Nibblefest Art Contest for January 2015!

The Nibblefest Art Contest begins in one week! (on the 20th) January's theme is "A Subject Beginning With the 3rd Letter of Your Given Name (real first name)".   Nibblefest Art Contest (NFAC), is the fun and friendly, monthly-themed art competition that begins on the 20th of each month, and is open to all. Hosted via Ebay, all Nibblefest art entries start at just .99 cents -- fun for artists AND collectors....!

The subject I chose, beginning with the third letter of my real first name of KaRen, is a Red Cardinal proudly perched on the head of the statue of St. Francis!  He won't be posted on eBay until January 20th, 2015 so I thought I would give my Blog Followers a sneak preview of my entry ....




















For this painting I used a reference photo by Gillian Floyd posted on the site, Paint My Photo, of a cardinal perched on the St. Francis statue in her backyard.  I loved the photo and thought it would be perfect for my entry in this month's Nibblefest Contest!  On the 20th of January you will be able to go to eBay and put the word NFAC in their search engine and you will be able to find it and many of the other terrific entries in this contest.   Remember, all entries start at an opening bidding price of $.99!  You could win a piece of terrific original artwork at a lower price than expected!

Here is a link to her photo: http://paintmyphoto.ning.com/photo/cardinal-15
And here is a copy of her photo:

Take care and be happy!
Karen Anne

"Christmas Clown"

In the 1980's I completed many acrylic paintings, then circumstances changed and I needed to get a full time job so my painting fell to the way side.   Over the years my paints dried out, eventually got tossed into the garbage, and brushes just seem to have disappeared.  In 2014 I thought I would try my hands at acrylics again so I purchased some acrylic paints and brushes and attempted a small little painting on 6/19/2014 ...

"Three Hedgehogs in a Row"

Well, I wasn't really impressed with the results so I packed all the paints away until a later day.  A later day came about in December 2014 when my daughter-in-law asked me to paint a picture of a clown for my son for Christmas.  Now, my son is terrified of clowns so I really wasn't too sure about this request; finally I decided "Why Not?", pulled out the paints and brushes and tried another little hedgehog painting ... to get a feel for the paints ....

"Three Hedgehogs at Christmas"

I liked this one a bit better and kinda got the "feel" for working with acrylics again.   Lisa wanted a vintage type clown that wasn't so freaky that she could frame it and hang it in their home.  I finally came across a vintage clown that I loved and thought would fit the bill!

"Vintage Clown"

I looked all over the internet and found this photo posted on several sites; sent messages to people to see if I could learn if this was a copyrighted image ... but no one answered my queries.

Eventually I deduced there probably was no copyright on this photo but not wanting to tread on anyone's claim of ownership decided I would paint the clown for personal use only and not sell any prints of this piece.  I think that is in keeping with copyright laws, if not ... I am sure someone will enlighten me.





With that in mind I began working on an 8 1/2" x 11 1/2" painting of my version of the clown in my son's favorite colors ... green and red!  He is a major celebrator of Christmas!  Over a period of several days/weeks I managed to create my version of this clown which I have titled

"Christmas Clown"

My son wasn't too sure about the subject of this gift, but stated that he loved it and would get it framed and hang it in their home.    We'll see!

"Christmas Clown" turned out well enough that I am encouraged to try my hand at more acrylic paintings in 2015.  Maybe experiment with different types of acrylics to learn which best suits my style.

2014 ended on an encouraging note and I am hoping that 2015 will bring along some over due blessings for my hubby.  HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all!

Karen Anne