ACEO Sunny Still Life is my example for my ACEO Magazine, and I did it the day before the deadline. Go me. Even with the loss of a lot of hours on Thursday to being sick, I did it in time. Whew!

It's a great magazine. I even got my photos of my Top Loader today and sent everything off to the editor, all's well.

I sometimes get a little stressed over too many commitments and things I signed up for. NibbleFest is coming up and the theme is "My Secret Garden," which I was going to skip until a good idea that included a story idea jumped up and hit me last night. It might be too grim for my usual art crowd or it might really move them, but I'm going to try it in about 500 words and post the story free in the listing if I do the art. Or just hang onto it and send it somewhere, whatever. That's not till the 20th. Then by the end of the month I need to do one or more artworks of food to go in the "Art on a Plate" Cookbook contest, actually good artwork of food, when I don't cook! But, I can use kkitten42's recipes and so come off not only as if I cook, but am actually good at it because she really is spectacular in the kitchen.

Plus still have a pastel commission hanging that I should do so that my docket is entirely clear again. It would be nice to reach a point where nothing needs planning, but that's unlikely. I think it's just that I get involved in things. Most of these things are not so important I couldn't beg off and just not do it if I don't have time or don't feel up to it or get involved in novelwriting instead. I need to keep that perspective.

Theme Week is going to be fun next month though because it's "Reflections" and that egret oil painting will be done by then.

Maybe I'm just tired now from having gotten up and hauled my album into the living room to set it up nice for the photos then stood around and knelt photographing it till I got it right. They did come out well but that activity was immensely more exhausting than drawing fruit in colored pencils. Besides which, I get stressed by approaching deadlines and next time I'm going to try to do my examples while writing. And maybe not try to do a salable ACEO with the examples -- it was just so tempting though, because of what I was demonstrating.

Actually the start of the next day, but I'm heading toward bed, so it's still today. So much for time changes.

I kept to my Writing First resolution today and did my ACEO Magazine monthly newsletter article. I started on one topic, the topic changed a paragraph later. I realized the second topic was a very broad topic of great interest to readers so trimmed back the previous and took off on the new topic. Amazing how that happens. But I kept it under 400 words (title excluded) and successfully stuffed it with juicy useful facts and links. I may be getting the hang of this stuff, and my editor, Kelly, is a dream to work with.

I actually did art today too, a fair lot of art. One piece, much larger than an ACEO, very painstaking work actually. I'm doing kkitten42's logo for IceAndInk, her freelance writing/editing company. Copy for any of your needs. Incidentally, she does take flaccid query letters and sharpen them to brilliant concise sales prose, something that novelists might take an interest in hiring her expensive but profitable services for. Considering if she redoes your bio-and-clips, that thingy, the "About Me" stuff once, you can use it again and again and get more contracts.

The logo is floating in the center of a 9" x 12" sheet of watercolor paper, since I did it way larger than life because it'll come out smoother reduced. I've got it drawn, inked, and half painted because I used salt effects on the upper half of the letters. They're slightly mottled for an icy look. Tomorrow I'll do the bottom part of the letters like they're each filled with ink. I would've posted it, but it's a bit different in the progress state and I think it'll look much better when it's finished and reduced to useful size instead of being about ten inches wide and two inches high. Since I sketched these letters with a pencil and inked them by hand, she also has zero copyright worries about fonts!

Tomorrow I need to illustrate my ACEO Magazine articles, take the photos of my Top Loader Album and draw comparative examples of burnishing with Colorless Blender, a white Prismacolor and using colors to change the quality of the light. It's a trick I've used for a long time and I think it'll be rather dramatic if I choose the right small bit of subject -- or do a colored pencil ACEO and use that for the example, except I'd be drawing it three times in succession. Maybe a series? "Cat Butt in Sunpatch" or something?

Three days into it, my new schedule is very intense. I feel as if I'm doing a whole lot. Maybe it's that even writing 400 word articles takes a lot of work when I go in and edit and polish them too. It's the opposite of sinking into the hole in the page and wandering off the planet for hours at a time. But with that assignment done, tomorrow when I write I can do an eHow or start a story or anything I feel like. And maybe after doing the examples, try some of those ink and wash ACEOs that'll go fast and easy. I almost did tonight, but was too tired after putting hours of concentration into the clean lines I'm so proud of on the logo and managing to paint and salt fast one letter at a time.

Three down, two to go and I will have kept this up one entire week. That's a lot compared to the past few years, a whole lot. Right now I'm just establishing routine -- and it will probably be easier when it is routine.

