I am very moved by the outpouring of kindness and understanding that you have given me in your comments! You have touched me in a deep place in my soul with your connecting to me … and letting me know about it! This is an added bonus I did not expect when I started blogging!

Happy Dog, ACEO © Diane Clancy

I promised I would give you the link to the World Card Making Day (WCMD)- which was yesterday, October 6, 2007. If I had known earlier, I would have shared this so all of you could have the chance to play too. It is a little like Rima’s challenges … different blogs set up a kind of card to make and then details were posted during different times of the day and then people went to town creating cards!

ACEO (Art Card Editions and Originals) and ATC ( Art Trading Cards) are 2.5 x 3.5″ cards (made of many different materials) that people trade and collect. They are the same size as a baseball card (at least baseball cards in the US – I don’t know about other countries) and people often keep them in plastic sleeves that people use for baseball cards.

I have had a request to make some of these ACEOs and so I saw an opportunity that would force me to push myself fast and furious without worrying about quality .. sort of like it was for me when I took art classes. I produced tons of work because there was a deadline without the pressure of having to be perfect … I am sure many of you understand what I mean.

If you want to see the ACEOs I made yesterday they are posted at my other blogs here and here. I posted until 2 am my time last night so there may be some you didn’t catch. There are no duplicate ACEO images between the 2 blogs. And I hadn’t posted on either since I posted about the Blog Action Day – so that is when you will know you have seen all the ACEOs.

For me it was a great chance to get the brush going again without worrying about meaning or what it looked like. I need to do my environmental challenge so hopefully the brush got loosened up so now there is just the brain (or heart and soul) that need loosening.

The other thing I wanted to share is about this painting. I just was putting paint down and I thought it looked terrible – so I almost threw it aside. But I am very conscious of the earth and thriftiness. So I put a little more on it. Then I wiped a brush on it. Then put a bunch of marks in the back. Then, magically, at one moment, it showed itself as a dog. A pretty cool dog too I think. So I went back and reworked it a bunch more times … I thought you would be interested to know about its history. I think it is one of the strongest images from yesterday .. and it almost got thrown out!

I want you to remember that persevering is important. Things may not go quite right at the moment, in life and in painting, but keep stick with your process. You helped me persevere yesterday with painting and painting when it all looked like total junk to me .. then it gelled. So I want to pass this along to you!

~ Diane Clancy

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