Yes I am doing a thing like all the stores that sent you 16 million emails today. Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale on my Etsy shop – 20% off for you awesome blog readers! Use the code BLOGSOME now through Monday for 20% off anything, including prints and originals and t-shirts and calendars. Because you are awesome!
Also I added a bunch of stuff today.
Love, Meg
All,
Bear with me as I do some much-needed blog updates. The look will change – and it will be temporary until I can finalize it the way I like – but the content will remain. Thanks for your patience!
Meg
Juggler by Meg Lyman
5×3.5″ gouache and ink
SOLD
Sorry for the interruption – I’ve had some website difficulties. I think it’s better now. If this site ever goes away again and you see a “suspended” message, that means I got hacked again and am working frantically behind the scenes. Which means less time for painting. Sigh.
Still no new art. Still coding. But! Getting ready for Chattacon next weekend in Chattanooga, TN. Maybe see you there???
Also, a quick question. Do you like animated things in websites? I’m considering a new logo design for the new website, and I’m wondering if I should make it a flash animation that plays only once, when the main page loads. What do you y’all think?
No art from me recently. I’m in a bit of an inspiration slump. To fill this new void in my free time, I started coding the new website. I’m having so much fun… I’m sure you can see my nerd from all the way over in wherever you are right now. In the 2+ years since I first started my site, the ubiquitous “they” have really improved the packages available for creating and customizing your own website. If any of y’all want me to go in depth, I will! But not unless you request it, because even I can fall asleep reading php code if I’m not in the mood.
OK, so I got back from RAGBRAI a week ago. But! I have had a hugely busy week (and weekend) at work and I’m just now getting back into the swing of things. I did update my website with some new art, so check it out.
I’ll post more artsy things later this week. For now, have some photos from my trip, featuring a cute little monster made by treesofmachinery. Let me know if the photo link works or not!
Interestingly, that last post pushed the blog up an entire school. I skipped 4 grades in 2 days! It must have been the swearing. Or the big words.
Since my ma reads this blog, I’ll lean the experiment towards big words, and see what happens. Bets, anyone?
Cat Skull with Feathers by Meg Lyman
9×12 pencil on Canson
$60 – e-mail to purchase
It took me two tries to get this cat skull looking reasonably like a cat skull. You think you can draw from life, because you’ve done it before… but when you try it, you remember that it’s been a while and this shit is hard.
Casey’s blog has a neat little widget that says you need to be a genius to understand his blog. Makes readers of said blog feel smart, right? Well, how does this make you feel?
I suppose it’s nice to know that any second-grader could understand my blog, although the sarcasm may go over their heads. My inclusion of a swear word in the first paragraph is an experiment. Does it automatically bump the blog readability level to PG-13? Or do I just need to use more big words?
Unequivocally inconceivable!
I’ve been tagged, so I guess I’m “it.” Or maybe I’m frozen. Wait, what game are we playing?
First, I apologize for the lack of content this past weekend; I was out of town. I’ll get back to riveting, crunchy content next weekend. For now, though, I’ve been tagged by arteest extraordinaire Rita Woodburne. Her blog is called “Purple Tastes Good.” Isn’t that excellent? She wants to know seven things about me that most blog readers don’t. So you get to hear them too.
1. I am a punctuation and spelling Nazi. See those periods and exclamation points inside the quotation marks? That’s where they should be.
2. I play the cello. I used to be good. Now I am out of practice, and Stanley sits in the corner, mournfully awaiting the day I change his Dampits.
3. I hate mannequins. They freak me the heck out. Especially when they sneak up on me, staring from the tops of department store escalators.
4. I lurve soccer, play it lots, and was a goalie from age 10-21. I don’t goalkeep anymore because it bashes my poor artsy fingers. I was MVP for our Division III college team.
5. I can lick my nose.
6. I compute with Linux. Did you know Microsoft just sued Linux programmers for supplying people with Free Software? That makes me so mad I can’t talk about it.
7. I have a one-eyed cat.
K, now I’m supposed to tag seven other artsy people. Problem is, I don’t know seven other artsy bloggers who haven’t been tagged yet. So here are some artists and some sorta-art-related bloggers, who should now consider themselves “it:”
Andy Hopp (fantasy artist of infinite imagination)
Sarah Trenfy (I just bought a really cool painting from her)
Nathan (fantasy writing catalyst)
Gulf Coast Gringa (The Sister, doing what we all should be doing)
Ready…. GO!
I’ve been toying with the idea of selling art at online auction for a while now. I’ve read up about it, and I got a lot of great suggestions and tips from the folks at WetCanvas. But browsing eBay is one of the best reference methods. From this type of snooping, I learned that people who have a good following on their blogs often get good bids on their art.
I think this is because the blog brings the artist closer to the collector. Well, it can. Some art bloggers just post pictures and prices, and many get good sales. But I’m talking about the artists who add more content than just the art, whether as tutorials, lessons learned, or just good writing. I’ve heard it said that connecting to potential buyers in that way removes the “mystery” surrounding the artist and exposes their mystical powers of creation. Bah. I think reading about the art or the artist brings me closer to their art, and makes me want to buy it more. I enjoy the whole experience more when there’s a story behind it.
Anyway, I think that’s part of why good art bloggers can almost always get decently high bids on eBay. Blogging is a great communication tool. I have a long way to go in terms of marketing, and I know my listing is boring and already have suggestions for improvement. But here it is anyway:
Cat Prints ACEO by Meg Lyman
I bought a pack of Art Cards from someone online. Upon unwrapping them, I was immediately drawn to the hot pink ones. Not just pink, but neon pink. I thought, “what on earth am I going to do with these?” So of course, the first one I pull out is hot pink, and I use up about 90 seconds of my life drawing this. I’d love to get bids, but this is a learning experiment for me more than anything.
All suggestions welcome. We’ll see how it goes.