Chandelier might count as today's art. It came out beautifully well with some tricky balancing act on my part to hold my hand steady as I focused and got it right with all its details, then enhanced and cropped it with a freeform crop. I'm proud of this photo. And thrilled beyond belief at actually having this chandelier.

That is not something cool I saw someplace. That is my room. That is what's in the center of my ceiling where there used to be a plain and ordinary two-bulb ceiling fixture that seriously needed a bowl screwed on to cover the bare bulbs, something I was procrastinating on until I at least got a cool looking one. Or made a cool looking one with Vitrail painted on it to look like stained glass.

kkitten42 and HeraldoftheAbyss were out at Home Depot this morning getting home maintenance things they'd already planned and picking up the paint chips to plan this summer's redecorating -- as the weather gets nicer all of us want to do things to improve the house. She saw this for only $23 -- and really, just one of those normal fixtures that look boring and dull and just cover the bulb with a bland thing sometimes cost more -- and remembered that I always wanted a real chandelier in my room.

Readers of Raven Dance will remember my intense descriptions of Malcolm's haven (something I'd tighten if I rewrite it)... well, ever since I wrote them, I wanted to live there. And now my room IS it! The chandelier combined with the light golden color I'm doing the walls and a dark blue faux lapis or decorative wainscoting design on the lower half is going to make my room look as sumptuous and eclectic as the old vampire's haven. And that rocks. Except I'm more comfortable because I get a waterbed instead of a coffin.

I also did my writing today. Wrote and edited an article for ACEO Magazine on my Top Loader album. I'm waiting on a reply from the seller I bought it from, nwcardsupplies, to know if I can recommend him as being able to get them again since I didn't find any in his store when I was checking the price on replacement pages. If he does, I'll put that in. If not, I'll put in his recommendation for an alternative product. I also left enough space to do so after cutting the article from 600 words to about 370 to make room for that bit.

Which did improve it and make it more readable.

Next up, an article from an artist's perspective, some Colored Pencil Tips. Then for the newsletter I might review Strathmore Aquarius II watercolor paper as an ACEO surface. Or the nice gessoed masonite panels from painterscorner on eBay. Something cool like that. Or maybe Derwent Inktense, since they just came out with 72 colors and I wants it, preciousss, mussst have pennncilllls... I'll pick one of my many ACEO topics and do up another good 400 word article for this month's ACEO Magazine newsletter.

All three are due on the 15th so my doing them today did give me enough time to query Colin at nwcardsupplies about the album and where to get more pages and what to recommend as an alternative if it's been discontinued. He has a 9-pocket UltraPro binder for only $5.50 that could be a nice alternative IF the pages are as nice and sturdy as my Top Loader album pages.

But today's art is photography, and I love my chandelier. Thank you so much, kkitten42! It's wonderful!

ACEO TW Sweets Russell Stover Maple Nut Cream is one of two swap cards I did today. The other one was on silver scratchboard and I didn't scan it because it'd be too much trouble trying to fix the scan to make it show up well. It'd come out dirty gray on black if I'd done that. So I just packed it and sent it off.

I owe fifteen more swap cards to my WetCanvas swap group, "Thankful For," a theme that lets me draw or paint anything I like since I appreciate everything I like. Heh, I should have drawn my daughter's beignets, she made fresh hot beignets for breakfast yesterday and hers were so light and delicate they were like buttered air with powdered sugar wafted on top. They are to donuts what filet mignon wrapped in bacon and seared lightly is to a cheap hamburger that's half soy.

I also owe a pink floral ATC, either a pink daffodil or a pink dahlia, to Peachfuzz on DeviantART.

If you're having trouble seeing my art on your monitor, you might try a Free Screen Cleaning, for great visibility!

I got an acceptance letter today to my query to ACEO Magazine and now need to write my article, which is going to be loads of fun. It's due by March 15, so if I do get too tired to finish it today I still have time and will get it in reasonably soon. Based on the samples I sent her, the editor wants me to become a regular contributor! This rocks!

Yesterday I was wretchedly sick though. Today I'm still taking it easy physically but it's a very big deal that I'm awake and interacting and catching up on my ACEO commitments. I sent out Island Tree too.

Kitten's going to be working on my website soon too, so I am really looking forward to that. I hope I can use it as a link to have all my links in one place, my auctions on more than one site, my eHow articles and anything that's written and posted online, my book should have a buy it now button or at least a button to take you to the buy it page, and the portal needs a grabby image, one of my artworks. Maybe some kind of thing where I can change what the artwork is every now and then and rotate them. I've got the money for the domain now, so I'm going to have to come up with a final version of the design, something classy and interesting that's well worth coming back to with lots of cool new content.