ellenmillion | Entries tagged with shows

In the past two days, I've gotten about 4200 words written, which is amazingly good for me. My total for the month is at 6800, which gets me really close to on-track for my rough 1000/day goal. (Which would not win me NaNo, but would still put 31k in my book!)

Not bad, considering I've skipped several days and last week was frantic show prep!

The show, BTW, went very well. It's always fun to see all the familiar faces, and I love delighting people with the handpainted ornaments and specialty coloring books.

(Coloring books are waaaaay down from two years ago. Like less than half, despite having a better variety than I had that year.)

I do have some ornaments and lots of totes left, so look for those to go on sale... um... sometime soon? I will be offering them to my Patreon patrons first.

On that note, Patreon rewards are out today!

Dishes now, and more wood in the fire...

Crossposts: https://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1634088.html

My skeleton army has been decimated! I sold every skeleton ornament I brought except the teeny unicorn skellie, even the ones I did on the spot at the show, and the ones I did Saturday night. As we were closing, I was painting a skeleton commission. I didn't even get a photo of it.

It's safe to say they were a total hit. Ornaments were in general.

Here's one I painted with a lace pattern - I may do more like this; they are very striking:

Coloring book sales were quite slow, though I moved many copies of Serenitrix, and several of the Alaska coloring books. I got to see many dear friends, and the show itself is so well run I'm spoiled for other bazaars.

Next weekend: PopCon! Then, I'm done for the season.

I've got my not-a-book half edited on Friday and had planned to work on it more today, but brain says blaaaaaaaaaah, and I've got some marketing and sales things to work on.

I spent the weekend at SenshiCon, which was a delightful feast for the senses. Sales were modest on Saturday and modestly dire on Sunday, which would have been fine if I'd lived in Anchorage. I paid for my table easily, and about half my hotel stay (yay for airline miles!). I would love to go back, but it will have to be bundled with something else if I do. I did have time to do my first two #inktober pieces, and I also painted a number of ornaments. I also gave out all of my business cards, so hopefully some of that will come back around, too...

Here are the first two #inktobers:
(Both originals are on hold for the Patreon patrons who sponsored them)

Photos of the ornaments will wait until later in the week when I have them in hand again. (They are driving back with

laylalawlor, while I flew.)

A pile of rough sketches are off to a client this afternoon, and a Guppy (who is very happy to have me back) is eating my hardwon Cinnabon. A fire is crackling in the woodstove, and the familiar strains of Megamind are keeping me company while I start a dish of potatoes au gratin...

My studio is about 85% back together - I still need to sweep (AGAIN) and put the rug back down and move a few boxes and put down some 2x4 stand-offs, but it's USEABLE again, and about 100x neater and better organized than it was. And dry. Thankfully, the only things I lost were a few boxes - priority flat rate or boxes I'd been saving to re-use.

I have orders out.

My inbox is down to about 50.

I got my artwork mailed to a show in Seattle.

I got two new digital downloads up at Etsy shop - two new pieces from my Wild Teas of Alaska coloring book that I haven't posted here yet. Go see! And you can use Fall40 to get 40% off anything at my shop until the end of the month... which is only Friday!!

I have been steadily refining the sketches from #smaugust to ink in #inktober.

On that note, I am SO EXCITED about #inktober! My darling, darling husband who is the bestest got me the Artsnacks #inktober chest and I adore it and cannot wait to try it all out.

The edits to the Wild Teas book have been made and sent to the printer. There is at least a chance that I will have them on hand for Senshi-Con this weekend.

And on that note: Anchorage! You are on notice! I am coming to Senshi-Con next weekend! Come and raid the Bargain Bin, see my wonderful books in person, get things signed! I'll have limited stock of some special edition 78Tarot goodies, and copies of the Clockwork Queen of Oz, and all KINDS of wonderful, amazing things.

Laundry and various mundane tasks, like exchanging propane tanks and making a fire (not actually related...), have been accomplished and herein documented so that I can feel like I've done something today...

Besides rebuilding the studio, the weekend was also spent rearranging Guppy's room. We got a gorgeous, hand-carved, all-wood piece of furniture from a friend who was moving to put in her room, but when we put it in the space I'd made for it, Jake looked at how crowded it looked and said NOPE, so we spent a good while moving the bed and the bookshelves until we'd completely redesigned the room into something airy and really wonderful. It's a marvelous space now. Guppy loves it.

