes!! The first one I've finished is this purple lady. I hadn't intended to make her purple, but things happened, and well... now she's purple. :D

I might try painting some wings for her. She looks like she'd be a fairy, giving someone the side eye up there.

Then there's the one that really shows how I felt as I was creating it. I often joke that I'm broken, but that night I was really feeling like I was defective, broken. Instead of crying  and feeling sorry for myself, I let it out onto a card. And you know what? Looking at it now, I feel like it's lovely, something beautiful even with its flaws.

The funny thing? This isn't artist paper. No, it's something with a much more humble beginning. The base for this card is a toilet paper roll! I flattened it and realized that it was the perfect width for a card, and then just cut it into two, and trimmed off the half inch extra length. Et voila, a beautiful, flawed, weird substrate for art.

I used the other half of the toilet paper roll on the next card, which is pretty much the opposite of my broken card.

This one is colorful and bright, and makes me very happy to look at. I started with a rough, partial coating of gesso, then used colored pencils to color on a gradient. I blended those out with a blending stump, so that they were soft and faint.

Then I used a pencil to sketch leaves and flowers, colored them in with more colored pencils, and added swirls with my Sakura Gelly Roll pen in white. A quick outline in black and I had this fun, whimsical floral ACEO.

Then there's the book I told you about. I did a bit more doodling on it by adding the words "I'm CRAZY" in the lower left corner of the back cover. Then I decided I wanted some sort of linear elements, so I applied masking tape crossing the cover. Then, I drew a quick highlight and shadow for the tape strips, and gessoed over the various bits.

The back cover needs a bit more work, and I haven't really even started the front yet. Once they're both done I'll use clear packing tape to seal them up and protect the artwork on the covers. That way, they'll stay pretty no matter what I put the book through!


Then there's the inside. I was rather strange in how I put it together... my husband thought I was insane combining the bits the way I did! I tore the drawing paper out of the drawing pad I'd bought ages ago, then folded them in half. Then, I laid a piece of duct tape on my surface sticky-side up and pressed the aligned folded edges onto it, pressing the tape up onto the sides of the stack.

Once I had this all together, and had the basic form of the book set, I grabbed my stapler and a piece of styrofoam. I opened the book flat and also opened up the stapler so that I could reach the inside fold of the paper. I placed the book over the styrofoam and stapled into the fold so that the staple points went into the foam. I then pulled the book up and bent the staples down onto the tape. I did that for each page, making sure the staples were in different sections so that I could actually keep the staples from making a jumbled mess.

Then it was just a matter of adding another strip of tape onto the back of the stapled tape, then gluing the covers to the outside pages. I also added duct tape along the back to secure everything into place. Now I have a hard-backed book I can paint in, or draw in, sketch and collage and just go crazy with! I expect to have lots of fun with it, and it's exactly what I wanted- it opens flat so I can get to all the pages, it's the size I wanted, and it's 100% made by me! (Well, as close as it can be without me making the paper!)

So now I hurt, but I have lots of options to zone out and get into my artwork. It's a lovely thing... and now I'm considering using nail polishes in my book too!! *grins* This could be FUN!!

Coupons make me happy!

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