Added 1 new A* page:Today's page got a little crazy with the spattering and spackling and finger painting, but apparently that had to happen. In a slightly tidier vein, I've put that little Pentel Pocket Brush sketch I did late last week up for auction on eBay, starting at just $0.99--with free shipping, even! You'll recall it looks something like this:
Speaking of shipping, in my usual Monday run to the local post office this morning I found that the self-service mailing robot has revised its prices back down to its old, pre-holiday-rush super-discount prices; I'm not sure why it charges significantly less than USPS shipping calculation formulas say it should be charging, but I'm not gonna argue! So anyway I can set shipping on the A* art I sell on eBay at just $3.95 (and if you buy multiple items together, you only have to pay that once), at least as long as the robot's kindly whim lasts; if it holds, I'll be able to refund the $6 difference to whoever wins the auctions ending this week, which I set up last week under the robot's earlier, more expensive shipping prices.
This is slightly offset by my having to raise the starting bid prices for A* pages to $4.99, but my realization at the end of last week that hey, I'm starting to run out of blue watercolor forced me to do some math and face the fact that I need to start the bidding at a price where I'll at least be more or less able to cover the material costs involved in making these wacky pages. So the $0.99 gravy train for lucky bidders has to end (not on the sketch, though!), but hey at least you'll be saving some on shipping, and I won't feel like a loss-leading moron as I ship off your item. : P
UPDATE: *** Well it's the next morning and I've chickened out on the $4.99 price point already--back to the $0.99 starting price, whee! There's something so nicely egalitarian and free market about it, I dunno. My one concession to material reality will be adding $2 to the shipping fee to at least cover the cost of the box (I've switched to some really nice and sturdy new boxes, plus they're more compact and have this cool folding, tab-locking opening flap thing) and tape and stuff. ***
Also I'd like to thank all the folk who've been bidding on the recent watercolor pages over the past three days or so; I was worried there for a while as they weren't seeing much action last week, but I guess that really was just the holiday effect, and now they're actually doing rather well. Whew! Now I can stick with the watercolor for a while.
Yay, 2014! : oo
(Oh yeah and regarding watercolor refills and paint prices and all that, I came across an article discussing watercolors that come dry in a little pan vs those that come in tubes, and apparently the pan ones like I've been using work out to "anywhere from three to five times the cost of tube paints." Oh! So instead of getting replacement pans for my blue, I've ordered tubes of my three primary colors: Ultramarine Blue (Green Shade), Winsor Green (Blue Shade), and Quinacridone Magenta; in (color) theory, I should use more of a proper red than a magenta, but the watercolor reds I've tried haven't impressed me with brilliant color--and anyway I like magenta. Color wheel be darned!)
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