ZOMG. It's been almost a week since I blogged. I deserve not my daily tag.

It has been a productive week - I have fulfilled all of my Kickstarter rewards, worked on anthology artwork, cleaned the house, done some laundry, stabbed at my email inbox, and feel like I've done a billion teeny, critical administrative-type thingies. (Invoices, updating Etsy, tiny updates to the page or that page.) I also got the outline for my next not-a-book finished and the opening lines are down.

And I added this to my webpage, having re-scanned the color version before I sent the original off to its new home!

My First Friday was lovely! It was not terribly lively (being very last minute!), but I did catch up with some wonderful people I hadn't seen in a while, and sold some coloring books, and had an amazing salmon tea sandwich. My work is still available to see at Sipping Streams Teahouse until the end of the month.

I'm also a featured artist for a HUGE (Heretofore Unprecedented Giant Event, I think is what it stands for...) Coloring Facebook thingy. I've got a giveaway going on now - you just have to post any page of mine (just mine) in this thread with the hashtag #artistrixentry: https://www.facebook.com/events/618818858282117/permalink/620224921474844/

I'll be hosting an hour on Saturday morning where I'll be having a flash sale and a few more giveaways - you can join the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/618818858282117/ 9 other artists, a magazine, and an art supply store are each hosting an hour - it runs from 8-8 PST on Saturday, June 9. My hour is 9-10 PST.

Tomorrow (!!) is Sketch Fest! Join us for a 48 hour creative jam! http://ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest

My studio looks like it's been through an Earthquake, it appears that my house survived a hurricane while I was away, all of my show stuff is still packed in my car, my throat is scratchy from an unusual amount of talking (I really hope it's nothing worse than that), I am behind on emails and notes and have a gazillion Kickstarter and coloring book related things to do, I have purple bruises on my legs where I rest boxes as I'm carrying them around, and I'd be really happy not to see any people for a week.

That said,

I HAD A GREAT WEEKEND.

The short version:

*Layla's an awesome booth babe/compatriot.
*New coloring books were printed in time.
*Ornaments were a hit.
*Wildflowers coloring book was a hit. (Have retailer interest as well!)
*Got to UWA and found someone set up at my table - with a slip that had the same table number as me. Everything was straightened out in short order and worked out great.
*PopCon was great geeky fun.
*I painted my first panda.
*People remembered me.
*Two shows in one weekend is hard.
*I'm tired.

Less than 48 hours left on the Kickstarter! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1624616265/monthly-fantasy-coloring-books-for-adults

Last of the big new releases! I think this was my favorite, but it was a tough call:

Overall, it was a great challenge for me to do these five pieces, because I wanted to offer a little bit for anyone - I managed to work in an angel, a unicorn, a mermaid, kitties (winged), a spirit/dryad, a piece with no human figures (the kitties), architecture, pieces set outdoors, a piece set indoors, a piece set underwater, and lots and lots of fun-to-color detail - all while sticking to a holiday/winter theme.

And, I have a new portrait available!

With some of my pieces through Inktober, I was trying to challenge myself to do portraits that weren't Caucasian girls that looked vaguely like me.

I am chewing on my nails waiting for word from my printer that my coloring books are ready to pick up. *gnawgnawgnawgnaw...*

We may go play in the snow as soon as it gets light enough! After picking up coloring books, I have to pack up the car, and I am really, really looking forward to this weekend of shows. I really do love doing shows.

Artwork reveal #4!

(original for sale: $300)

You can purchase all five as coloring pages with an issue of Color On, available here for $3.99: http://coloronmag.com/downloads/november-2015-issue/

I've polished up the rough draft of my story and am ready to shoot it off for alpha-level review, and am working on all those other little bits: blurbs and excerpts and covers and such.

Preschool today, and it started roughly. I'm hoping its gone more smoothly since I left. They didn't call me, so it couldn't have been that bad. Right? Almost out of tea (hot chocolate) shop time.

