Zen squares WIP

This painting was done on a 1 foot by 1 foot, half inch thick piece of birch wood. Besides the acrylic paint I used a mica medium and it added a nice texture - as well subtle changes in the paint color. It drabbed down the brights while not making them muddy.

The black shot of squiggle down the middle is black enamel interior house paint.

Juicy Juicy pear painted aceo

This is a juicy juicy pear done on an aceo sized canvas in acrylics - its available. Go next door for the juicy juicy close up!

my etsy shop www.popcornfeet.etsy.com/

This is more the kind of painting I was doing before my eyesight started on its decline last year. Do I miss painting like this? Sort of detailed (go next door for detail) considering its 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches I think...

Well, hard question really. I really liked doing this but my work was painfully tight and I was getting more and more so. I wanted to paint photographically I think and losing ones vision is sure to get you out of that. Or you'll just lose your mind whining about what you feel is gone...

I'm happy with what I'm doing now but I am very proud of what I did last year too...

Nightscape of my childhood 6 x 6 acylic

For sale on etsy.com www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21172405

This is a 6 inch x 6 inch acrylic painting on masonite board. I haven't listed on etsy.com in about a year maybe? But the cost of listing on ebay is getting... well... insane is what it is... so I thought I would give etsy a shot again.

I did the painting last year and it has a childlike quality I've always loved...I sold many other paintings since than but have kept this one... It's time to let go. I need room and it needs a home.

I've always imagined this matted and framed in a childs room. The colors are so bright and primary... The moon is full and friendly and there are stars in a clear sky. It's a happy night painting and something some kids might respons to being that so many are afraid of the night.

The painting is not framed and has a nice glossy acrylic sealer to keep it beautiful and bright!

Black white and gray on black white and gray

This is a close-up image of a 2 feet by 2 feet work -- acrylic tube paint and acrylic wall paint on birch wood. signed on the back $450
This painting is available at the Arts Unbound Studio, Orange, NJ

An avocado in Mrs. Brady's Kitchen

This is a work in progress. Found myself doing another retro style painting. An avocado in avocado and orange - How poetic!

It's on 5 x 7 masonite.

I'm digging it

available at the arts unbound gallery in new jersey

THREE ORIGINAL PAINTING ACEOS ON CANVAS

There Aceos are available for sale on eBay. They are all done with acrylic paint on aceo sized gallery wrapped canvases.





Zen Landscape Aceo








Retro Pear Aceo








Still life lemons

For anyone who doesn't know how small ACEO cards are here is one scanned next to a splenda packet!

Abstracty pear work in progress...

So. More pears. I like them. They are pretty, have a cool organic shape going on...lots of great colors and seem

to lend themselves to tons of styles of art.

So this is the first shot of the pear as a work in progress on 5 x 7 inch masonite.

Here is shot 2 of pear work in progress... Getting there!

available at the arts unbound gallery in NJ

MAKE LEMONADE PAINTING -ACEO

AVAILABLE

And now for something completely different.... In the past I've only listed ACEO cards based on my art and photography. I used mat board, collaged with art papers...print my photographs on regular, photo, and some pretty darn unusual things ...than put it all together and make a complex card attached to an emotion, feeling or experience.

The simple things in life are beautiful as well... Things with visual simplicity. One thing...Two maybe...just a few colors... No art papers... Something you can put a story to, instead of me.... I paint. I rarely list anything on ebay that isn't an ACEO card done in the manner I described above because...well, frankly they don't seem to sell very often. (Just keeping it real!) There are wonderful artists on ebay and perhaps my selling just the cards...or just paintings...without an attached emotion isn't the same. Maybe people would rather I stick to what I was doing but I had to try... I have this thing in my head... My artist-self - how I see myself as an artist - is wrapped up in my abilty to paint...or not.... and well, if I can, I am, if I can't I'm not...and...oh man, I didnt mean to make this listing a therapy session!

Enough of that! This card is done on a teeny sized gallery wrappy canvas. How do they make them??? Its 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches and I even took a picture of it with a spenda package so you can see what your getting if your not familar with how small aceo's are. The other picture shows it from the side and you can see there are sides :) I have since painted the sides a bright blue like I paint my larger canvas paintings. I have signed it on the front with 3 bars... and on the bottom with my last name. Its sealed with a matte acrylic sealer. As much as I try to get colors correct, its hard in photography... and all monitors are different as well. It may be different when you get it but no matter how it looks on your monitor...I promise the lemons are shades of yellow and the background is shades of blue.

