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.  

I know, I know.. I've been MIA all summer.  My last post was in May.  What happened?  I had big plans  for having all this work completed by the beginning of June.  Well, it didn't happen.   I'll admit, I've been busy playing all summer.  Going to the beach, Disneyland, spending time with friends.  Now it's time to get back on track.  Although it hasn't been a total bust, I  have accomplished a few things the last couple of months.  Here are the things that I have done.  Now I have only about 3 or 4 more pieces to finish before it's promotion time.  So here they are ......

and then this one, which is a work in progress.  I'm not exactly sure what else it needs, but it does need something.  My husband says that it needs to be grounded - that it all looks like it's floating.  I open to suggestions ... 

I have this one and two others started but I'm just not feeling them right now.  

But it's definitely time to get back on track with everything - blogging, painting, exercising, eating better.  So here we go again - wish me luck!