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!

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.

Satisfyingly Lemony Deux

I got some insightful suggestions from wetcanvas.com about the lemons yesterday and I worked some more on the lemons this morning.

Tried to play with the light on the lemons, especially the back one. I wanted to make the shading on the whole lemon a bit more graduated but it didn't work out quite like I'd planned.

I changed the background a bit too. It's vague but more solid across the bottom, more varied and light across the top.... and I changed the color of the shadows in general.

I'm happier with this verison. I'll keep working with it!

sold

What if all that's at the end is the end?

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I was driving around one day and saw a stairway that looked very old in the corner of my vision. I turned my car around and stopped in front of it. The stairway had deep spider web cracks in the thick sides.... it started at the road, incorporated the stone wall, sloped up the lawn and ended. Just ended.

I looked closer because I thought there must be a door to a root celler or something under the lawn but it was a solid cement-looking wall. Thick as time.

I took a picture and drove off but the image was disturbing. Well, maybe not the image itself but the image of going up stairs and coming to a solid wall.

It got me thinking about struggles. When I've perserved and made it... reached my goal... got to where I was going.... and all that was at the end was....an end. No reward, no lesson....no pot of gold. Just nothing. No, not even nothing. A wall.

I've thought a lot about the image and why it bothered me so much in the last month and I think I know what's bothering me. Maybe I've been thinking about goals all wrong. Maybe it's not the goal I should be focusing on but the trip...
A goal is a moment in time but the trip is your life, all the moments in your life. If you focus all your engery on the end when you get there; there's nothing. You reach your goal and than it's gone...You must be left very empty. Maybe that's why so many people never reach their goals? If all you ever think about it getting something and never live the rest of your moments you must know (somewhere in you) that if you ever get 'there' there will be nothing left for you.

I'm going to try and remember this lesson. I'm going to try and live the moments; not the goal.

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!

Dark Thoughts Aceo set

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It was the mood of the night not the color that I was feeling. Beaches bring on a lot of moods in me... I tend to see in them what I'm feeling at the time.

I can only think that when I took this picture I was feeling a bit reflective... heavy...dark. The image isn't crystal clear but more suggestive. You can see movement in the light and a bit of shimmer...and hope. But oveal all it's dark.. very very dark.

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.

Cape May, NJ Fence

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I was looking at my photographs the other day and realized I had a lot of shots of fences. At first I thought it was odd. Why would I have taken so many pictures of barriers? Things blocking my path? Objects that stopped me on my path?

I started to work with the pictures and realized that I loved the images and found them beautiful. If the fences hadn't been there I would have continued on my way - walked ahead and never noticed the scene beyond.

Fences - barriers in your life - can be blockades. Places that you stop and feel you can't go forward but maybe there is another way to see them.
The things that stop you give you a frame of reference. They show you where you are now... They show you what's in the future... They shift you.

Stopping to assess your life is never a bad thing. Knowing what could be a ahead is important... Figuring a way to get past a hurdle is growth. Maybe the fences in your life are as important and the open paths. Maybe stopping to see where you are and figuring out how to move ahead is a gift.

Maybe fences are the picture frames of our lives. A pause, a still picture, a place to refect back on how far we've come and to see what's beyond...

ACEO 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch done on heavy mat board. The background collage uses several art papers and acrylic fixitives. The photograph was placed on top of the collage and the entire card was sealed with a glossy acrylic medium.

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