ellenmillion

(x-posted from Patreon/Facebook)

It's been a hard year, for everyone, and Sketch Fest has not escaped unscathed. It's been hard to drum up activity, sales have fallen to nothing, and our support through Patreon has dwindled. No grief to anyone, this has been an amazing project for almost eleven years, and I am so grateful to everyone for their participation and support. But all things have a life cycle.

I am going to skip February's Sketch Fest because I have just an utter ton going on and I need a little break to recharge.

March is Sketch Fest's 11th anniversary, and there WILL be a final March Sketch Fest, and I hope you will all join me (even if you haven't before!). I am still brainstorming special prizes and thank you gifts and will keep you guys posted on our schedule of events as I finalize things. I never like it when things go out with a whimper, and I want to make sure that you get a great last hurrah!

I don't plan on taking the site down - it will remain up indefinitely as long as it doesn't pose a security risk, and I'm not averse to the idea of restarting active Sketch Fests in the future when there is less of ...the world like it is right now. I love the concept so much and I have made so many wonderful friends and watched so many of you take your artwork to the next level. It was inspiring and rewarding...and I hope that it will be again some day in the future.

This weekend was a whirlwind of piano lessons and cleaning and rearranging the garage, doing laundry, taking in trash, getting water, and milk from the farm, grocery shopping, getting gas, chopping wood... and building a stick fort in the "back yard" with Guppy.

We don't really have a "yard." We have 36 acres of wild birch forest backed up against a 365 acre greenbelt. I can barely make out one light from one neighbor up the hill through the trees... if it's dark, and there aren't leaves on the trees. (Of course it's not often dark when there ARE leaves on trees.)

Yesterday, driving home from piano lessons, we saw a grouse and then chased a fox down the driveway. Not deliberately. He just chose to saunter down the driveway we needed to go down. We went slow and he looked annoyed but not hassled, and then he ran off past the house into the forest.

It's a weird in-between season right now - last week was slushy snow (and terrible roads), but the ground was still too warm for it to stick. This week is colder and dry.

I finished the rough draft of Dragon of Glass on Friday. Probably the most unsatisfactory "the end" yet, because I know how much work it needs before I can even send it out for edits. I'm already planning to re-write several scenes. I let it set over the weekend so I can look at it with fresh eyes on Monday. Ready to be done with this one already. Fake Fur is ridiculous fluff up to 8k now.

There was a Sketch Fest this weekend - I did two loose sketches, which was nice. Oh! And the second Alaska Animals translation coloring book is moving again. (As is a freelance project that Will. Not. Die.)

I may run away for a day at the hot springs this week because I am desperate need of soaking.

My tentative plan: run the Kickstarter the last two weeks of April. Garden and Goddesses Volume 3 (by Mitzi) would be the stretch goal.

No collaborative titles this time... I have a basement full of coloring books and the market has chilled pretty significantly, and the group titles don't sell as strongly, as well as being more work. But I want another solo coloring book for purely selfish reasons, and I'm hopeful that the Kickstarter will stimulate some back catalog sales as well.

I'm gathering up my resources and numbers and print files for this right now and should have a Facebook event and some concrete dates and such pretty soon.

Have a sneak preview of one of the last pages for it:



Which is also part of my next bit of exciting news, but that shall wait for another post.

Also coming up!

Sketch Fest on Friday! Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/183217659122508/ Site here: https://ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/

Muse Fusion the last week of March! Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/191419308289421/ Site here: https://www.tornworld.net/musefusion.php

I still haven't scanned the latest #Junicorn (and I'm still behind and working on lucky number 13), so have a Portrait Adoption piece I posted a week or so ago:


Adopt her here: https://portraitadoption.com/portrait.php?id=2947

Summer camp remains the greatest thing in my life right now. It's still hard to peel her off in the morning, and she doesn't want to leave in the afternoon. My writing count isn't quite as awesome as the first glorious day, but I have gotten to the gym every single morning (which feels amazing) and I've gotten a ton of stuff done. I'm 4/6 into sekrit art project #789 and finished up a private commission yesterday. I submitted a short story to an anthology, and the EMG newsletter finally went out, and I HAVE gotten 500 words minimum every day, with spurts of much, much better, so that I'm nearly at 6k for the week. (I know my powerhouse writing friends are sniggering up their sleeves, but that's a LOT for me.)

Having ME time is huge. It's different than nap/quiet time, too. I spend that time with half an ear at least out for her. This is time I spend with sound-cancelling earphones absolutely focused on what I'm doing. I've tried four different places, and they've all worked beautifully. I feel productive and free and fulfilled. And then I can pick Guppy up and not feel like she's pushed my buttons all morning and I'm happy to see her and spend time playing. (Or working outside in the guise of playing!)

It helps that she is clearly having a great time.