If it doesnt sell... well, thank you for looking!! I have other aceo's listed... My usual kinds as well as a few more like this!

HOW MUCH STUFF DO YOU NEED? ACEO

AVAILABLE

How many times a day do you say 'I need.....' Need? Need is a necessity. Need is something like clean water... Food....

People don't need cable TV... I don't need cell phones... Face it, I don't really NEED and internet connection although my life would be very different without one. I'm about to find out what it's like to not need a car what with the price of gas and the state of my junker. But I've managed to find a bit of peace about it... or maybe resignation, karma...peace....
People look at things like dry cleaning... renting DVD's.... take out dinners... like they were a necessary part of life. Sorry, oxygen is a requirement. Dry-cleaning isn't even in the same time zone.
I'm getting a bit sick of consumerism telling me what I need. The store display windows (which is what this photo was of)... the non-stop commercials.... the coupons that come in the mail everyday... Even my phone rings with offers that are "too good to pass up". I'm feeling manipulated, like I don't even know what I want anymore... Like I only know what I've been told I need.
Who started this?

This card was done in standard ACEO format of 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inchs on heavy mat board. It started with a background collage with multiple art papers to enhance the main image.

The Peter Principle, Problems and Green Eyes ACEO's

Eyes are the seat of the soul

BUY

They say your eyes are the seat of your soul - If your one who does the soul thing. If the idea of a soul isn't appealing your eyes would probably be the seat of all that is you...

But in a practical sense your eyes hold many things. Your intentions, beliefs... your past... the baggage you carry shows up in a suspicious tilt when someone looks like someone who wronged you. The little sorrows that show just for a millisecond for all to see - Not that anyone is ever looking that close. And what about the quick smile that's only a lift of the corners....and you have to hide it quick because your in a serious place.. or laughing at something politically incorrect. And lying.... The reality is lying isn't all that tough to see... All those things are in your eyes but people rarely look.

Maybe your eyes being the window to your soul is too esoteric. Maybe its more like a visual represention of how your doing. Maybe it's why when someone asks how are you doing....and you say 'fine'.... they know your NOT fine. Maybe your not being fine is in your eyes. Maybe it's meant to be when you don't have the words to share just how unfine you are. Maybe it's a gift.

This card was done in standard ACEO format of 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inchs on heavy mat board. It started with a background collage with multiple art papers to enhance the main image.

Problems Aceo

BUY

Problems.....What is it about problems that makes solving them so hard? I've listened to people talk about their unsolvable problems and it's occured to me...that's the problem. They are talking about problems, pleural. Problems, lumped together are unsolvable.


This picture is the ground at the base of a tree and it reminded me of the way people deal with problems. It's a jumble of stones, twigs, leaves and I don't know what else... When there are so many things to look at you can't see each individual thing anymore. It's like you can see one stone... you can see two... maybe seven.... but at some point the individual stones dissolve into 'many'...
Problems can not be solved once they have dissolved into 'many'. They are overwhelming; they are unsolvable.


I listen to people talk about 'their problems' and I try to tell them that if I am thinking of of my problems that way it's hopeless. Its like 'my problems' are a big ( 6 foot around) ball of string where each problem has no end, no beginning and they are all interconnected. To solve anything I must separate it out... I have to deal with one thing at a time...


The rocks in this picture reminded me of the problems all lumped together with twigs, with leaves... And how to deal with one - to really see it - you have to pick it up, move it away from the rest. Move it from the 'many'....


This card was done in standard ACEO format of 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inchs on heavy mat board. It started with a background collage with multiple art papers to enhance the main image. There are lots of papers on this...it sits pretty high :) And the photo sits on top.

The Peter Principle Aceo










BUY





Okay, so the theory is you rise to the level of your incompetence. I mean that's it in a nutshell... there's more and it really deals with the workplace but I've seen it applied to life in general and that's what I'm considering now.


On that Hierarchy the peter principle loves so much... where am I? On that bottom step... even on a step? What happens when you can't work? Not won't work.... Can't. Does that mean I've reached the level of my own incompetance by default?


And the whole premise feels bad to me... It's like we are framed by our failures. I hate that negativity. It's like bad karma in practice... Knowing you can't in therory assures you won't in practice.


This card was done in standard ACEO format of 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inchs on heavy mat board. It started with a background collage with multiple art papers to enhance the main image.

Moved on from fruit to people and water...

In an effort to move on to things I have difficulty with I decided to tackle two at one time.

