ellenmillion

Operation Grow-Out-The-Bangs continues. I am less hateful of it than I have been, and the bangs are long enough now to pull back in a comb. I am going to continue the experiment until it tucks back behind my ears, and to help me get there, I'd like to treat myself to pretty combs. Anyone have suggestions of shiny, possibly geeky hair combs on Etsy or similar?

Kindergarten continues to be awesome. Guppy loves it, and I love having a piece of my life back. I love her dearly, but her desire for constant interaction conflicts with my desire to get stuff done.

My fourth not-a-book has launched! This week will be promotion efforts (some are done, some just need go-buttons pushed, some need minor edits, some need ground-up design). I also have a short story that needs revisions for an anthology. My goal is to have those done by Thursday - it will require a little writing, as the editors requested a little more background to work with, and a better resolution. Can do! I also have Patreon rewards to roll out.



I have about three ideas for the spicy story, and expect that to go quickly, the rest of the rewards basically just need sent. I've also made my first goal with Patreon and will be livestreaming some sketching tomorrow (Tuesday!) morning, about 9:30 Alaska time. This will happen at my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EllenMillionArtistrix/

(This is, btw, a really opportune time to sign up as a $5+ patron, as I will be sending the physical rewards this month, even if you are a new supporter, or international.)

Lunch and trash and orders need to happen now, so off I go.

Who stole June? Seriously, wasn't it JUST here?

We worked on the woodshed this weekend, and got it braced and all the purlins on. The only things left are roofing and siding. (We also found out that someone stole a bunch of stuff from my yurt, which was less wonderful. :/)

The three of us also braved the fourth of July madness at Pioneer Park (Alaskaland!), and that was a very mixed bag. We went to hear the 1812 Overture, which is Guppy's very favorite song, and the band was not bad. While they were playing Sousa, there was a bald eagle cruising around overhead, which was pretty epic. We had ice cream cones first, and then of course, Guppy did not want to sit still, and later there were tears because we went hunting for a balloon after they had given them all away. It was a billion degrees and there were so many people it made my skin itch.

Lots of art things to share over the next week or two! So many! Let's start with the all-#junicorn round-up:


(Photo updated to show sold cards, and also the four that were on my scanner bed still...)

Many originals are still available, plus bookmarks, magnets, and signed prints! For a larger look at each image, and pricing, the landing page is here: http://ellenmillion.dreamwidth.org/1604777.html Just let me know what you'd like via email or PM, and I'll send you an invoice which you can pay by Paypal or credit card. I'd also take a check, if you want to mail one.

I'm very sorry for delays in communication this week. My Monday ick turned out not to just be woodsmoke, and blossomed into a miserable cold on Tuesday. I felt considerably better on Wednesday, though I sounded quite rough. When I got up this morning, I had pain in my ears, so I took a sudafed that knocked me for a serious loop - I keep taking my temperature because I've had hot and cold sweats, dizziness, and brutal exhaustion that I didn't have before taking the sudafed. On the plus side, my sinuses are dry and my ears stopped hurting. I'm not entirely sure it was worth it. I've been just crawling through my morning chores, not helped by the fact that poor Guppy has caught it, too.

At any rate, I'm feeling behind on things and I'm quite dismayed that we're 9 days off from Christmas. What?!

If you, like me, are scrambling for last minute gifts, I've got a way to give a whole lot of people a great thing in one fell swoop: a Gift Certificate to EMG. You'll make my day, you'll support an independent artist (or several!), and you'll make the recipient's day, by giving an art gift without having to wonder if they have wall space for that print, or if they have that coloring book, or if they need a character portrait for their RPG campaign. It's even a great gift for an artist, as it also includes the EMG-Zine anthologies, stuffed full of business and technical advice for artists and writers.



/holiday shill

Now I'm going to go feed us some lunch and wash some dishes.

Today, we got SNOW.

It was a stay at home day, which was nice because everyone always forgets how to drive the first day of snow, and Guppy wasn't feeling very good, but had a quiet day to recover. We had a crackling fire and I did some laundry and we made a Halloween wreatch from a craft kit. We watched Incredibles, and I snuck in an episode of the Flash while she was napping. I did a lot of artwork that I feel tremendously good about today, and wrote a hard email that I feel was appreciated and also programmed a fab new toy to play with at Portrait Adoption:

http://portraitadoption.com/novelgenerator.php

The idea occurred to me a few days ago, while I was noodling around with things, and it turned out to be relatively simple to write up. I would still like to make a button to share it on social media, and possibly also save your results, but I'm not quite sure how to make that happen. I have a few ideas I could poke at if it's something people decide they want.

THere's also a new sampler page up at EMG, for the Wild Teas of Alaska: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/coloringbook.php?id=75


Guppy was feeling enough better at the end of the day to walk up the driveway with me. She was all smiles and glee until I wanted to take her photo, of course.

Looking ahead! I have a few things on the calendar to share with you!

October 30 I will be at Sipping Streams from 1-4 for a fabulous coloring party! Tea, finger food (OMG, so good), a face-painter, free pages, and a chance to use my own high end coloring tools. Don't miss it!

Nov 5-6 I will be at the UWA holiday bazaar, sharing a table with laylalawlor. I will have painted ornaments and any coloring books that I personally am in.

Nov 11-12 I will be at PopCon at UAF. As time allows, I will be doing on-the-spot commissions of ornaments and sketches.

Nov 18-20 is Sketch Fest #81!

I'm also ruminating something fun and Sketch Fest related for Black Friday...

I actually have several new pieces up at Etsy as individual downloads since I last updated here, including Bearing Gifts, Christmas Kitties and Junicorn 1, which was much requested...


