I had a great New Year's Eve.  I spent it with great friends and had one of the best New Years Eves Ever!  Now I'm ready to focus on the new year, which I'm really excited about.  I have such a great starting off point since I was able to get so much Illustration work done at the end of 2010.  And just as everyone else is doing right now, I'm thinking about what I want this new year to be.  One of the first things I though about was what my word for 2011 is going to be.  It actually came to me pretty quickly and I feel very confident about it.  My word is ..... "FEARLESS".  This word embodies everything that I want and need this year to be for me.  I want to live my life with no regrets.  I want to loosen up a bit, unwind myself and allow myself to just be me.
     I also felt that I needed to make my lists today (my 11 lists).  I felt that it was important to do these on the very first day of this year  - and not procrastinate.  So here they are....

11 things I am thankful for in my life right now .....

1.  That I have art and creativity in my life.
2.  That I have an amazing husband that is still as motivated, passionate and driven as he was when I met him, and is a huge support for me.
3.  That I have such amazing friends and family, who continue to encourage me.
4.  That both my husband and I have jobs
5.  That I live in California!!
6.  That we were able to get this apartment and live in an amazing town where there is so much for us to do and enjoy (especially since I don't have a car)
7.  That I've had the opportunity to see so many new places
8.  That I'm able to go to Disneyland all the time with my husband and friends :)
9.  That my husband and I have good health
10. That I don't have kids yet and can still enjoy sleeping in and being lazy on the weekends  :)
11.  That I have a Starbucks a block away from my place.  (something I've always dreamed of - lol)


11 things that I want to do in 2011 .....


1.  To start getting illustration work
2.  To get in shape and feel comfortable in my body again
3.  To make Yoga a routine
4.  To loosen up and let myself show through my art
5.  To go to the Farmer's Market more often
6.  To have more fun with my clothes again - maybe go Thrifting again.
7.  To sketch more often
8.  To hike more
9.  To try more new foods
10. Take more photographs
11. To be FEARLESS

I'd love to know what other people would like to do in this upcoming year.  Feel free to share.
I hope everyone had a great New Years Eve and that 2011 is everything that you want it to be.

     Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I'm so excited for this long weekend.  I've got a lot planned and I'm sure it's going to fly by, but I'm not going to even think about that right now.  I recently got a couple of new books ....

"How to Create a Portfolio & Get Hired"

http://www.laurenceking.com/product/How+to+Create+a+Portfolio+---+Get+Hired%3A+A+Guide+for+Graphic+Designers+and+Illustrators.htm

and "2011 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market"

http://www.amazon.com/2011-Artists-Graphic-Designers-Market/dp/1582979553

I'm going to start researching companies and creating my mailing list.  It's going to be time consuming, which is why I'm so glad that I have this long weekend.   Right now I have to get back to cooking our Thanksgiving dinner and watching "The Jerk" (one of my all time fav. movies).  I'm so looking forward to Ham (yes, ham instead of turkey), stuffing, green been casserole and pumpkin pie.  Then if I'm lucky we might go see the new Harry Potter movie tonight.  What a great start to my long weekend.  I have at least one new (small) painting to post this weekend, and if I am really productive hopefully I will have a couple others.   But, I'm off for now.

Have a great holiday everyone.

     You may notice a lot of changes happening to this blog.  Now that I'm heading into my promotion phase I'm trying out different looks until I have it just right.  The whole process is much more tedious than I had ever expected.  I did take a break this afternoon for a quick jaunt, with my husband, to the bookstore and then to Crumbs Bake Shop for a delicious cupcake.

     While we were out we also stopped at Target and got "How to Train Your Dragon" - which we watched while eating dinner.  Then enjoyed our cupcakes for dessert.  What a great evening.  Now it's back to the computer to see what I can figure out before it's bedtime and then another busy week of work.  So much to do and too little time to do it in, as usual.  I hope everyone has a great week.

Thanks for all the positive feedback from everyone, I really appreciate the encouragement. 

I have finally completed my final portfolio piece.  I hate to use the word "final" because it's no where near the final piece - but I wanted a minimum of 10 illustrations before I started promoting, and I have reached that goal.   So here it is .... the 10'th  illustration .....

There are still several small pieces that I have been working on.  Hopefully I will post them this week.  For now it's time to focus on the website, maybe tweaking the blog a little bit and creating a facebook for my illustrations.  I also need to begin contemplating what my promotional post cards should look like.  I have a lot of computer work ahead of me and already miss my paint brush, but I'm happy to begin the next step.  I'll keep you all posted.

     Fighting self doubts today.  They really have a way of sneaking up out of nowhere, but I refuse to let them win.  I keep telling myself that there is no way that I'm going be self defeating before I ever even begin.   A lesson that I thought I would have learned by now.  I think that being this close to finally sending my stuff out has flipped a switch - my "what if I'm not good enough" switch.  My "what if all these years I've convinced myself that I might be good and this, but really I'm terrible and have been fooling myself all along" switch.  I think about how this is all I've ever wanted to do, and all I've ever dreamed of my life being, and now this is the point of reality.  Either it will happen or it won't.  I'm not going to lie,  I've thought about what if things don't happen.  What then? I would have no idea where to go from there - and that is really scary.  It feels as though my life would end at that point (as dramatic as that may sound).
     But then I take a deep breath and remind myself that it could happen.  It's happened for a lot of people out there - even for some that might not be as good as me.  One thing I do know is that it definitely can't happen if I don't try.
     So I'm putting my brave girl face on and I'm going to go out there and see what happens.  I don't have anything to loose, but a LOT to gain.  So here I go.  One more piece to finish and then it's "look out world, here I come".  Wish me luck.

One more, before I say goodnight to my computer.

     I've decided that I have to have my portfolio completed by the end of October.   Here is one of the pieces that I've been working on for a long time.  It gave me so much trouble and just wouldn't come together so I kept setting it aside.  It feels so good to finally have it completed.

     It's the illustration for the song "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas":

and I've also completed a group of spot illustrations for Halloween :

well, guess it's back to work.  I still have a lot more ahead of me and only a few short hours left of this day.  I'm so excited to finally be this close to making the next step.  I'll see you all again soon with more of my work.  Thanks to all of my friends and family that have helped encourage me to make this progress.  I'm so excited to be doing this, and I hope I can make you all proud.