Welcome to my graphic design blog!  I realized the need for an art blog/landing site after my other outlets weren’t quite doing the job.  My behance portfolio is fun and pretty, but it takes a lot to upload and maintain.  Obviously my deviant art gallery is just for fun.  And holyhandouts.com is mainly devoted to my Young Women designs.  I just wanted a place to openly talk about my art and progression, as well educate potential and current clients about who I am, and my ideals as an artist.  I feel like open communication and compatible style is very essential when creating designs, so hopefully this will help others discover a little more about me.

Recently, my biggest leap in my design career was due to my husband’s generous Christmas surprise, a new Wacom Intuos 4 tablet.  It has truly opened up so many doors that were closed before.  I feel a little more adventurous and free while drawing with this tablet, but the biggest perk is it really speeds up my process.  Which is saying quite a lot, because I am very fast with my designing.

That is mostly due to a past undesirable employment situation where I was being directed by people who didn’t know the first thing about design or art, and had unrealistic expectations and deadlines, and felt any time that I wasn’t physically doing something was a waste of their money.  They didn’t realize a lot of the design work happens in the down time, when I can clear my mind and explore different solutions.  So, my solution was to show them how incredibly fast I could get my work done, and in about 3 days, we had caught up, and there was no more work for me to do, so I was given the task of stapling papers, faxing documents, and licking envelopes.  An excellent use of my several years of graphic experience, right? You can see why I enjoy being self employed.

The good thing that came out of that job was I quickly became very familiar with Adobe Illustrator, and soon could work very fluidly in the program.  It comes in handy now, because most of my designing happens in the 2-3 hour break while my little Pen is down for a nap.  As soon as her head hits the pillow, I plant myself in my computer chair, and cram as much art into that time as I can.  When she wakes up, it’s back to playing doll house and dress-ups, and watching various Disney movies.

I feel like I have a good balance in my life.  I love being a wife and mom, that always comes first.  But everyone needs an outlet, and those few hours a day really helps rejuvenate me.  I’m excited to see where my tablet will take me.  I am just getting started!