Featured Artist - Ginny Markley "Playing With Paint"

Handmade Art Journal By Ginny Markley

Artist Trading Cards By Ginny Markley

The absolute BEST thing about joining online art communities is the wonderful friendships you make with other artists from all over the world.  I can't even begin to express how important these people are to me and how much I value having them in my life.

Case in point, my dear friend Ginny Markley.  We have never met in person.  She lives in Florida and I live in Western Canada.  While it is my heartfelt wish that we do meet one day, even if we don't she has a special place in my heart.  A talented, generous soul, Ginny has a terrific blog you may want to check out.  She offers tutorials of how she creates her wonderful work.  Here is the link:

Ginny Markley's Blog

Ginny recently surprised me with one of her wonderful handmade art journals, along with some of her fabulous ATCs (see photos above).  If you are interested in how she created the journal, here is the link to that tutorial:

Paper Lunch Bag Art Journal Tutorial

And here is a link to her ATC work too:

Ginny's ATC Tutorial

It will be my absolute pleasure and honor to use this beautiful gift in which to create my art and I will think of my dear friend, Ginny, whenever I use it.

Cheers!
Joanna

VINTAGE BLACK & WHITE CLIPART on my Facebook Page

Hello all;

I've just posted a small collection of vintage black & white clip art on my Facebook page.  You are welcome to visit the page and download these images to add to your own collection.  I'll be adding to this photo album from time to time, so feel free to check back to pick up the latest images.

Here's the link:

Vintage Black & White Clip Art

Enjoy!

ATC and ACEO Art

In the early to mid 2000s in the Ebay art selling world, a group of artists took the idea of ATCs (artist trading cards) and developed it further into an art form called ACEO.  ACEO stands for Art Cards Editions and Originals. ATCs were always meant only for trading/swapping, while ACEOs were for selling (or trading/swapping).  Both ATCs and ACEOs must have the same dimensions as a standard trading card (like hockey and baseball cards), which is 2.5" X 3.5".

I was fortunate to be involved with the Ebay ACEO group in its infancy and spent several years selling my ACEO art on Ebay with this fantastic collection of artists.

Because I had already been selling my miniature art magnets on Ebay for several years when the ACEO group formed, it was an easy transition to move from my business card sized magnets (2" X 3.5") to ACEO size.  I can remember many artists at that time who typically worked in much larger formats having real difficulty adjusting to producing original art on such a small scale.  I also remember feeling so very fortunate to already be comfortable creating art at that size.  It is not for everyone.

ACEOs are still very big business and I would really like to find more time to create them again.  I need a clone!

Anyway, I thought you might like to see some photos of a few of the ACEOs I produced in those days.  These samples are from 2005 and 2006 and are (were) all originals.  Again, each measures 2.5" X 3.5" (the size of a standard trading card).

I hope you enjoy this stroll down memory lane.  And just as I do with my current art, all of this older work was made with recycled and reclaimed materials.

"The Incandescent Soul" Original ACEO

"A Bed Of Roses" Original ACEO

"Life Is Too Short To Be Small" Original ACEO

"Aquamarine" Original ACEO

"Man Is Free The Moment He Wishes To Be" Original ACEO

"Heavenly Dreamer" Original ACEO