ellenmillion | Entries tagged with sketch fest

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

Crossposts: https://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1639766.html

I have book hangover, so bad. I finished the not-a-book (my fourth!) late Wednesday night, not dragging into bed until about midnight.

Yesterday, I was too busy to really process it, and too tired. Guppy got me up at 3 in the morning, though she went right back to sleep. That, with the late night, meant I was pretty wiped. And then we put the roof on the woodshed! It is an actual woodshed, with a roof! After a day of blistering heat, it was obliging enough to rain last night, and we went out and stood in our perfectly dry (if wall-less, still) woodshed. Horrah!

Today, however, I wandered around staring at things a lot, feeling vaguely overwhelmed and more than a little lost. The book... is done? It's... done? Wait, what? Professional writers may laugh. There are a billion things to do, not the least of which is start the next book, but I'm mostly just finding myself wanting to lie down on the floor and watch dust settle, or binge-watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or something.

And there's Sketch Fest today! https://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/

I haven't done anything for it yet, but I hope to tonight.

I'm a featured artist at a Tarot Expo tomorrow, which is fun! I am going to be bringing art supplies and offering $15 on-the-spot commissions for personal tarot ACEOs. Just rough sketches, color or pencil. We'll see how it goes. Locals, I'll be at the Coop Plaza, 12-4, at Woven Sylver. They are going to have tarot readers and demos and workshops from 10-5. (And probably cookies, but don't quote me.)

It's taken me HOURS to write this, so here's some more new art, and I'm going to go eat chocolate and pour a stiff drink. BOOK DONE. BRAIN GONE.

Another of the exclusive pieces for Color On! Magazine.

Crossposts: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1625374.html

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

Crossposts: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1621707.html

Have you missed some of my creative updates over the last month? I'm doing monthly roundups to try to keep some sense in the chaos!

April started late - I spent the first several weeks doing a whirlwind grandparent tour of three different states. I attempted #faepril, but burned out after 7 or eight of them, and wasn't particularly happy with any of them. I was also working ridiculous hard on exclusive work that I won't be able to show off until July (except to Patreon patrons!), so it was a brief month from the outside...

Artwork:

My big release was this painting, for 78Tarot:

I also did three rough sketches for Sketch Fest #86: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestartist.php?id=9&date=86
All of them were for my failed #faepril attempt, none of them were very polished!

Posted at Torn World:

And at Portrait Adoption:

Writing:

A poem for subscribers at Torn World: http://www.tornworld.net/storypageview.php?id=614

Almost no not-a-book writing.

Other:

Livejournal's insistence on adding advertising for visitors (despite my paid account!) was the final nail in that coffin, and I imported my journal to Dreamwidth, which is where my primary blogging now is.

I had a cold for a few weeks of the month. When I went to the doctor, they said 'walking pnemonia?' I said PLBT! and refused to get xrays, and was better then next week.

Favorite photo, Me and Guppy with a GIANT plastic cow: http://hotlink.ellenmilliongraphics.com/ellen/baby/IMG_8554-withagiantcow.JPG

Crossposts: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1620064.html

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

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

Crossposts: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1616537.html

I'm back! Guppy and husband and I went to Hawaii for a few weeks, meeting my Mom and friend M for the first week, and on our own the second. It was warm and relaxing and I am much rejuvenated. (Though, the less said about the EIGHT HOURS we spent at the Fairbanks airport trying to get out of town, the better.)

I'm behind, but trying hard to catch up. I have an insane deadline to meet by the end of the month. (InSANE.) But I'm going to do it, and it will be amazing, and I should be able to share it with you next month.

(Unless you're a supporter at Patreon, they get to see them first! Patreon patrons also got to see photos and sketches during my recent travels, for as little as $1/month.)

Otherwise, I'm going to be more quiet than usual for February. We're getting back into the regular patterns of life, and there are Guppy things and house things and tax things and EMG things to get done... on top of the most wonderful deadline ever. Oh, and I'm releasing a book next week! Yay!

Sketch Fest is next week! https://ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest

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.

This was another for the Wild Teas of Alaska coloring book:

I am unleashing another project! This one is brief and simple - I will be selling ACEO prints of Sketch Fest artwork over Black Friday Weekend (spanning Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday). Artists can upload print files of ANY Sketch Fest piece they've ever done, and it will be available as a print. Artists will receive $2 for each print, and EMG will receive the rest.

Uploading for artists is available now! I'm putting the shopping features together now. How fancy it ends up being will depend on how many people start uploading artwork, and how cooperative a certain small monster is. It may be very barebones.

In other project things, PA artists, there are six submitted descriptions currently open. It's a great time to get involved!

In other news, I have SOLVED my not-a-book problems. Well, maybe not completely solved. But I have figured out a big part of what was bugging me, and how to fix it.

