This is a pretty exciting month for me, but my news centers pretty much entirely around babybabybabybabybaby and the idea that they're just going to let me go home from hospital with a whole new person sometime this month.

I plan to take several months away from my business desk - though I will have email access periodically and may continue personal blogging during this time, my focus will be family, not business. Requests for credits, prints, adoptions and any other business may be significantly delayed. Most ordering will be entirely disabled, and I am not committing to any writing, artwork or Sketch Fests for the months of March and April, possibly several months longer. There should still be plenty going on, thanks to the help of my staff and supporters!


Portrait Adoption

Over at Portrait Adoption, I gave plaintive looks at the fact that we hadn't had new portraits in a good while, and promised our artists a nifty artist watch feature if they would give me enough new portraits to fill the front page. Awesome minions that they are, they filled two pages and some more, and I have added the ability to 'watch' any artist you like - you will receive an email whenever they upload a new approved portrait!

Please note that Portrait Adoption will NOT be mailing prints of portraits and certificates in its normal, timely manner for my months of maternity leave, and web adoptions may also be delayed in approval.

Torn World

Torn World ran a 'Fashions and Fads' contest for part of December and January, entries for that contest are going up now!

February and March see our next contest, run by Deirdre Murphy, on the theme of wildlife. Create a new creature, draw artwork from our beastiary, or feature wildlife in a story or poem! Watch the Torn World site for details.

Sketch Fest

Barring an early trip to the hospital, there will be a Sketch Fest February 10 - 12! The 48 hour event has been very popular, so we're going to keep that! There will be no Sketch Fest in March or April!

EMG-Zine

EMG-Zine will continue while I am figuring out how to be Mom, but you may see an absence of this column for a few months! Please continue to submit artwork, articles, fiction and more; themes for the remainder of the year will be posted shortly! Also, continue to subscribe and support the 'zine; my personal fundraiser energy will be lower during my maternity leave, but we'll have plenty of awesome content still, and I'd like to see our current level of energy and support continue!

Coloring Books

Coloring books may go away at any moment! They will hopefully be available until mid-month, but there are no promises; I will not be shipping anything for several months, though you may find some of my titles on Amazon.com through my awesome wholesale clients!

All for now! Have lots of fun without me for a while. :)

Be well,
Ellen