Original available at my page: http://ellenmillion.com/artpageview.php?id=321

Guppy was negotiating her way through mealtime the other night. (Two more bites and I get a cherry! Five more bites! Three bites! Big bites!)

"She could be a lawyer when she grows up," I told Jake and my Mom.

"I'm going to be Rapunzel!"

Okay, then!

...

I went on a two-day painting retreat at the Hot Springs this weekend, as part of a class through the Summer Fine Arts Festival.

I LOVED it. I took the van, all by myself, and camped out by a babbling creek and had a perfectly lovely time. Watercolor painting - real watercolor painting, not my previously attempted color-in-the-lines work - is so utterly, completely backwards from the way I'm used to thinking and composing. I am not terribly happy with anything I did (and nothing got finished), but I think I learned a LOT, and I had a great time and met wonderful people and made new friends and got 3 lovely soaks in the hot pool in. I liked it enough to pick up a few more supplies, and will be attempting to finish the pieces I started.



I came back Saturday evening in time to go out to dinner with Mom and Becca and Jake, and took Mom to the airport early Sunday morning. I will miss her!

...

I have started laundry and cleaned up the house, and started straightening my office. (Chaos! It has been utter CHAOS!) 612 words writting on DB this morning, and about ready to work on the Sea Monster sponsorships. I'm still waiting for a few more print selections!

I got the reprints of Fishpond Fantasies on Thursday before I left, and I already miss having Mom around so I can just up and leave, all by myself, to get running around done when it's most convenient to me, not hinged on when someone else is sleeping or eating.

I also (finally!) got my new display rack. It's gorgeous, if somewhat bigger than I thought it would be. I will have it for my First Friday signing, which is COMING UP! August 7th, from 5-8, I will be at Alaskan Raven in the Coop plaza with my coloring books (and maybe some art!). Come see me! (I realize that it's opening day of the fair, so my expectations of attendance are not high...)

Off to do things now while my childcare lasts!

Our sled may be a little bit large!



Where there are not rocks, there is ice. Lots of very slick ice. We started to walk up the driveway this morning, but Guppy could not stay on her feet, even holding my hand, so I got the sled for her. (I had Yaktraks, of course.) We sledded back down together until I was afraid for our lives and steered us into a snowbank so I could walk us the rest of the way.

It's colder, today, and windy, so we didn't play outside for very long. I did get to introduce her to the fun of breaking the ice on top of puddles. She didn't particularly like it.

Poking more at advertising things, and looking for review blogs and magazines (so stupidly expensive! Would it be worth it?), managing artist submissions and the like. Got some mailing list updates made. I'm debating between just releasing new books as I have them (I DO have the capital, if barely), versus running a Kickstarter. The spirit of Kickstarter is to get a business started... but the reality is that it is an excellent advertising platform, and I'd get a lot more immediate sales that way.

Working on edits for my space opera story - some of them are easy, some of them are flaily. I'm not great at padding, which makes me (I fear) commercially unviable. I re-started the art I was balking at yesterday in a new media and now it's going well. Need to work further on that today, and also start a commission that I've been dawdling on. Still haven't made a game plan for Sea Monster month, but the husband is making strong coloring book noises at me and that does sound like the most fun to me.

Mph. Art now. Thinking later.

I'm looking at ordering some new postcards. My current stock is badly dated, including with an expired domain. (That I'm still sort of kicking myself over on several fronts, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

And I have dilemmas. Whole PILES of dilemmas. Like, do I continue to plug Fantastic Portfolios? It's still technically an EMG project, but I don't actually run it anymore, and it's lagging seriously behind right now. And EMG-Zine - there are 7 YEARS of fantastic archives there, and three print anthologies that I'd eventually like to sell out of. But the space on an advertising postcard is some seriously valuable real estate. What about Commission-Control? Do I put that on to make myself get this project geared up or is that a stupid amount of extra pressure. I really DO want to get this project released this year - sooner than later, even (I have some GREAT ideas for it, actually...), but putting it on business cards makes it pretty real.

I'm intending to do something similar to my landing page:



Naturally, I'll be updating all the link addresses and text, making things more readable at the smaller scale, changing the aspect ratio a bit, updating the coloring book covers to things that are actually available, using more active portrait artist examples, etc.

I could also redesign the whole bloody thing, but let's not get crazy...

ETA: Here's what I've got so far...

( somewhat big! )

I decided not to do a July-December image-intensive post... because after June, I started doing those monthly and it seems redundant to do that all over again. (You can see them at the monthly roundup tag)

But I AM interested in looking at some of the totals I got to, and examining how the things I did related to my goals as I think about what goals I need for the next year.

( Long, and possibly boring... )

I have a giant request! If you've got any of my coloring books - anything still in print, or new for the Kickstarter, including the PDFs - please review them at Amazon! http://www.amazon.com/gp/aag/main/ref=olp_merch_name_2?ie=UTF8&asin=1933603240&isAmazonFulfilled=0&seller=AOAJRP58C0ATJ

Reviews at Amazon matter a LOT, and this is a great way to help other people find my awesome products.

I have new art!


She's available for adoption: http://portraitadoption.com/portrait.php?id=2557

Here's my little helper-Guppy. She LOVES LOVES LOVES to help me wash dishes. And by 'help,' I really mean get in my way, splash water everywhere, and drop things. I let her help with the plastic stuff... if I'm not in a hurry.



Also, THANK EVERYTHING that the election is tomorrow and the creepy autodialers will FINALLY STOP CALLING. I'm keeping a tally and will be voting AGAINST the people who bug me the most. Also, your thinly veiled 'surveys' are not fooling me. Enough with those, too.