ellenmillion

http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/

I'll have a real post later, hopefully!

Happy new year! I am back from my vacation, which was partly just an escape from business and social media (much needed!), and partly an actual-factual escape to sunlight and warmer climes - we spent some of the time in Hawaii! None of us had ever been there, and we can't wait to go back. Guppy is a fabulous traveler.



Now I'm back at my desk adulting again - and I've got lots to catch up on.

I have already unrolled a Sketch Fest improvement that should be pretty major - the prompts page has been streamlined SIGNIFICANTLY, and now loads a literal 30 times faster. *polishes knuckles* Sketch Fest #71 is NEXT weekend - we've got a Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1639152869681450/

I got my trashy novella all formatted for publication (it feels like that took as long as actually writing the darn thing...), and have started on my next.

Coloring books are back up for order - I nearly sold out of my fulfilled by Amazon selection while I was away, which was lovely, so I'll need to stock them again. (But it's always cheaper/better to buy them through my webpage, of course: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/coloringbooks.php )

Now, we're back in the cold and dark (OMG, the dark. It's almost painfully dark.) and going outside to play on sleds at 8 degrees.



(I've missed you guys! I hope you had a fabulous time while I was away! Let me know if anything momentous happened while I was out!)

I am thwarted in my present wrapping/mailing. I am out of tape! I used up my shipping tape, and then my back-up emergency brown shipping tape, the last two rotations of an ancient scotch tape roll, and even some masking tape. I have new shipping tape on order - it's waiting at the post office actually! But it is cooooold today, and we are staying home and keeping the fire going.

We made progress on the bathroom this weekend - cut out a plywood panel and drilled holes in it. I will be sanding and putting down a base coat as soon as I'm sure Guppy is asleep. (She was "talking to Astrid", last time I checked in with her.) Next weekend, we'll get sheetrock up!

I had to shovel off our woodpiles this morning to bring in more wood, and I uncovered the standpipes for our fuel tanks while I was at it. Guppy 'helped.'

And then I packed boxes until I ran out of tape. Mostly gift boxes - coloring book orders are not as brisk as I was hoping for this time of year, and it is almost anticlimactic to get them, they are SO easy to put out now that I've standardized everything. It used to take a WHILE to get each individual order out. I spent time with that order, got to know it, you know? Now, it takes a few seconds, so even when I've got a respectable pile to send, it doesn't feel like it takes any time. Boom, done. This is GREAT, but it leaves me feeling like I'm not selling much, even when I'm doing pretty well.

This weekend, I also spent some time filling up my new tool chest with art supplies. In the way that trying to organize 'one little thing' so often turns out, I basically dismantled my studio and reassembled it better. There were a few 'drifts' of stuff that dated back to 2013, so it was FAR past time for a good cleaning. I generated several large boxes of trash, got rid of an awful cheap set of plastic drawers, and all of my tools are easy to get to and find now. It is SUPER inspiring, actually. I am itching for sit-down-and-paint time. I want to replace my main table still - it got a little sway-backed from the big printer I got rid of last year, and I made myself another foot of space, so I can fit a full 6 foot table in instead of this 5 foot thing. I have incomplete boxes stacked about right now, but I can see through those piles to the very nice space it's going to be, and it's very exciting.

There was a Sketch Fest this weekend, and I got two very rough sketches done. http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestartist.php?id=9&date=70

I've got a new portrait up at Torn World:


Here's another piece from #Inktober that I hadn't posted yet!


I am so pleased with our Christmas tree. It is the prettiest one we've ever had. I will try to get good photos of it soon.

I've been trying to get her to wear more than three of her favorite dresses.



I often ask her if she dreamed when I go collect her from her naps or in the morning. One afternoon, she told me, "Just one dream. It was TIE DYE!"

Which sounds like a perfectly lovely dream to have.

...


Newest coloring book approved for print.

Today's excitement is trying to track down an order to Sweden, which went to Anchorage, then to San Francisco. Then Anchorage. Then Fairbanks. Then Anchorage. Then Fairbanks. Then Anchorage. Then Fairbanks, a week ago. Nothing since. I double-checked both addresses, and it ought to be just fine. *baffled*

Okay, art now. Making a game try for this Finish Fest thing!

I got three sketches done for Sketch Fest this weekend - one is already finished! The other I will be finishing as part of Finish Fest - a week-long event to encourage people to dig up their Sketch Fest work and take the time to complete it. (There are prizes! You should play along!)

This weekend was busy - we put up another wall of sheetrock, and the little bit above the door. I need to set up my new phone, but keep putting it off. I also did inventory and realized I was nearly out of two of my best-selling titles, so those have been reordered, in good quantity! And, another NEW coloring book was put together and sent off for proofs.


I came upstairs to find Jake and Guppy putting this together. "We tried to make Escher stairs," Jake explained. "But we ran out of dimensions."

We did running around today, including re-stocking the coloring books at the bookstore downtown.

Child is hollering 'Good MORNING,' even though I JUST put her down for her nap. "I SAID GOOD MORNING!"

