Here I am!

Oh my goodness! I knew it had been awhile but wow, it's been over three months since I posted! Yipes! The thing is, there's a very good reason for it.

I was on the verge of telling you what I was obsessed with and excited about in May and then....even more craziness happened. So here it is....my husband and I are adopting! Sorry if this is old news by now. It took months to get through the process but we are now happy to be licensed and approved to adopt. At this point we are trusting completely in God to match us up with the right child. I have learned so much about adoption in the year or so since we've been thinking about it. It feels as if I've found my life's calling and my heart's passion.

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to apply for a job in the foster care world. It was kind of a long shot. I don't have a social services background, I have been a graphic designer for 8 years...hard to change what you're used to. But...I was offered the job. Even more ridiculous than that...I took it. The month of June was spent fluctuating between bravery and tears. It was so HARD to leave my wonderful friends, my amazing workplace, everything I had become familiar with over the past 8 years. In a way I was shocked and heartbroken that I would do such a thing. But I felt so strongly that life is too short to not be spending time doing what you feel called to do. My work experiences and my personal experiences suddenly coincided in a such a way that I felt I had no other choice but to take a leap!

After more than a month at the new job, I can tell you, I'm so glad I did. I am working HARD. I am exhausting all my energies, pouring out my talents, investigating the things I don't understand, soaking up other's personal stories....and I love it. I really do.

So I am now spending way more time working and much less time on artwork. My Etsy shop is still up and running. I am having fun doing custom artwork every once in awhile. Such as this drawing for a friend's anniverary.

And this wedding invitation for an awesomely original couple...

And trying to enjoy summer while it's here.

Can't wait to update you again on all the craziness that is my life! Be blessed everyone! Life is short...live it well.

IF: Fearless

Mmmmmm, creativity struck once again with barely enough time to finish this week. The topic was too good to pass up. FEARLESS. I have so many things I could say and illustrate for this one.
Instead I'll just explain my drawing. This is colored pencil on some new tinted pastel paper. The cute little white bunny is about to exhibit fearlessness in my book. He's going to offer love and compassion to someone who is in need. And he might be rejected. Growled at. Turned down or abused. But he's fearless, so he's putting his heart on the line anyway.

As always your comments and criticisms are welcome. I have another bunny illustration that came from sketching this one also, can't wait to finish it.

The first half of this week I kept seeing this topic as FEAR LESS. What an assignment....I think I'll spend a few more weeks on this one!

Obsession

I totally forgot to share with you guys my latest artistic obsession and how it turned out. I spent a couple of months being obsessed with pandas. They are so exquisite, so beautiful and so foreign to anything I get to see here in New England. I love them. Doesn't help that I live with one....


Okay, maybe she's not a panda but Kita-Bear and Petit Panda are some of her many nicknames! Just to show you the tortured mind behind the artist.... (click on the pictures to see them larger)

First I thought a panda with a parasol would be cute.

But the parasol drove me nuts.

Then I switched to an idea of a human child hanging out with a real-life animal (yes, as an artist I am allowed to live vicariously through my artwork, thank you very much!). So I decided on a little girl and a panda having a tea party. I loved how the panda turned out. And really liked the color scheme I decided on but I could not decide on the background scene. Should it look like a messy playroom? Should there be lots of furniture when most of my drawings are simple? And then I drew the little girl two small. She looks to be about 7 instead of 4 or 5 like I wanted her to be. And compared to the giant panda, the girl and her tea set all seem miniature. Toyed around with just finishing it and them fixing things in Photoshop but that added another layer of questions and decisions. So I put it aside.

Still feeling obsessed and inspired by pandas I came back to the idea again and decided that I would keep trying until I had an illustration I liked. Which meant starting all over. Worked hard on practicing little girl faces and bodies that would look young enough. Changed the perspective of the panda and ditched background furniture for crazy wallpaper. (And somewhere in there the little girl changed ethnicities.....I have no explanation for that one...)

So what do you think?

I was putting a lot of pressure on myself because I'm focusing on building a solid portfolio. So of course I had all these criteria that I wanted to meet which only makes the decision making process worse. I'm pretty happy with the result but I still love the beautiful face of that second panda. And the final product still isn't perfect. Oh, to be a perfectionist and an artist.

I've been obsessing about something else entirely different lately. It has nothing to do with my artistic goals but has become a greater and greater obsession of my heart as of late. I'm hoping to share it with you in the blogging world soon.

Spring is here....

and in to celebrate I'm making some of my original paintings available on Etsy! Hooray! Some of these I've shared with you before and others you've probably never seen. Go check em out and tell me what you think!

Hooray for sunshine!!!

Frugally Fighting Monotony

Had a quick whirlwind weekend to my in-laws in Massachusetts for Easter. We don't go visit often enough but when we do it's always a bittersweet walk down memory lane for my husband. His dad still lives in the house in the same neighborhood he grew up in. Joel has so many memories of his childhood friends, the little traditions they came up with and ALWAYS remembered (honking twice and waving at one friend's house, for instance!) and it always leaves him a little bit reflective and melancholy. Because...he's a grown up now. He remembers how life used to be. It's not that our life isn't happy....it can just seem a little monotonous sometimes....go to work, go home, try to relax, go to sleep, get up, go to work.....we feel beat up by the mundane cycle of routine.

On our way back I had an idea, the whole drive back (including getting stuck in traffic) we brainstormed some crazy little activities that we could use for a date night or any day that we wanted to break out of the normal routine. Took a little doing to think outside the box but I'm proud of what we've come up with. Things like:

- go to a restaraunt we've never been to
- put on loud music and dance around the house
- memorize a Scripture verse together
- go to a store and pick out mushy cards for each other and then put them back (that's courtesy of my frugalista aunt, awesome idea!)
- grab the guitar and go down to the lake to sing praise songs at night
- make a fort in the living room (seriously, who didn't make a fort when they were little!)
- write an encouraging note on a dollar bill and then go spend it
- make up a new word and use it
- draw a picture of heaven
and one I think will go down in the history books of good memories with Joel and Elena....
- learn how to say "Excuse me, you're sitting on my sandwich!" in 3 different languages!!!

These are just a few! We've agreed that whenever we decide to pull a card we HAVE to do what it says even if it's not convenient. There are so many things on our minds lately, the tragic death of a co-worker, flooding, marriages in turmoil....we need to give ourselves ways to let go and have fun. I want to be able to look back on my life and marriage and be able to say, we tried hard, screwed up a lot, but we sure did have fun together!

I love you, Joel, always, no matter what.