It's time for the October Meetup...

It's gonna be a super serious, nose to the grindstone type of month pic via here

 Wow another month gone. So quick...September was good. I'm feeling like I have found a bit of my groove and am settling into this freelance thing. September brought more work on the mini book. (I'll post the sketches by the end of today hopefully). It was a learning month. I was helping out at the San Francisco Center for the book a lot and am getting really excited about this road I seem to be on. I have really love the storytelling aspect of illustration and I think that is going to be where my focus will be. (It will be amazing to be working on so many book projects in the near future).  It is funny that something that I wanted to do when I was 12 is what is happening in my life now.

It has been 4 months since I stopped working at the museum. Sometimes I think back and get really sad/angry that I stayed there so long without doing that much I was proud of (I would still love to do more illustration for them, if possible). I have to remind myself that the museum allowed me to save some money  which allows me to do what I am doing now. I'm feeling lucky that I can figure out how to do this illustration business right instead of being in a panic mode. ( I might be feeling very different a few months from now though, Yikes).

So what did I get done this month? Humm...it has been a weird one for finishing projects. But I did do a lot of progress on the ones I started.

1. sketches for mini book. 4 large drawings and 2 spot illustrations. This is 95% done. I will post these ASAP.
2. invitation Virginia City. Done & Sent!
3. Getting connected to the community. Really enjoying my work with the book center. I have been working with the PR folks and have been getting my hands dirty with print making and learning new ways to make hand made books. I have also helped out with AIGA which is a pretty cool way to meet people. 
4. If you haven't yet joined, I highly recommend The Creative Empire. It has been wonderful. It is wonderful to be surrounded by so many cool, confident, successful people. I'm learning so much and no questions seem to go unanswered. I am feeling so good about it I joined their affiliate program...(if you wanna join you can click the link on the right. It would be good for you and me).

OCTOBER GOALS...this will be the busiest of months yet!

1. Finish mini book!
2. Create coloring pages and Halloween masks for GLOB paints.This will be a fun project to play with. 
3. Get ideas for second coloring book project. This will be a something I need to figure out the best green way to make a coloring book. So there will be a lot of experimenting with papers and different inks.
4. There is another book project in the works but it is a  bit of secret for now... :)
5. I need to figure a set of prints for selling on Etsy. This will be a ongoing project but I can't wait to get this going. 
6. Invest in a good printer. I think I'm going with the Epson R1900...
7. Business cards. 
8. Work on official website.
9. Redo twitter page. Figure out what will work with both the new twitter page and the old. What are people doing to combat this design problem?
10. Continue to volunteer and learn.
11. Learn to better manage my time. 
12. Don't forget to breath...take walks...write in my journal...exercise...

It is gonna be a really good month. Hopefully somewhere in here I could figure out some income streams but I will be happy for now just getting this stuff going. I am feeling pretty good about it all now and look forward to the work.

I wish you all a wonderful and productive October!


What is the Meetup thing, you ask? It is a group of creatives that encourage each other each month to make and complete their goals. Join us...it is an amazing to watch the progress of others and yourself...
Contact Liz for more info here.