What have I been up to?

Well I'm still crafting, slowly but surely.  I did another crochet hook case, this time in cotton with no pockets.  It holds all of my hooks (over 20) with room to spare for 13 more + stitchmarkers.  I did a few ACEOs the other night while watching Hancock and placed them for sale on ebay.  ACEOs are art cards, editions and originals and are 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. 

I Want Some!  I had some new gouache paint I wanted to try out...I can't say I am pleased with them.  They were more opaque than transparent unlike the other gouache I used to use so I am on the fence about them.

Lunch!

Peekaboo!

Peaceful Reflections.

The Stalker.

Curiosity.  This one is a little older---I completed this in May of 2010 and for some reason kept him around.

Here is a portfolio piece I am working on.  I was cleaning (hence the scattered supplies) around my workspace.  This is far more complete now.  These hands are drawn from life which limits my time that I worked on them (I only do life drawing from natural light).  My portfolio work is a far cry different from my ACEO work to the point where there is a definite style divergence. This piece is part of a series that is going to consists of 2d and 3d work.  It kind of segues from my previous series, Lost Within, and touches down on psychological aspects of the Black experience in America more so than the spiritual which is the primary catalyst for the Lost Within series.

This is some old work.  All of these are ACEOs except the woman and child.  That is 5 x 7 inches.

I probably won't sell on ebay for awhile now.  It's been over 3 months since I last sold and I'm not pleased with some new changes they have implemented since then. The final value fee now applies to postage, too. They are doing this to stop people overcharging for shipping. Now we would have to put up postage to cover these fees. If we charge free shipping, then PayPal takes it as price of item, and we pay more fees there, too.  This mean we as sellers have to counter this with an increase in our prices for the buyers.   I understand they want to discourage sellers overpricing shipping but I wish they had kept this change to the problematic areas such as electronics and not art.    I wish I could find another market for ACEOs.  So far ebay has been good to me for those.  I only sold one on Etsy (over the course of 2.5 years) and haven't really seen anywhere else where the art has flourished.  I will probably just start doing swaps and selling the prints I have left over to test the waters in my artfire.