Student Work

I've been busy updating and tweaking my portfolio site. I just added some of my illustration work from college. Hopefully my new painting will be added to the mix soon.

I chose Wordpress for my portfolio mostly because I wanted to get some experience with it and see what it can do. It seems that a lot of people are relying on Wordpress for their websites. I'm still trying to get the hang of it. The gallery for use as a portfolio isn't the greatest. I'm going to start looking around for something else that I may be able to plug in to my site. The gallery does have the option of showing as a slideshow, which looks a little better, but still not exactly what I'd like. I need to be able to put my work up there so that it looks like I know what I'm doing. Ha!

My Attempt to Learn Acrylics

Growing up, I always loved to draw. I created little characters, went through the stage of drawing horses, drew clothing designs and created new outfits for my paper dolls. I had one art class in high school, but other than that, nothing formal.

When I got to college I knew I wanted to at least minor in art. That got expensive quickly. I decided to just go for it since I was buying all the supplies anyway. Weird way to pick a major, I know.

Painting was one of the classes that I took. One in oil painting and two in watercolor. I loved both for different reasons. Oil is incredibly tactile and bold and watercolor...at least the way I painted it...was more like an experiment every time. I have wanted to get back into painting for a while, particularly oils, but they are incredibly high maintenance. Not to mention toxic. With a toddler around, I don't really want to go there.

One guy in my oils class used acrylics instead and so that's kind of been on my mind as a possible alternative. I have never used acrylics on canvas before, so I'm experimenting again. I'm going to work from my oil painting experience and go from there.

I decided to do a portrait of baby J and picked this photo to work from:














I finally sketched it onto a canvas (that I've had for probably 10 years...waiting for me to get back into the groove), put together my easel (waiting for 5 years at least), pulled out my paints and looked up how to get started. I wasn't sure if it was the same as with oils, but it basically is. That gives me hope that this may not be as bumpy as I was expecting.

The sketch actually went a lot better onto the canvas than I expected. It's also been a long time since I drew anything, but that's another story. I'll try to post a picture of the sketch, just to keep myself accountable. :)

So, that's where it stands. I'm not putting a time-frame on it, just trying to do a little bit every day to get to it. I'm praying that this will get me in a place to start reconnecting with my creative self again.

Winter Woops

Well, I didn't win the photo contest. In fact, my entry got deleted. In the directions on how to enter, they did say this was a possibility. Not sure I'll do that again. It was pretty convoluted and I was pretty careful about following their directions. Oh, well. Worth a shot.

In other news, I'm still looking for either more freelance work or a full-time job. It's crazy how things are in the work-world now. If I get any kind of a reply, it's usually something about how many applications to that particular job they received and it will take them a while to slog through them all. And that's just design jobs.

It really is bad out there, folks. Be thankful for jobs if you got 'em!

I Heart Faces Winter Wonderland

My entry for the I Heart Faces winter wonderland contest.

Spring Break 2010

Where else to go on spring break, than Florida? Um, nowhere. So, that's where we went. D's folks own a timeshare and generously allowed us to use it this year. We left baby J with the grandparents for the week and headed to Orlando..."mecca" for many children...and adults.

To start with, we weren't sure we'd even be able to get to Orlando. Airline prices stayed pretty steep the whole time I was checking prices. We ended up using United miles to get a ticket for me (not enough for both of us...thanks to the dying value of United miles) and bought a ticket for D on Southwest. We packed in one big suitcase and sent it with D since Southwest still let's you bring luggage for free. (I could go off about how idiotic not only having to pay for baggage, but how ridiculous the prices are, but I digress.)

Of course, that weekend I started getting a chest cold. Of course. My flight had an hour-ish layover in O'hare at about 8 pm. Of course, my flight from Denver was delayed for about an hour. Of course. Of course, once we landed in Chicago they couldn't get the jetway to work. Of course! Of course, my connecting flight was in the C terminal and we landed in the B terminal (for those of you who have had connections through O'hare...you know what I mean) and I had to run...RUN through the airport with my wheeled carry-on flip-flopping behind me. Of Course!!

I barely made my connection (but I did, thankfully) and I had to go potty and I began a coughing fit that lasted a good 20 minutes. Nice.

Anyway, we finally made it to Orlando to the condo...which was really nice and comfy...and crashed for the first couple of days. (I passed my cold on to D.) When we finally got up enough energy to go somewhere, we drove to Coco beach. Which is also the only place we actually took pictures. The next day we went to Epcot and then we drove to St. Augustine to walk around town and came back through Daytona. We actually spent most of our time talking about baby J and how fun it would be to take him to Disney and some of the other places around the area once he's old enough. I really missed being away from him for that long.

So there ya have it. Not nearly as exciting as our foray into Minnesota and Wyoming last year, but at least we finally talked Phyllis and her new cohort, George, into coming somewhere with us.

c for p the z

Phyllis and Baby J Meet

Phyllis, Baby J














Baby J, Phyllis














I think Baby J just wants to chew on Phyllis. I'm sure they'll be friends, eventually.

In Memoriam

This past summer I got to sit right behind home plate for a Rockies game! That's right...behind home plate! RIGHT behind home plate. It was so fun...I was probably 7 months pregnant at the time so the gal that waited on us (that's right...we had a waitress!) was very accommodating and quick about bringing me my ice cream. So fun.

So for those of you looking out at a snowy, grey day like I am...enjoy a little taste of summer.

Phyllis