Logo. Like?

Yay!! I was productive tonight!!

New Profile Picture!

I will more than likely fuss with it. That is one incarnation of Dark Horse. Sometimes with wings, sometimes without. Always black and hairy, though. It was a small and dark painting I did in Winterim in between doing my three-headed dog. Which is large and dark...like so.

Must get working again...I'm trying to coerce Bryan into letting me draw him again. I have a couple of cool ones from college of him and his room mate when I was messing around with sharpies.

...............like so............This is Derek. Bryan's the one with the note book. Whenever I showed anybody, they told me it was a more colorful version of an iPod/iTunes commercial, particularly Derek's. (Perhaps, because, he is listening to an iPod....?)

Last Week

It's the last week of one job, then freedom. Ish. I have a few sketches of what my logo would be. I put in a couple of applications today, as well. One for the same library I've been working at; the past year and a half, every other job I applied for there was 'no', so I don't see why this one would be any different. The other library would actually be about 5 minutes closer to home. So I'm hoping I get that one even though I like (most) of the people at my current library.

Goals for January: get an Etsy account. Do a painting a week. Any suggestions for subject matter? Either seascapes or landscapes, people-scapes or animal-scapes? lol

Perhaps once I get settled into doing art specifically in the mornings I'll start on the Calvin Chronicles: the (Mostly!) True Tale of a Tiny Terrier. I think another goal would be to set up profiles and ID pictures for my Anthros up on here. They're my dog-race that talk and walk like us, but look like dogs. Look at my Facebook album if you want to know what they look like; they're buried in there.

I really don't feel like going to bed right now. I did my exit-paperwork/interview-that-really-wasn't today. Then I turned in applications afterwards. Mixed feelings about it. Ah well...

I'm currently obsessed with the 'How to Train Your Dragon' soundtrack. And in the coming week, I shall have hot pink hair. New beginning, new look.

Besides: I like to go out with a bang...

Begin Experiment

So I haven't blogged seriously in a couple of years. Sure, I had to make a blog for library school. But currently that's on hold. Especially since they made me one of their many victims to the budget slaughter. (The school would be happy to still take my money, FYI....the library I worked for is the one that cut the ties. So I'm feeling a whee bit anti-library currently.)

No worries! I still have my other job as a vet tech. And my husband and I just recently procured a piece of the American pie: a house. Now don't worry; most people think that losing a job immediately after you sign away your arm, your spouse's leg, two pints of blood a piece, and your unborn first spawn is a bad thing. But get this crazy idea....scoot your chair closer to the screen and I'll whisper it to you.

We're actually saving roughly half our monthly rent payment by buy a house with more square footage.


Yep. That's right.


Sometimes I love the midwest.

Now, bear in mind that the extra money we are saving does apply towards things we didn't have to pay for while renting. Like homeowners' insurance. And cable. We crunched the numbers, though, and we're still ahead of the game. Even with my personal income being severed to slightly more than half of what I'm used to.

This leaves me options. And I'm quasi-paralyzed on what to do. Comes with being a Gemini. (hear that, expectant Junebug mommies-to-be, cousins of mine? We're a fickle bunch, and we have two minds about everything, lol.)

Option #1: I can redo my FAFSA and hope that they give me money to go to school again. I'll be able to concentrate more on more classes at once and get through it faster. That is dependent on IF I get the money.

Option #2: I can find another random part-time job that I can add to the onslaught of totally random and unrelated jobs that I have in my 'career'. (Nanny....field archeaologist...circ clerk...meat counter flirt, I mean, uh, clerk....pet store sales associate....library grunt...vet assistant....)

Option #3: Actually take the time off and concentrate on ART! And actually putting my children book series down on paper, as well as working on my graphic novel. It strikes me that I went to school for art....was d@mn good at it...won awards for it....and didn't pursue it in the 3 years I've been out of college.

I figured out that I was doing to art was what I had done to horseback riding: I couldn't do it immediately, so I cut it out completely. Felt like killing a part of me the first time. Took me less time to realize that I was slowly smothering another part of me this time. You know what happens when you kill pieces of yourself? It hurts like hell, number one. I still don't feel truly comfortable on two feet; I much prefer four. You never feel good enough, or complete, unless you just do it. (Nike plug, anyone?)

That's one of the reasons I was so attracted to my husband: he had a dream of going to school to be a zookeeper. You know what? He achieved it. He's working full time at one now. How cool is that?! Took me a few years to admit to myself that I was truly jealous of him for that, and another year after that to actually tell him.

So when I had the news that I was down one job and wouldn't be working 46 hours a week anymore, he just nodded. I told him that I might possibly need to disappear into a room and wallow for a bit just to get the toxic feelings out, he said, "Ok." After I waffled for a bit about what to do next, he grabbed my face, kissed the tip of my nose, and said, "Do what you want to do. Do what makes you happy."

It felt good to hear him say that; it was like once I heard that I had his permission to do anything, I could give myself permission, too. And that is sort of what this blog is about. Sort of.

I always thought it would be awesome to be an artist with a studio called 'the Night Mare Studio'. Put in to it what you will; no doubt some people will think 'ahh! nightmare! scary!' But if you notice, the two words are separated. A mare is a female horse. I always pretended to be one growing. (Actually, I still do if I'm presented a staircase and nobody else is around. I run up it on all fours and pretend I'm the Black Stallion all the way, lol). I tend to prefer night to day, as the time of this post will attest to. So it makes sense to me to name my studio that.

I also tend to buckle down and do my more photorealistic works when it's about 3 in the morning. I think it's because it's so quiet, nobody else is around, and I'm just tired enough to reeeeeeally focus all my energy into what I'm doing. Drove my college roommates nuts until we finally were able to get separate rooms.

Another thing I used to do alot in college was reading tarot cards. Not for telling the future; nobody can do that. I would have to make a choice and wouldn't be able to make it. So reading a spread of cards let me think it through by placing my thoughts onto the cards. I stopped doing that when I got out of college. I think I need to start again. If it's interesting enough, I might even post the results and the spreads I do. Oo. Mythical.

Once I become a successful, billionaire artist, I'll be able to have my horsies and ride them, too, lol. I realize that I can't do it now, but I can work towards it. I am, after all, 20 minutes away from Kentucky, which is practically the Thoroughbred capital of the world. (England being the title-holder, of course....)

So my goals for this blog are odd. I want to start an Etsy store. I want to dump my thoughts in a place for people to read and maybe even get some readers! I want to get my children book series published. I want to post my portfolio and working portfolio because I like having my ego stroked. All seriousness, I like the constructive feedback more than the ego-building.

Oh. And I want a netbook.


Wish me luck on attaining goals, readers. At the very least, I want to be entertaining for you.