Well it's new years eve. Even though it's only 9:00 where I am it sure feels like midnight. I'm away visiting family and everyday is an exhausting wonderful time. But it seems like today, of all days, people have decided to look back upon the past year. Seeing all this, I figured it's time I do that for myself as well. So here are some things I've learned this past year

- Making art is not about pleasing others.
     ~I love to create art quite possibly more than anything else. But what I'm realizing is that you don't have to try and please the consumer, even if you want to sell your work. If you make good work, and pour your soul into it. People will find you. This year I sold my first art bag and my first painting. Knowing that people like what I make is incredibly exciting and is getting my creative juices flowing again!

- Being a mother is HARD.
       ~While I seem to learn this every year, it is still a good lesson. No mom is perfect, as much as we try to be. It is hard work to take care of another human, especially one with endless bouts of energy, puppy dog eyes, and concrete opinions on layering shirts and broccoli. Everyday that I make it through I'm grateful for.

- Being a mother is FANTASTIC.
       ~ For all the crap we moms have to deal with, being a mom is the best job in the world. Having a little person that you made give you a kiss, just cause they love you, is worth all the screams and turmoil and lost nights of sleep. I'm sure I'll never catch up on sleep, but I have love abounding.

- You will never be able to please anyone. So don't. Only please yourself.
      ~No matter how we try to do everything write for everyone, someone's going to be pissed. Without fail someone will be pissed that you washed the counters with a fancy cleaner instead of windex, or that your recordings are taking up space. No matter what you. The only person you need to worry about pleasing is yourself. Say you hate your job. Well, what would you rather be doing? Is there a way to make it profitable enough that you can survive {and your family}? THEN DO IT! And work at it! Do you hate the way you look? Fix it! I'm not saying go get massive reconstructive surgery! Just go get a haircut, get some new clothes. Dress in the way that makes you feel like the best version of yourself and apologize to no one.

- Teaching is not shoving information into someone's head.
     ~This past year I had one of the greatest teachers of my life. My drawing 2 professor. He was an ex military man who is now an incredible artist. Instead of throwing technique at us, he gave us general guidelines for projects, and then set us free. I learned so much more in doing what I wanted with some direction, then in classes upon classes of strict instruction. While you can't always do this, for my future career choice as an art teacher {and hopefully teacher over blog eventually}, lends itself MAJORLY to this.

  Overall, 2014 was a great year. I grew a lot in my art, and grew a lot with my little man. I'm learning to love him fully and not to worry about as many things as I usually do. I also learned that I do not need to rely on a man {hoping to continue this lesson in the future}. Thanks for spending part of this year with me! I can't wait to share with you guys what the new year brings!

  Well dead week is almost over and once it's done I promise I'll dedicate alot more time to my poor little blog here. In the meantime check out this article written by a comic artist I'm positively NUTS about.
  The article talks about anxiety and our brains. Personally I struggle with anxiety all the time. And it's incredibly stupid stuff that I get all anxious over too which makes it even more annoying. But I know that it always makes me feel better when I know that I'm not the only one going through these issues.
  Best I can tell, anxiety is one of the marks of a creative mind. The creative mind is constantly going with all sorts of new possibilities and thougbhts, which can lead to LOTS of anxiety.
  When I'm anxious what seems to help is when I attack my art and just go feelings first. I've made stamps, paintings, drawings, whatever. After I finish I always feel emotionally exhausted, but alot better.
  Do you guys deal with anxiety? If so, how do you combat it?

  In my life I've never had the closest of friends. I had a couple of best friends when I was younger, a close friend here or there. In middle school I was in a small class of about 17 kids in which all of the females hated me because I was friends with most of the guys. Then high school I kinda floated around different friend groups. The summer after my senior year I became really close with a girl who is now my best friend {let's call her T [mystery is cool]}.
  I first met T through our boyfriends. The guy I started dating my sophomore year of high school was best friends with her boyfriend. We were both sophomores and they were both seniors. Since that time both those boys have gone but we were always sort of friends. Well the summer after our senior year we became SUPER close. I had a baby during my senior year of high school and so wasn't really out of the house much that summer. Well for some reason I invited T over one day and we became close friends VERY quickly. Now it's strange for me to think that we ever weren't friends!
  We're both very much homebodies and most of our "wild nights" consist of sitting in my house watching movies and eating pizza or some other sort of delicious crap. She is also a book nerd like me which helps when we go to watch hunger games and rip the movies apart to each other. Yes, we talk during movies, horrific I know. But we just work.
  Sure there's times I wanna strangle her, and I'm sure she has those same thoughts about me at times, but I wouldn't trade her for anything.
  Last night I went to a concert for her choir. It was long and tedious {especially that first song, good lord I have no clue if it was right or wrong but I don't care to know!}. But I felt good that I was there for her. Her family isn't an artsy one and instead of going to her concert went to a scrimige for her sister. I'm proud that I was there for her, that she had someone out there rooting her on and making faces at her.
  I think that's what all friendship is about. Not thinking totally of yourself, but bieng there for the other person. And I'm glad I got to be there for her {even if I was yawning through the whole thing XD}

An abstract value grid project. The smaller image within the image was the original picture that I  cut up for the bigger image.

Monumental bag project. I decided to stick my two paper bags (one brown and one white) in millenium park as the big face water things.