Yesterday, Jake took the afternoon off and we finished the decking on the woodshed. YES. I used our new impact driver and WOW. I'm sold. It's supposed to rain today and tomorrow, so we wanted to get that finished while the weather was nice.

Okay, back to the not-a-book.

This afternoon is SKETCH FEST! http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/index.php

It's Sketch Fest weekend! http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/

I've done two sketches so far, may tackle another in paints...

Sometimes I feel so full of gratitude and so glad for my life and my friends and my family and all the blessings and brightness that are around me that I'm afraid to say anything, like it's something fragile and shy and making eye contact with it will scare it off.

But I am so, so grateful for all of it. For all of you.

We had a beautiful dinner. We roasted a chicken, since none of us are nuts about turkey and there are only three of us. It turned out beautifully, all golden and crispy and moist. We had it with a green bean casserole made with heavy cream instead of milk, and a boxed stuffing. I also baked a dutch apple pie that blew my last pie out of the water, even though the top got a little dark in the middle. It was all quite amazing, and we ate ourselves silly.

Today's artwork is one of the #smaugust/#inktober pieces that I did for my Patreon patrons:



(Since Thanksgiving is now behind us, posting Christmas artwork is fair game, right??)
The sponsor gets first dibs on the original, but it may become available!

And last but not least, the Sketch Fest ACEO print sale is open! It runs through the Black Friday/Small Business Saturday/Cyber Monday weekend.

https://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestaceos.php

If you find bugs, let me know. This was a bit of a stretch to my programing abilities, and I learned all kinds of fancy new things to apply to this. I think it's a pretty slick system, but if you find a way to break it, I'll get my bug-fixing hammer. You'll note that there are even ways to search the prints! I'll be applying this search engine to the greater site after the sale is over. If you've been lax about checking categories, you may regret it!

Artists, you can still upload prints - I'll be approving them whenever I can throughout the weekend. Login and browse to your page - the upload link is underneath each thumbnail image.

Now I'm going to watch Clone Wars and fall into bed.

Preschool was canceled due to a broken heater, which throws some plans into tailspin. Instead of sound canceling earphones and buckling down on my not-a-book, I get the shattered attention only possible when living with a 4-year-old-whirlwind.

I got Sketch Fest set up, and am poking at a print project that I may or may not be able to launch in time. Come join us very shortly for a prompted, sketchy good time. https://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/

Here's some artwork!


This is one my favorites from #inktober - an experiment with brush pens that just has a lot of energy and grace. It's pretty tiny, and the original is available. $15, shipping included. Patreon patrons get half price!
ACEO prints are available, $5 each.

The cold I had successfully fought off last Monday came roaring back on Thursday. I've only written 300odd words since Thursday, but I HAVE finished a coloring book, which is ready to upload to the printer today:




I'll be sharing some of my artwork from it later this week, once I've got a release date.

There was a Sketch Fest this weekend, and I only did one paltry little ACEO card:


(original available - click to view at Sketch Fest!)

Here's a lovely review of Serenitrix: https://stacescolouringgalleryandreviews.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/serenitrix-the-dreams-and-drawings-of-ellen-million/

And, check out this awesome looking card game Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/poppy-games/wine-the-card-game

It was an excellent weekend, bursting to the seams with things and places. It was Sketch Fest, which I was not able to jump in on until late Saturday, but I did get two little color sketches finished: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestartist.php?id=9


(original available)

There's a challenge in August called #smaugust that I may be forced to do... >.>

And I have NOT time for it, but people suggested a #junicorn coloring book and now of course, the muse is itchy:


Most of them won't be as straight-forward to convert, but this one was.

I also finished another coloring page, and two of my anthology illustrations are getting very close to the inking stage.

I also released my second not-a-book, and am trying very hard not to refresh bookreport too enthusiastically.

And I did AYP (Angry, Young and Poor, a music festival) on Saturday, and it worked out wonderfully - sold a bunch (and a lot of bargain bin things, which makes me twice as happy), and the weather was gorgeous. The music was a little hit and miss, but that's to be expected.

I have laundry to fold, and royalties and sketch fest payments to send, and I'm about out of time, so this is brief!

Swim class was a disaster. Shopping was a nightmare. Child is now refusing to nap. (We're at the give-up stage.) I have gotten nothing done today.

Yesterday, I parent-aided for the Easter party, which was (fortunately) far less painful. I also got a Guppy-nap yesterday, and added 500 words to my novella, as well as mailing orders and delivering some wholesale coloring books and doing some emails and admin stuff.

Tomorrow! We get a bonus birthday Sketch Fest! http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/index.php

It is just 12 hours long, 8 AM to 8 PM (Alaska time), just like the very first one, and I'd love it if you could join us.

Trying to type (or draw) with 30 odd lbs hanging and pulling on one arm isn't working. Going to go do anything else.