Issues with the perspective – eyes, ears, nose – those things get worked out of course before I start drawing with color pencil and watercolor.	Finalized sketch, started background, added some base shading. Decided no watercolor, wrong kind of paper.
Adding more color, shading, background…	laying down more color – with color pencil I lay down layers and layers before its complete – not complete yet

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This is an ATC (artist trading card) I did for a trade. ATCs are only 2.5″ x 3.5″ The size of a Poker card.

When I’m making art this small, the size lends itself to different lines and shading that would otherwise not be the same in larger format work (for me). The curves of the ink lines in the mane for example, can be done with one swipe of the hand with barely any movement or lifting of the hand. This is color pencil and watercolor.

I am working on a larger version of this horse – it is 12″ x 24″

Before I got into ATCs, all my drawings were large – 20″ x 30″ or 24″ x 36″ and they take me some time. ATCs like this generally take an hour or so. So recreating this horse will be a bit of an experiment for me – to see if I can capture the same fluidity.

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Art made in the shape of our hands is another work collected and mailed within my “mail art” community. I’m hosting a Halloween Hands PAT (Pick-a-Theme) at the juried art forum of IllustratedATCs.com - In a PAT – we join groups of 4 or 5 artists, and each picks a theme of what they want on their art. Then each artist creates a piece of art in that theme.

All the art is mailed to the host, that’s me this time, and I mail each artist all the art that was created for them. So we make art and receive art in return. It’s a wonderful experience to collect all this wonderful art from artists all over the planet.

Click on the images below to enlarge and see what I have created for the artists in my groups – (their chosen theme is written below each image) I’m in 3 groups right now – so I’ll be getting a lot of Halloween Hands! And I’ve included some past halloween art on hands I created for other mail art swaps. And others I’ve created for swaps and personal trades.

Clicking on the pictures will show you a larger image…

[Show as slideshow]

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I guess November is the month to write, I just can’t seem to crank out the words this month. I’m at about 4500. If I write about 2100 words a day for the rest of the month, I’ll make it.

Regardless if I finish, Nanowrimo is the opportunity to write. Amidst all the busy day to day life and work – it’s an opportunity to force us to fit it into our schedule. Otherwise, life gets boring.

50K words sounds like a lot. Actually that’s pretty small for a fiction novel. They are usually in the range of 70K – 150K words. I design books for customers – mostly for people that are speakers and consultants. It’s a great tool for them to show they are an expert in their field. To give you an idea of word count – the last book I printed was around 16,000 words and I had to add extra pages with chapter titles and extra pages with author bio info in order to make the book thick enough to perfect bind (typical paperback binding). It needs to be at least a quarter inch to perfect bind.

So 50K sounds like a lot and it is a really good amount to strive for in a months time. The magic trick is NO EDITING. When you don’t edit as you write – the words flow, the ideas come, in avenues you would never have expected. Later when you look at the book with a fresh eye and you’re ready to edit – you will sit back in amazement how you ever came up with it all. It is the single most important thing I have learned about writing. No editing. Get the words down – edit next month!

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