Water and people...

I ended up with a swimmer. I like it but it's still a work in progress. The water isn't watery enough and the swimmer isn't people-y enough... Well she looks like a people but her shadows are all off....or something.

5 x 7 inch acrylic on masonite

May 22, 2008 Update

I reworked my swimmer to take out some of the greens and some of the business in the water.

Retro Pear Aceo

I have to say, i like this little pear! It's done on a little 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch gallery wrapped canvas.

Painted with acrylic paints. It's my second still

life and I am really enjoying doing them.

While this one started out to be just a pear - much like the lemons are just lemons some where along the lines it ended up being a bit stylized with a dark border around the pear and a graded background. I will say that the background is more on the brown-orange-cream side than the red-pink-light pink side but it still looks nice I think.

Some day I will work out my camera issues.

Satisfyingly Lemony

This is new for me! Painting actual things... It's a work in progress.

I started painting these lemons this morning and it will take some tweaking to get them satisfyingly lemony!

Cape May Sky in the abstract

This is a mixed media 6 inch by 6 inch piece I just finished! It's called Capy May Sky.

Even though it appears simple doing it was a time consuming process. First I applied mulberry paper to gessoed masonite and than painted the

background. The clouds came last.

I guess you could call it an acrylic mixed media painting on mulberry paper on masonite... although that is a mouthful.

The image was based on a photograph I took a few years ago. I kept drawing drawing it and each time kept simplifying the elements. At some point it didn't really look like a sky anymore and that is where I liked it best. From a distance it's 'sky'... up close its color and shape.

Nighty night

Contact tracyreinhardt.art@gmail.com for purchase information

Unframed $75.00

Nighty-night is a 6" x 6" acrylic painting on masonite. I just finished painting it - in fact it doesn't even have the glossy sealer on it yet.

To me it's like every peaceful night I wished for as a child. Clear sky, shining starts, bright moon to see your hands, and soft hills of grass to roll down.

It's peace to me.

Blue Hawaii...

Contact tracyreinhardt.art@gmail.com for purchase information

Unframed $ 75.00

This is the first of my 6 inch x 6 inch mixed media/acrylic paintings on masonite that I'm posting. I've decided to call it 'Blue Hawaii' because -well, it is blue ...and for me there is nothing better than Hawaii...and for an abstract is does ring beach. At least to me.

Photographing these squares have been very difficult and I may switch over to a matte fixative, the gloss is a nightmare to photograph and frankly, even for viewing at angles a matte would be better.

Chairs to infinity at sunrise

ACEO AVAILABLE

I took this photograph in Capy May, New Jersey. These were the chairs on the balcony at the Grand Hotel... There was something about this photograph I've always liked.

There is something beautiful in those chairs. I can imagine myself sitting there resting, gazing over the railing... and it's quiet. Even though there are so many balconys and so many chairs no one is outside. No one takes time to stop and sit anymore... to just look at what's there.

I think about my life and I don't take much time to stop and sit either. There is always a call to make... a phone to answer... a bill to pay.

I must have missed so many beautiful sunrises just sleeping when I wasn't really tired...

ACEO 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches on heavy mat board. The card was done in two steps. First a background collage was done to compliment the picture and than the photograph was attached. I used several acrylic mediums, the last one glossy.

Black sands

Not for sale
I'm happy with this painting. It's one of the first I'm really very happy with. The subject makes me happy and I'm also happy with how it came out.

What doesn't thrill me is my problems photographing the artwork. That is a work in progress....

6 " x 6" acrylic on masonite

A detail close up of the clouds












... and shore line....

I've been looking a lot at the daily painting sites. I think I may have to start listing in order to continue my own daily painting obsession. Perhaps the paintings aren't ready but I can always go back to selling photography and ACEO's

Night waves

Contact tracyreinhardt.art@gmail.com for purchase information

unframed $75.00

I have this thing for the beach. I'm sure it's noticable. This is a 6 " x 6 " acrylic painting on masonite.

The picture of it didn't get the purple glow at the top or the clouds the moon is hiding behind. I really need to work on photographing my artwork.

I'm not sure if this is done yet or a work in progress. I thought photographing it would help but frankly the photo is so poor it doesnt help much.

I guess I'll live with it and see.

August Night, a very long time ago

Once all that mattered was how many fire flies filled the spaces between blinks and nothing happened so bad that it couldn't be washed off once you were safe at home.

Acrylic on mulberry paper on canvas. 16x20