"I have been doing art since I was a little kid,” Ellen Million said, discussing a lifetime of creativity. “I had stories in my head, and things I wanted to draw. Worlds that I wanted to create.”
Million, who has lived in Alaska since the age of 4, and who has been drawing and writing since that age, has turned her love of fantasy genres into a full time business, producing art and novels and that she sells from her Fairbanks home. And she has been reaching out to fans and customers far beyond Alaska since well before the internet made doing so fairly simple.
Million’s website, which she built herself (she’s a programmer in addition to being a writer and artist and has a degree in mechanical engineering), offers an extensive gallery of her work, as well as adult coloring books, fantasy art collections, paranormal romance novels, collaborative projects, and more. It’s an easy site to get absorbed in, with countless pages of artwork, exhaustive archives, free downloads, and items for sale created by herself and others.
Million launched her business as a teenager. She was sharing artwork with penpals she met through personal ads in fanzines back in the pre-internet days. A few people wrote back saying they would love to have stationary featuring her work. So she produced a small batch. She also sent flyers advertising her skills to her penpals who photocopied them and sent them to others.
“Within a couple of months I was getting orders from people I had never even heard of for my stationary products,” Million recalled. “And I expanded into cards and postcards, and shortly after, the coloring books. The coloring books are the thing that’s stuck around best.”
With adult coloring books, Million was ahead of a trend that took off after the millennium. “I started doing coloring books back in 1997, which was before the whole adult coloring book craze started. But my work was always very complicated, always aimed at adults.”
By adult, she doesn’t mean mature themes. Rather, she is referring to the complex and richly detailed drawings that require hours to fully color. The books allow her customers to become, in a sense, collaborators, which fits with broader efforts on her part to include others in her endeavors.
Another way she has collaborated is more direct. For 10 years she’s been hosting a regular event through her website called Sketch Fest. She describes it as “a 48 hour creative jam session with artists across the world.” Participants share idea prompts online from which they create and upload their own works, with a one-hour time limit on any project. Inspiration and creativity are the objectives, she said, not professionalism or perfection.
“It isn’t about finished work,” she said. “It’s about taking a prompt and seeing where it takes you. It’s anything goes, basically. Just get those creative wheels turned.”
On the writing side, her collaborations have included a 10-volume paranormal romance series titled “Shifting Sands Resort.” Set on a tropical island off the coast of Costa Rica where only shape-shifters are allowed entry, she wrote the recently completed series with others under the pen name Zoe Chant. “There is a storyline arc that goes through all 10 books and it ends in a thrilling adventure,” she said, “but every one of these books stands alone.”
Million said she’s been writing as long as she has been drawing, but only began doing so professionally a few years ago. The books she writes solo are published through Amazon under the pen name Elva Birch. Of her chosen genre, paranormal romances, she said, “It’s a very low pressure. Because you’re not tying to write fine literature, you’re trying to write fun stories. And once I sat down and tried to write fun stories, I had such a good time with it.”
Despite the lighthearted nature of her work, Million said she pays close attention to detail, whether it’s in her artwork or her fiction. “It’s very important for me to improve my skill. So I do a lot of editing. I do a lot of work on the pencil stage of a piece to make sure that I’m getting it right. I’m not afraid to erase. I’m not afraid to delete.” Of her most recent novel, “The Dragon Prince of Alaska,” she said, “I revised that book three times before I was happy with it.”
Million has loved fantasy all her life. She read “The Hobbit” at a very young age, enjoyed fairy tales, and, as a kid, “basically devoured the fantasy section of the Noel Wien Library.” She said her influences include such writers and artists as Anne McCaffrey, Charles Vess, Arthur Rackham, Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, David Eddings and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Million was especially influenced by the artwork of Wendy Pini on the groundbreaking fantasy graphic novel series “Elfquest.” “You can see if you go through my gallery where I found ‘Elfquest,’” she said.
Million, who hardly lacks motivation, has also collaborated with other artists on three adult coloring books that feature Alaska wildflowers, wild teas and wild birds. And she recently produced a small educational book commissioned by the Tanana Chiefs Conference that features 18 Alaskan animals with their names in nine Interior languages.
Alaska, she said, influences her work in both obvious and subtle ways. “The mountains and trees that you find in my backgrounds are very Alaska influenced,” she said, adding, “I have things like furry snowy unicorns that I like to draw.”
At a time when the pandemic is keeping people at home more than usual, Million’s webpage, coloring books, and Sketch Fest events offer not just enjoyment, but also interactive opportunities for those who are looking for things to do. But whether they follow her lead or look elsewhere, she encourages everyone to express their creativity. “Make a lot of mistakes,” she advises. “Don’t be afraid to try anything.”
•••
Ellen Million’s website begins at www.ellenmillion.com/index.php and includes numerous features and dozens of pages. Her next Sketch Fest, the 121st, is June 5-7. Those interested in taking part can find more information at www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/index.php.
David James is a freelance writer who lives in Fairbanks. Creating Alaska is an ongoing series documenting the lives of artists and creators in Fairbanks. Feedback and suggestions for future interviews can be emailed to nobugsinak@gmail.com.
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