Sketch Fest recap and other news

[ellenmillion]

Well, THAT was fun! *laughing*

You can see by the (still-growing!) Sketch Wall for this fest that we had a great turnout, and a lot of amazing work was accomplished. I had super-spiffy new features in place, but they were a touch buggy...

The reply feature looks great! It's nice getting replies to comments that you leave, by email and on the art pages. Alas, the artist of the piece gets a bit spammed; they get two and they really should get none. Also, it spits out an error code, even when it's working. And, in fact, it DOESN'T send an email to the correct place - it only was on the ones I was testing because they were mine. I must fix that in entirety! *facepalm* Sorry about those bugs. (Update: this is now working!)

The prompt page sorted by prompters is an AWESOME way to view prompts - I really, really like it. But I didn't realize until late this morning that it's only collecting registered prompters - it's not showing prompts left by unregistered users. DOH. So, I need to fix that, too.

I've got a sales admin page in testing right now, but discovered that the sales scripts weren't correctly saving the time of the sale, so the sorting method is... chaotic. I can sort it by id or date the artwork was uploaded easily enough, but that's not useful if someone buys an older piece. So I gotta fix that, too. (This is now working also, but it will only list right with FUTURE sales, not on all the existing ones.)

(ETA: Oh, but the 'Inspired by you!' page did work well, and I also added the distinction between 'available now' and 'for sale but still on hold' to the wall, and that worked right, too. I will add this script-let to the artist pages, too.)

Sketch Fest fundraising this month didn't quiiiiite pay off the changes I'd already made, so I'm hoping a few more pieces sell (or donations come in!). I will fix these bugs, either way, but it would be nice to put this in the 'paid' column of my work log, rather than my 'donated.'

Artistically and personally, a wild success.

I started the fest with 3 acrylic paintings, and hate none of them:



The owl in particular REALLY tickles me. Prints available for $5, the original for $30 (half gets applied to improvements to the Torn World site).

Then, I did 5 quick abstracts from the paint left on my palette, sat down and cranked out another 13 sketches! It's not Jenny-level output, but, in my opinion, a darned fine showing, and I quite like several of them:



And most of all, I had FUN. Any thoughts on a good date for our July fest??

Comments

[nixjim13.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if anyone else reported it, but I got an error when posting replies to comments left. Still worked, but spat out an error about Line 92. Possibly didn't like certain characters (posted a link as text)... I wish I'd captured the error, but I closed the page too soon :( )

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! I did know about that one, too - I forgot to add it to the list. Thanks! :)

[flutterbychild.livejournal.com]

This is the first time I've participated in Sketch Fest. It's so fun, and I hope I can do it again next month!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

It was great to have you there! I hope we see you in July! :) :)

[flutterbychild.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

But I'm having difficulty uploading a finished image...

[(Anonymous)]

Jenny is a sketchfest machine!!! She's awesome!

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

Awww, thanks! :D

A Thought?

[draken-art.livejournal.com]

Is there a way to relist older prompts (maybe ones that never been used?)

Re: A Thought?

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

I'd like a second crack at some of them, too.

Re: A Thought?

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

I have been spinning this around in my head. There are some tricky bits to making this happen (like, does the original prompter get emails for the new work? And how do you credit who re-vitalized it? And, how do you make it obvious on the prompt page which work was done for a previous iteration of the prompt, and which is current for this fest? Or does that matter?)

So... yes, thinking about this one, but don't have a neat solution for it yet.

Re: A Thought?

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

That is a bit tricky, and you'd probably have to set set so that if a prompt doesn't get used the second time it wouldn't get carried over. Unless you were thinking of artists checking something to carry it over instead of ALL the unused ones being carried over? And would all the old ones be posted first thing when Sketchfest started?

Dunno if it matters saying who revitalized it, as much as keeping the original prompters info, the revitalizer would do the prompt anyways right? I guess if it was an artist at least, would you make is so that a prompter can revitalize it? I think if an artist does, they ought to do the prompt.

Something to ponder more once we get caught up on funds. :)

Re: A Thought?

[redokapi.livejournal.com]

Maybe something like re-tweeting in Twitter? So you'd credit the prompter as "Re-prompter via orig-prompter" or something? The "via" chains would easily tell you which iteration of re-prompting it was. I don't personally think crediting the original prompter is all that important, but maybe some do.

As for emails...I dunno. Maybe just a box that says "notify me of re-prompts", and send emails/etc if checked and not if unchecked?

[amchristian.livejournal.com]

There was a HUGE turnout for this one! Wow! And the artwork created is really fun.

I love all the new additions you added to the site, especially the "Inspired by You" function.

As far as Sketchfest in July, what do you think about July 22nd? I'm open for anytime really though.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

It was so much fun! I'm glad you could make it! :)

I like the Inspired by You page, a lot. :)

That seems like a possible weekend, let me give it some more thought!

Hello! This is Plantie!

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Ellen, this is Plantie here (or Christina Lank) - this was my first sketch fest too and i had a blast!
Your sketches look great - I especially love your little fox in socks girl ^^

It says on one of my sketches that it was sold...but I recieved no email about this! Its my sketch for Delivering a Love Letter
but I have no idea who bought it, where or how that works
Could you give me the run through? Thanks so much!
and cant wait till next month already :D

-Christina

Re: Hello! This is Plantie!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad you could join us, Christina! I sent you an email, too, but the short answer is that I wait a couple of days for all the sales to trickle in, and then email the artists, so they can combine shipping and only make one trip to the post office. I have, however, also built a page that will give you a sneak peek at what has sold to whom: http://ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestadmin.php

(It doesn't show addresses, though, so the information is not quite complete...)

[kelkyag]

I'm so glad you had fun! I was getting worried when you were hit with one nasty thing after another on sketchfest weekends.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

It was a little freaky how many in a row I got sidelined for... O.o But this one went very smoothly indeed. :)

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

I tried to play, but kept falling asleep at the comp. *woe* Next month!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Woe!! Next month! :)

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

Love the new features! :)

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Me too, me too!

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

Though I just discovered that one of my friends was posting prompts, and I didn't see them because I was grouping them by prompter all the time (which you mentioned above you had discovered was only sorting registered users). I said, "Missed seeing you at this Sketchfest, maybe next time?" and he said,"Uh, Jenny, you missed seeing me and my 5 prompts this last weekend? Actually, every artist missed me I guess."

As I am looking through the list I see I missed my husband's, too!
:( :( :(