I painted more ornaments last night, because I have a painting problem, apparently. (This takes me to 61 ornaments + one that broke [the butterfly, alas!]) You can see them on my Instagram, except for the last, a barn owl I painted because my last barn owl got a drip on his face from the acrylic over-spray: https://instagram.com/ellenmillion/

Coloring books will be ready tonight or tomorrow morning, which is cutting it REALLY close, but ought to be okay.

Time to pack up the laptop and move on!

Locals! I will be at two shows not this weekend, but next. First is PopCon, our very own little local con, here at UAF. You can find me at the Wood Center Friday, Nov 6 between 4-10(ish) and Saturday, Nov 7 between 2-9(ish). I will also, thanks to the power of being two places at once (IE: sharing a table with

laylalawlor), be at the UWA bazaar Saturday and Sunday, from 9 AM-4 PM.

We'll be debuting two things that I am super, super excited about. The first is:

I've approved the proofs at the printer, and it is going to be a GORGEOUS little coloring book. As it says on the label, it's a coloring book of wildflowers, 6 from me, and 6 by Layla. Layla wrote descriptions of each flower, which are included on each image.

Like this one!

If this does well, we'll be tackling all kind of Alaskan topics: birds, fish, animals, landmarks...

The other items we'll be unleashing on the world are hand-painted ornaments. We've been having tremendous fun painting these.

And in other artwork, here is #Inktober 24, available for adoption at Portrait Adoption now:

(Finished from a Sketch Fest Sketch, Happy Tears was the prompt... from January 2012!)

I'm up to #25 for Inktober, and not at all sure I will continue. There's a limit to my energy (no, really!), and I'm enjoying the ornaments more right now. 25 is still impressive, and I've got a lot of things crossed off my list.

I think that's enough artwork for today... Monsterus Minimus appears to be on a nap strike, and I've got an ad to design and some writing that's due. I'll save the rest of my big news for tomorrow!

Most people equate Alaska with snowmen, but the truth is, the snow in Fairbanks (the dry interior), is usually awful for making snowballs. You pat it together, it just falls apart. We only get a brief window of sticky snow in the spring and fall, when it's warm enough to stay structurally sound. Today was one such day!

It's a snowbunny, because we've been watching Max and Ruby, and they make snowbunnies.

And one shot building it:

I have a First Friday show this evening! The roads may be awful, and I'm not expecting a great turnout. More caramel apples and cider for me! I thought I'd bring my sketch book and work on some Inktober pieces, and bring some blank ACEOs and do sketches if anyone wants one. I've already got my show box together, and I'm not doing anything fancy with displays - just some coloring books in stands, an original or two, and a scatter of cards and bookmarks.

Guppy is dawdling over her snack now (and getting most of it on her face...), then we've got a nap, and I'll try to do more art. I've gotten 7 pieces done for Inktober, and am excited to work on more of them....

This has been the week of cooking All The Things.

Monday, I made bread, two kinds of pesto, pizza (combining parts of those first two...), boiled up our last farm beets, and baked granola. I only didn't make muffins because I knew the husband was bringing home Cinnabon from the Anchorage airport the following evening. Guppy was very 'helpful.' Wednesday, I made rosemary pineapple lamb chops and green tomato salsa. We'd gotten a bag of green tomatoes from the preschool, and I had no idea what to do with them. It was SO SO SO good. It was fresh, no cooking, so mostly just chopping up a lot of tiny ingredients and mixing them together, but just amazingly delicious. I made two little jars that are basically gone already, and two quart bags for the freezer. I picked up our last CSA farm share yesterday and helped myself to more of the 'please take' green tomatoes there, too, so I WILL be making more.

Here's Guppy lining up the tomato parts on a butter knife.

Today, I went shopping for spray paint and then sat at the tea shop and wrote nearly 1500 words on my novella. Big climactic section - the writing is fast and I know (almost) exactly what's happening from here. I'm over 18k on it now, and I'm not sure it will stretch to 25k. I'm guessing 22k, right now.

I'm getting my display bits and bobs all fixed up in anticipation of shows coming up - in part because we are rapidly running out of time I can spray paint things outside (Every year, I swear I'm going to spray paint my display and NEVER DO. This year? DONE.). We may get 5 inches of snow tonight. CRAZINESS.

Off to create. And watch some Agents of Shield because my brain is melting down my face.