A little while back, I decided to do a series of ACEO artist trading cards based upon the 7 chakras spiritual system. I wanted them all to be abstracts, with the colors for each chakra taking center stage. Here is the end result:
Which are your favorites? Mine are probably the heart, throat, and solar plexus ones. Some are still available for sale on my Ebay store, so check it out if you are interested!
In the past couple months I have actually entered art into 3 different art contests/exhibitions. I already shared the art I submitted to the contest I placed in last year, but thought I would share a few artworks I submitted for a brand new contest. This contest will be choosing a variety of artworks that will be exhibited in New York and Oregon, and will be used to produce derivative products based on the selected art. If my art is chosen, I will get a 25% royalty on all products sold with my design, plus whatever the art sells for at exhibit.
I tried to pick a variety of my recent artwork to submit. I decided to go with this cute wolf portrait:
A nice abstract design:
And something a little inspirational and personal:
I hope they pick at least one of my pieces for their exhibits!
Last night I went to a candle magic painting class. It was a lot of fun, but harder than it looks! The “magic” part of it is that we used some runes/esoteric symbols for inspiration. Here is how my rune/symbolic candle turned out:
I took some liberty with the symbols and even created a couple of my own. I wanted my candle to have a bit of an Egyptian feel, which I think the black scythe and the black and gold detail does give a bit of that impression.
We also painted a tealight candle, and while mine started out as a symbol for Hades, the candle was NOT easy to paint on and it kind of turned into an abstract expressionistic painting, but I still like it:
It looks a little like a tormented soul in Hades to me, so that works I suppose ♥
I wrote a post the other day about my anxiety over entering an art contest I placed in last year, well, I went ahead and chose my three pieces to submit and thought I would show you guys the ones that made the cut. Here are the three I made that I submitted to the contest:
I also made this fourth painting, but could only submit 3 pieces to the contest, so I ended up listing this one for sale on my Ebay store:
Ok, so this past year I placed and won an award in a pretty prestigious art competition. One of those fancy ones where you have to pay hundreds of dollars to even go to the art show and sale, and the auction bids can get pretty crazy. It was for charity though, so I didn’t mind the high price stuff related to it. This was definitely the most “high-brow” art show I have been a part of.
Now they have announced that the first year’s show was such a success that they are doing the competition for 2020 too. I plan to enter and am excited about it, but also really nervous and filled with self doubt. I keep feeling like if I don’t place at all next year or at least place as high as I did this year that I will somehow be failing.
I tell myself this is ridiculous. There are so many talented artists out there and if I don’t place again it won’t mean that I am less talented, it will only mean that they preferred someone else’s take on the contest subject matter. Also, I want other artists to feel the happiness I felt when I found out I had been selected as a winner. I don’t want to be selfish.
I know deep down this is probably about my perfectionistic streak and low self-esteem. Part of me feels like it was just a lucky fluke to be recognized by the “elite” art world at all. I wish I could not put this unnecessary pressure on myself. I know it isn’t healthy or helpful. Any suggestions for how to let go of the fear of failure?
My husband and I had a great time on my birthday trip, although I am exhausted and extremely sore now! It will probably take at least a week for me to recuperate physically, but it was worth it! Here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip:
I picked up some cute Halloween stampers and metallic ink pads at the Target Dollar Spot and experimented with them to create a few new ACEO artist trading cards:
Check out all my art currently for sale on my Ebay store!
Water
Earth
Air
Fire
(Check out all my art for sale on my Ebay store!)
