Wow, a new height!

I've got 51 feedback now and a blue-green star -- neat color that. I was wondering when I'd get a new color change. The stars are pretty cool, it's great to tell at a glance that I'm getting somewhere and how long others have been on eBay.

I'm not the newest newbie any more by a long shot. I still have a ways to go, some things don't kick in until I get past 100 feedbacks. But I'm more than half there.

I've been having success with my art and also with selling ACEO blanks cut from scratchboard and Stonehenge art paper. So now I'm thinking of expanding that and getting all 60 colors of Canson mi-Tientes, to offer Canson ACEO blanks in assortments that let the buyer choose what color goes in the assortment. I can restock when I start running low on popular colors, but having all of them would rock for being able to use them for my own art too. Nice to have the full range of colors available!

Not sure when I'll get this, whether I'll do it this month or next month, but I've been planning and working out several cool things I want to do. One thing I need is to pick up a better webcam, one that has an inbuilt microphone, so that I can do some art instruction videos as well as written articles. I haven't seen anyone do a Bob Ross type of video for doing little ACEOs or any other kind of miniature art, but I do so many types of miniatures that it wouldn't be hard to set up for that. Get a backdrop set up around my table, then set the strong lights to focus on the art and work while the camera is set up pointing at my work area, then keep the preview screen going on my laptop just out of view so that I can see that I'm doing things in a way the camera can see it.

I have short squat short-fingered hands but I don't think this is about what I look like so much as how to do the art. I'll clip my stupid looking fingernails before doing it but other than that not worry about that. It's about doing something real.

I've also got some good art commissions in progress, have been getting ACEO commissions as well as the two large pastel pieces I am doing. One is a portrait I have to be mysterious about as it's a gift for the person in it, who gets to be the one who sees it first. The other a mystical painting of two cheetahs circling a fire in a spirit dream. I see the cheetahs moving when I think about it. I see the painting coming in closer and closer focus, and I know I can get good detail in it with using Colourfix paper.

I've sold the one ACEO that I did using Colourfix sanded pastel paper and may put some Colourfix ACEO blank lots out too. I'd need to cut more of the stuff and have six cards in a lot the way I do with other fancy papers. It's good with pastel pencils especially, but I think it'll work well with colored Conte crayons too for mini-pastels.

Maybe I can do another one with my pastel pencils sometime soon.

Tip of the Entry: When using colored pencils on a new surface, pay attention to how it handles and how fast the pencils wear down. Does it blend easily or does the texture break up your strokes? Colourfix sanded paper takes many layers and much burnishing to get color way down into the valleys but it will stand up well to underpainting because the sandy gesso is painted onto heavy watercolor paper. It will also sand down the pencils fast and shape the points as you work, because it is literally sandpaper.

Canson Mi-Tientes has a smooth side and a textured side with a basketweave look. That basketweave look can be very good for loose drawings, breaking up strokes and letting the color of the paper shine through between the marks. If you want fine detail, use the smooth side.

Record your impressions of each new paper or board you try in a notebook, so that if you go back to it after some time you'll know what to expect.