I survived the weekend, and feverishly did laundry and cleaned and cooked in anticipation of catching Jake's cold. Which I did, right on schedule. So far, it's just a little exhaustion and a sore throat, but I'm braced for worse. We're well stocked on chicken soups and crackers, plus zucchini-blueberry muffins, and granola. I canceled childcare this morning, because I don't offer hazard pay.

It's cold and foggy and drizzly today anyway, so Guppy (who says her neck hurts) and I are making a movie day of it. So far, Cinderella and we're starting Hercules. I tried to get Aladdin, but it's not available for instant viewing, darn it.

Guppy is being suspiciously mellow about sitting in Papa's chair with a handful of toys while she zones out at the TV. It's not often she'll sit still through a whole movie, let alone all of one into another.

Have some photos from last week, because neither of us is looking particularly cute today...


We went up for ice cream and frisbee at the university with laylalawlor last week. With luck, we'll be back up to steam for ice cream this week, too.


She got a new set of paints this week, too, and sat right down to seriously make a painting.


Is that not the most wonderfully ridiculous new hat?

Off to slog foggily through Sketch Fest things...

Still doggedly working at taking over the world. Tomorrow is Sketch Fest!

I covet one of these: http://esterroi.com/blog/post/2010/06/my-art-studio-part-2
(And also, enough markers to fill it. Is there such a thing as enough Copic Markers? I'm beginning to doubt it.)

Artwork going well. Wrote up the meaning and symbolism of my 78Tarot card and am feeling good about my progress. Edits on my story for the anthology are slow but going well. Muse Fusion next week. Decided on YES, a coloring book for Sea Monster month - I have enough finished or partly done pieces that it won't be a crazy headache. (Probably.) It's half-sized, so in a pinch (ie: not enough supporters to warrant a professional run), I can print it myself. Debated a multi-artist push. Got too lazy. (Sorry, other artists!)

We shoveled the snow off of Guppy's sandbox, and that has been a source of fun and entertainment:



Yes, that is snow around the sandbox. And icicles along the bank behind her. But it feels nice and warm in the sun! Yesterday afternoon, the thermometer on the porch said 75. This morning it said 25. Big swings, this time of year.

Off to do precious, precious art during precious, precious naptime.

There is a Sketch Fest, going on now!

http://ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/

I have done two very rough sketches, I hope to have time for more later, but I hear dangerous silence that I have to go investigate now...


ETA: I have good instincts. That... was distinctly unpleasant, and involved changing a diaper in the shower and following that by scrubbing the shower with bleach. The pants were thrown away.

Two pictures and one flashfiction (200 words) that doubles for the Muse Fusion and Thimbleful Thursday, so far.

Hoping to get a little more done, but the morning has been busy.

Back to the grind! It's a little odd but comfortable to be back in the usual routines: scoop the catbox, vacuum the floor, feed the pets, pick up after the toddler, fill the woodstove, etc, etc. Post for Torn World, check my email, and blog.

I want to carve a little art time into each day this year, and I've got So Many ideas and such a lot of extra inspiration.

I have set the date for the next Sketch Fest: January 23-25! http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/
The Facebook event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/869439066411155

It's looking likely the Torn World Muse Fusion will be the same weekend - so far users have said it would be one merry creative weekend, rather than diluting either event. I'm willing to give it a shot. (And hey, it simplifies my scheduling!)

Also for Torn World, a new character I wrote up, Effa: http://www.tornworld.net/members/cisdisplay.php?id=359

She has a lot of fun conflict potential, and I like complicated characters who are generally good, but have wide, unexpected flaws. (Deep-seated prejudice, in this case.) She's adoptable.

...

So, our trip! It was fabulous. We were gone for three weeks total, and I didn't let anyone know because I find it foolish to announce beforehand that my house will be vacant. The pets were safely settled at a pet-sitters, Guppy go her first passport, and we packed the toddler and selves up to travel a few gazillion miles on airplanes. We deliberately set out to do it with carry-ons only... and in fact, just ONE carry-on apiece. We made it work! We did come back with a little more than we left with, so we ended up checking a bag back. (Though technically, we COULD have carried it on.) This goal was greatly simplified by traveling to a hot climate, so we didn't have to worry about warm (bulky) clothing. I would have packed much differently going to, say, Siberia.

We stayed one night in Seattle, just to break up the trip a little. We got a suite with a door, so that Guppy had her own room.

"It's my BEDroom," she said proudly, delighted by having her own bed. "It has a mirror." Then, gravely: "No books, though."

The next three nights, we spent in Orlando. Nights were not as successful as I would have liked - someone did not deal well the heady power of having a bed she could get out of, and I ended up spending several extra hours getting her down. She ended up sleeping on the floor, instead of the couch. The third night, I finally got wise and ordered a crib for her. Worked like a charm.

The first day, we went to Downtown Disney. I wasn't sure if the cover charge for Disneylandworld was really worth it, and there was plenty to entertain us in their free tourist town. We rode on a train that was just her speed:



Floridians thought it was really cold - at 55 degrees. (It is 25 below here today, for a little comparison...)

Here's what Guppy thought of the day:



"I'm smiling!"

(to be continued)