Today I have company, and sushi, and games with Guppy!

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.

Parent aide day, and I survived! I had to nap on the couch during quiet time afterwards, and it was brutally cold and windy during playground time, but I survived! As usual, my dread of it did not survive the actual day, and it's not a real hardship to build giant towers out of tinker toys and sing silly songs and eat half of my daughter's snack because otherwise I'd starve to death on the spot.

No #inktobers attained today, nor any words. Trying not to think too hard about HOW FAST October is slipping past. I DID get seven sketches dashed out for Sketch Fest over the weekend: https://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestartist.php?id=9&date=80

My favorite:

This will be a coloring book page in my next Coloring Alaska book. You can pre-buy the original at a great price at the Sketch Fest site: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestart.php?id=20072

I stayed up late last night for the first time in a Looooooong time and watched Space Pirate Harlock with Jake, which was great fun. Terrible dubbing, but amazing aesthetics. I recommend it.

Woops, I just sneezed and woke Guppy up, so it must be time to make breakfast...

I got Wild Teas of Alaska up on Amazon this morning, so that was something.

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

Today, so far, I have:

*Gotten my flat tire repaired (to be fair, I have to pick it up tomorrow, because I don't want to go back in today).
*Refilled propane
*Bought a replacement headlight for my car
*Replenished the ridiculously expensive prescription catfood
*mailed an order
*cleaned out the freezer
*3 loads of laundry
*some emails
*arranged to restock one of my retailers
*realized I was missing a set of certificates for a portrait adoption. *ARGH.*

The last precipitated a full certificate count and file purge. I am to the Hs so far, and there are several head-scratchers in my files. Some I suspect are people who have changed their names (marriage, etc.), a few are people who never registered at the site *tosses*, but there are a few oddballs I'll have to track down. Illegible signatures for the argh. I'm getting rid of reams of paperwork, which is nice, and tagging everything I identify so I don't have to do this again.

I did 4 sketches for #smaugust over the weekend: https://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestartist.php?id=9&date=78

I got a massively flat tire on my way to gaming and discovered that I need a cheater bar in my car because I could not BUDGE those nuts.

Now I have to go empty the van because it gets serviced tomorrow and I have dance class tonight! *flies*

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!

I got to escape the house for several hours yesterday and go sketching with

laylalawlor and have lunch out. I drank WAY too much caffeine, did four sketches for the bonus Sketch Fest, and worked on Tentacle Friends (which I'm thinking may be the cover to my next solo book!).

This is one of the pieces I finished for Sketch Fest. The prompt was Easter Magic. I have put it up as a free download at my site - feel free to print and color, make cards, or anything non-commercial. Enjoy!

Download it here: http://ellenmillion.com/artpageview.php?id=296

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.

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

I'll have a real post later, hopefully!

After a short hiccup, Sketch Fest is now running! http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestprompters.php

I've done four full-page sketches, and quite like all of them as potential coloring book pages!

( Read more... )
They are all available at Sketch Fest as to-be-finished art (in ink). http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestartist.php?id=9

Layla came over and brought crepes, and Alex brought chocolate chip cookies, so I'm feeling quite full of delicious things and artistic satisfaction.

Guppy and I went swimming this morning, and mailed two big boxes of coloring books, and it's generally been a lovely, sunny day. As I mentioned in a comment on Facebook, there is no sunshine in the world like February sunshine in the interior of Alaska. *drinks it up*

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!)

80! My inbox is down to EIGHTY. This is down from about 300 this morning. *flops*

I found another Inktober piece I hadn't posted:

~~(original available: $10 includes US shipping)~~ on hold

I've been continuing to clean and purge, in bits and fits, and one of those fits I found the bound copy of the Upheaval novel that I wrote for NaNo a few years back. And... it's not terrible. It's actually really GOOD in places, and I'm getting excited to start filling in some of the big gaps and fixing up the characterization. (Oh look, this character gets REALLY important in the last chapter. Maybe I should actually mention them at some previous point... and give them a name.).

I got the Kickstarter surveys compiled into a document today so I could look at the trends: people felt strongly about zombies (some people wanted them, more REALLY didn't). The next most mentioned was Fantastrix, which was perfectly evenly divided between people who didn't want it (largely because they already had it!) and those that did. Most responders (by one!) didn't care what they got.

There is a FB event for the next Sketch Fest: https://www.facebook.com/events/1639152869681450/

It is not until February, because I am REALLY SUPER SERIOUS about taking a sanity month. I am going to put on an autoresponder, and just step away for a while and do without having to update anything or answer anything or fill orders or do customer service or help anyone reset their password. Orders have trickled away to nothing, so I'm tempted to close up a few days early. Very tempted.

Fire and wood now - it's not as cold as I was hoping it would get, but it's still chilly, and I've let the fire die down. Brr!

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: