I am trying to navigate the treacherous hoodoo of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), aka “Here is My Stuff on the Internets,  Please Look at It”.  Anyway, Etsy has a feature called “Shop Stats” which shows you which search terms people used to find your shop.  I’ve only had this feature working for about a month, but my top keyword is “llama”.  [Granted, this top search term garnered all of 7 views when I first saw it (12 as of this writing!)]  But it was, and remains, my top keyword.

At the time, I just had the one llama (as seen in the previous post).  Here he is again:

A Blue Llama Named Dale Original ACEO

The Shop Stats mandate was clear.  More llamas.  A companion for Dale:

A Green Llama Named Lyle ACEO Original

Lyle is a young llama who likes to build sandcastles, and this is the first year he is old enough to participate in the village-wide sand sculpture competition. He is extremely excited, and has practiced several versions of a complex gnomish village in the side of a craggy mountain. If he has enough time, he is going to add a shaman’s hut at the top, accessible by a long treacherous stairway maze up the side of the mountain.

And then, because I got some nice heavy 8″ x 10″ Canson Bristol drawing boards, and I am trying to fill the “Larger Originals” area of my shop (and also because I liked the pony ACEOs I did before the llamas), this trio emerged:

Two Llamas and a Pony Original Art with Copic Markers

This drawing was entered into the September 2011 Web of Whimsy art challenge.

From left to right: Rico, Butler and Chloe. Rico is the head of a small herd of unusually colored llamas, including Chloe, his second cousin. Butler is a mild-mannered pony who fell in with the llamas after a fight with his twin sisters. The fight was about his favorite stand of flowers. Which his sisters ate. They mocked him for being a pony who likes to look at flowers. Which is extremely childish, of course.

Clearly, llamas are better. Quieter, slightly less likely to kick you, won’t eat your flowers. Sometimes the family you pick is much more bearable than the one you’re born with. Which is pretty cool, really. Incidentally, Rico and Chloe think he is weird but like having him around. If they stand close enough, his tail will flick their flies, too!

About this time it occurred to me that I had sold both goat ACEOs.  To a fan of goats.  She even sent me a photo of the goats in their little frames.  Which was really cool. I needed a new goat:

Orange Goat Original Art 8 x 10

Bright red-orange goat with purple ears and a purple stripe down her forehead. With a green striped wallpaper background. (The parlor of her house, if you were wondering, which she has decorated with a distinctly Victorian aesthetic. No really. She even has elaborate lambrequins ornamenting the two front windows. Don’t worry, I had to look that word up, too. Fancy window treatments. She has been searching for, but has yet to find, the perfect secretary’s desk to finish the room.)

Marnie the goat is an outstanding hostess. But she does tend to get a wild look in her eye about thirty minutes before the guests are set to arrive (as seen here). She imagines she’s forgotten something OBVIOUS like having enough Chardonnay on hand for the sheep who live next door, or a dish of pearl onions for Bernie the cow. But she never actually forgets any of those things.

I’ve also been doing a bit of experimentation with backgrounds.  I like wallpaper-type backgrounds.  More opportunity for colors and details, I suppose!  I need to work more on the wallpapers to try and settle on a technique that works for what is often a large area.  I suppose that’s it for now.  If you actually read this far, thank you so much!  You are a member of an elite and wondrous crowd of seven or eight.