Good Morning, Gents!

This is a female Baltimore Oriole. I've never done one before. Amazing after years of doing this & a portfolio of like 120 drawings that I can say the following. I've never drawn a female Oriole before. And she's sitting in an apple tree, which I've never drawn before either. The tactics I used in this piece are the same as I used in the last drawing. In fact, the colors are pretty similar. I wanted a very pale blue background this time. I really liked the colors for the branches last week, so I kept them for this one. And last week, the Goldfinch was in a pear tree (never drawn a pear tree before), so a lot of fruit trees have very similar blossoms.

For those of you who like to know this, it took me almost 19 hours to make this.

This piece is part of my summer face lift for a location. This is the third piece, so it's 60% done with 2 more months of summer left.

In other news, it's been a month since my Hummingbird design has been in stores. And I've sold about 3 or 4 greeting cards. So, not nothing, but after a month, it seems like hummingbirds are mostly hype. What a shock.

Also, after a month of expanding my product line in my new owner coffee shop, which the hope was to increase my sales from 1 or 2 a month to 1 or 2 a week, my first month there saw 19 sales! I think that's better than any store has ever done in a month before. Now there are signs that this was a fluke, not the norm, but the norm may still be much higher than 1-2 sales per week. We'll see. Both locations where I expanded my products have succeeded in increasing my sales, so the idea paid off. And with any luck, the owners will want to get me into their other 2 locations soon. I have permission, but not the actual green light to go yet. I'm dying to get into the location in the hospital. However, if it is anything like the place I'm in (I'm assuming it'll be more), this could be transformational for my business. But maybe not.

I think it's probably good to read the signs, analyze, hypothesize, & try to anticipate what's coming. You can't ever be perfect, but from doing this for a couple of years for me at least, it's usually been more successful than not. And it's good to have that body of experience to fall back on. This thing is coming up. From past endeavors, milestones, whatever, it's always been better than expected, though there's always a first time to fail miserably. But to date, I hit more homeruns than strike out, so I might want to load the bases. It's just good to be aware. Sober minded, but aware of what tends to happen. If every idea tended to fail, then you'd have to adapt to that reality.

Which leads me to the final thing going on. And it's kind of a contradiction. I don't fully understand it yet. I have spent a little more than I've made this year. I'm pretty sure I spent more than I made last year too, it being my first year & all, I'd expect that, though, back then I didn't keep records like I do now, because I didn't know to. Also, for the first 6ish months, my personal finances were absorbinig the costs, shielding the business until it was big enough to be self-sufficient. Right now, it's been self-sufficient for a year. Anyway, I'd expect my expenses were higher than profits last year, & I know this year that my expenses have been slightly higher than profits so far at least, though that should change this month, once people get me my money. The contradiction is despite that, my income continues to grow. It's bigger now than it was 6 months ago & a year ago. So, kinda scratching my head as to how my expenses can be bigger, but my income is still growing. I'd expect it to go down, but it's not. Definitely something else I'll have to learn about.

At the moment, my frugal nature tells me to be cautious (even panic) & try to reverse the momentum, but at the same time, I'm not anywhere close to going bankrupt (if I didn't have money in the bank, I wouldn't be making any moves). I'm not even heading in that direction. However, if my business does transform in the 2nd half or early next year, & I require a lot more product to meet demand, then I'm curious if that will have an impact or not. Is the current trend putting me at a disadvantage or will it be negligible? I'm very curious to see what happens & to learn whatever this is (is this normal for businesses or a potential problem or a just a quirk).

It's always something, which is kinda cool & exciting & challenging & fulfilling.