Remember that snowball? The one that was not very big rolling down the not very big hill. It picked up a bit of extra stuff as it was rolling. Some grass, a twig or two, and a bit of dirt. That is to say that while I got a lot of things done that I needed to over the last 10 or 12 days, everything took more than I expected. It either took more time or it required additional steps or both.
I did get quite a bit done though. Not only did I get the new holiday design published, and the store cleaned up, I also changed the header for the store. I’m working on a smaller icon to go where that grey store front image is, and it’s almost done. Changing the store header, and the fact that I put the website on the back of the shirts, prompted me to re-write the web page for SusanG Productions. It was on my list. I knew it needed to be done. And then when I remembered I put it on the t-shirts, well, it got done. I took a screenshot of what the site looked like before I changed it and then what it looks like now. I hope you agree that this is much easier on the eyes.
I took care of some backend maintenance on the websites. I found out that a backup solution I had wasn’t doing what I thought it was, so I had to get that all worked out. The good news is that it comes with added security and now the sites say https. The frustrating part was everything that they, and I had to go through to get it set up. It took longer than expected. But it’s set up now and appears to be working as advertised.
I also decided to sign up for or join Buy Me a Coffee. It’s a little like a bare bones Patreon with the flexibility of allowing one-time tips or donations. The initial sign up was quick and easy but to make your creator page active you have to add a pay-out method. I filled that out, but it took longer than anticipated to get approval. Once that part was done the rest was quick and easy. Thankfully because as it turned out, when I went to add it to my blog things got a little wonky.
It wasn’t the Buy Me a Coffee plugin to WordPress that was a problem, though that’s how I found the problem. It so happens that I have been neglecting my widgets. Somewhere along the way, WordPress has changed how widgets work. Widgets are those bits you see to the right of this post. When I went in to add the widget for Buy Me a Coffee to the side list, I got a mess of errors. One, appeared to be related to the added security that I just got and was fixed with a call into my hosting provider. The other was due to my neglecting my widgets. Just trying to add the one resulted in a couple of hours of clean up and conversion of all the widgets from legacy widgets to blocks.
I dealt with several other things over the last few days that were much like this. I’m glad I was on vacation from the day job so that I was able to take the time I needed to get everything addressed as best I could. There are several things that I still need to look into and change, fix, resolve, adjust and what not. I’ll get to them. I just keep a running list.
At least, over the last few days, I have had an opportunity to also work on some art. I have my Sketchbook Project #2 – Facial Expressions that I have been working on. It’s another daily drawing exercise. I’ve done some experimenting with a different medium. And I created a full piece of artwork.
There is still a bunch of technical stuff that I need to work on. I’m going to skip that and look at some of the fun stuff, or more interesting stuff coming up.
- I realized that I need new business cards. As much as I like the ones I have, they are running low, and I think I need something a little different. That involves new artwork. I have an idea to go back to something I’ve used for other things before. I still have to create it and see if it is going to be what I want.
- I have my daily sketchbook project.
- I still have plans to post the pictures from the Sketchbook Project #1. I know where I’m going to post it, I just need to get a little time to do the work.
- I’m experimenting with working with markers as well as pen. I have some Copic markers coming that I want to try out. I have heard great things about them. It will be a new way of creating art for me, and I’m not sure how it will go. A new an adventure in art.
- I’ll be posting on my Buy Me a Coffee page as well as here. For those posts, I’m going to try to keep it more art specific instead of the occasional random (hopefully not too rambling) things I sometimes post here.
I know there is more that I can’t think of right now. You’ll have to check back to see what’s next. Cheers!