If an image captures your imagination you may find your own internal dialogue emerging as to what is taking place in the picture. I make ACEOs with my own narrative in mind and often show them to my family and find that they in turn arrive at their own (sometimes surprising ) conclusion as to what they think is going on with the characters in my ACEOs.
I love to start the story and hope there may be a variety of possibilities for a story to be told.
Decide yourself what is happening here between Digger and Freddie, and then see below for what I had in mind. My description for this aceo goes something like this : “Digger could not be sure but he thought that Freddie was trying to tell him something…..”
My narrative could have been…. “Looking at Freddie Digger was not sure if Freddie actually liked him.” but I decided that it would be “Freddie kept glancing at the Fish Food and looking at Digger hoping Digger might take the hint and gives him a little snack!”
It is strange how your mind and thoughts can dance around a subject or a project and produce means or obstacles, pathways to enable action or absolute resistance. One minute you have one mind set, then suddenly you can see things quite differently and are able then to make a change or take an action that you had not considered before.
ACEO Painting of Wolf Portrait
This process is no doubt with us more often than we realise, but for me produces itself very readily in the light of day when considering the redesign of my website. I have had a website for many years and it was pretty clunky for quite some time at the outset. But the amount of times I thought I had reached an optimal design moment were many. Time passed, my mind shifted, and suddenly it would be made quite clear to me that improvements would yet again have to be made. In a way it is a little like producing a painting, you think no more can be done, you put the thing away. Then some other time you stumble across the same painting and you can see straight away how to make it so much better.
In all the years I have been painting I could never for one moment have envisaged making miniature paintings sized at just 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches but found myself having an eureka moment (a sudden shift in thinking!) nearly a year ago after tightening up my painting style, and acquiring reading glasses. Since then I have produced several ACEO paintings each week featuring funny character animals or more realistic style animals too. They have been listed and sold each week on ebay in a special category for ACEO art cards.
A year hence, and I have been wondering how to develop my art further, today a new possibility has surfaced in my mind relating to pets and in particular dogs. Here is a taster of my current work in progress…..more to follow 🙂
I really do wonder why my brain cannot follow through in the first instance? I am sure there is a good answer for this which at this time is unbeknown to me.
It is of concern that whilst my mind can play tricks on me and can often ensure that I avoid action or end up procrastinating for what amounts to be in reality no-good-reason at all, but I am grateful that at other times it can reveal fresh ideas, shifts and visions so that even I can surprise myself with brand new possibilities.
If an image captures your imagination you may find your own internal dialogue emerging as to what is taking place in the picture. I make ACEOs with my own narrative in mind and often show them to my family and find that they in turn arrive at their own (sometimes surprising ) conclusion as to what they think is going on with the characters in my ACEOs. 
Diane Young Artist 