October 2024 | travelling, market prep, new products

October was a very busy month!! There was a lot of travelling and a lot of preparation for 3 markets we sold at as my other small business From the Witch’s Scullery. I made some new products including a potions sticker sheet, and I got myself to draw some more.

Some days in Stratford-upon-Avon

The start of October had me going to a friend’s wedding as well as staying in the town for a couple of nights to catch up with my friends and explore the place. We went to a cat cafe, the local goose-infested park, the high street shops, a butterfly farm and had some yummy food. The days before and after this trip were very stressful for me so it was really nice to have a change of scenery and routine for these couple of days.

I made a concious effort to use my spare time to draw in my sketchbook and document everything. I made use of the new environment to do as many observational studies as possible, such as the cats, geese and butterflies!

On the way back home we stopped off at a random village after seeing a sign for an abbey. We found out it was Pershore Abbey, a really lovely place in terms of architecture. I drew some more in there.

New products

The day after returning from Stratford we had our first market of the month - an online market on Facebook. We had an allocated time slot to post as much as we wanted on The Witches Market UK page. It was a first-time experience and was very adrenaline-fulled by the end! We managed to get everything done in time, though.

For this market we took nice photos of Jo’s, the other half of From the Witch’s Scullery, woodwork pieces. She made little decorations, shelves, vegetable sticks and, later on, an altar with four secret compartments.

For the two upcoming physical markets I also designed, as mentioned in last month’s blog, a new sticker sheet: Potion Oddities! Stars in a teapot, clouds in a vase, eyeballs in a flask… It was fun coming up with strange things to put in containers! I already love using them as decoration for my journals, too. You can now get them here.

Our journalling calendars are now also available for 2025! Find them here.

My October spread. I indulged in some new washi tapes and loved using them on these pages.

Moon Calendars.

Journalling calendars.

Spellbound

The first of the in-person markets we sold at was Spellbound at Spit and Sawdust in Cardiff. It’s mainly a skatepark but it also has a cafe and is a really nice-looking place to hang out in! The market was an alternative market for the spooky season. I don’t think From the Witch’s Scullery fit in all that well when compared to the other stall holders there, but you never know ‘till you try it out! Thank you to everyone who bought something :)

I’m so very grateful for the sudden amount of orders I got this month! It coincided with taking a break from posting on social media, which is rather odd! Thank you so much to those who got something from my shop! Things have travelled quite a long way - I hope it all got there safely and that at least one thing bought you some joy <3

Drawing!

I surprised myself when I drew this sketch out! I haven’t drawn people well in a long time and I was so happy with how this turned out. I must have honed-in on it because what felt like 20 minutes ended up being an hour and twenty minutes. I’m really pleased with how the profiles of the faces turned out (and without much struggle!) especially as I didn’t use references. It still amazes me every time I look at it!

I’m hoping I’ll be able to keep this up during Novemeber’s NaNoWriMo, where I hope to not only write 50,000 words for my novel but also draw scenes from it too.

Magic in the Market

At the end of the month was our final market: Magic in the Market in Newport, Wales! This was the best market out of the three for sure. Thank you to everybody who stopped by, gave us lovely feedback and brought some of our things! It was also lovely meeting and talking to other stallholders.

Thank you to Freya for organising the event. We look forward to future markets!

Upcoming

NaNoWriMo

For the month of November I plan to set my art hat aside a little and embrace my writing hat for the entire month. National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is a challenge writers set themselves to write 50,000 words of a draft for a novel, which means setting a goal of writing around 1,666 words a day. I have around 27 chapters of my high fantasy novel written, and really want to fulfill one of my 2024 bucket list goals of having a finished first draft by the end of the year. I think this challenge will push me to get it done, as long as I allow myself to fully focus on the task and not have other things going on that ruin my focus (such as worrying about posting and marketing on social media).

Struggling with making art anyway, along with other things happening in my life, I’m actually really looking forward to allowing myself to become immersed in my book’s world and finally finish something I’ve been working on for techinically over 10 years! (On the premiss of the story, at least, not this draft itself!).

I plan to write a separate blog or maybe make a video about it on YouTube, but my basic goals for this challenge are to: have some sort of finished draft done, however rough; draw at least once a week, using my scenes or environment design or characters as inspiration; and make sure I set myself a schedule that gets me moving/doing exercise so that I am not simply hunched over my desk writing for an entire month.

I’m really excited to get going with this challenge. We shall see how it goes!

Queer Zest Zine Fest

I was pleasantly surpised to have been accepted into another US-based online zine fair! It will showcase the work of LGBTQ+ zine artists around the world between the 9th to 17th  of November on their website.

I look forward to seeing it all live! You can also follow them on Instagram.

Thank you for reading my October blog post! Things seem to have picked up a bit comapred to previous months, though I am pretty burned out from all the market prep. I feel better about drawing compared to other months having seen what I can do when I really put my mind to it. I look forward to drawing things from my book, but as mentioned, the focus will be to write rather than draw. We’ll see what I have to show for next month’s blog!

If you’ve read this all the way through, consider supporting me and my work by going over to my Etsy shop and having a browse if you like zines, stickers and prints mostly based around nature and travelling. You will also find my pet portrait commissions there! letsgetartyshop.etsy.com <3