Hello Real World

First, I must apologize for my lack of blogging this past month. Not to make excuses or anything (although I clearly am going to anyways) but graduating and moving and working almost full time and playing frisbee twice a week is a wee bit overwhelming.

I've officially graduated from Otterbein College (as part of the last class to graduate from Otterbein College, starting this summer future graduates will graduate from Otterbein University). I now have a Bachelor of Arts with concentrations in Painting, Illustration, and Visual Communications (graphic design), along with a minor in Arts Administration. It was a fun and informative 4 years of my life that I will never forget. It's sad how sad I am to leave it, but Otterbein was a huge part of my life. I lived on campus for all 4 years and was really involved.

I moved to Clintonville (a small part of Columbus, Ohio) the day after graduation. That in itself was a headache. So much stuff. I cleaned out my room at my parents house as well as my campus apartment. I have 2 great roomies who are getting married in August. The best part is that I have a studio to work in. It's small but at least I have some room to paint. I got my printer in my bedroom (it's beautiful!), all the rest of my art things are in the studio.

I'm still working at Lowes to pay the bills for now, but I still have a few commissions that I'm working on. Including an artists trade with a good friend of mine Alisha Skeel. She's going to photograph me so I can have a nice shot to put on my website.

CUDA (columbus ultimate disc association) began during my last week of classes. Both of my teams are doing great and having fun!

Graduation - 5 days and counting

It's a busy time in my life right now. I graduate in 5 days. That in itself is inconceivable. I have my cap, gown, honors medallion, department honors pin, and honors cords all ready to go. Now I just have to figure out what to wear underneath all that.

On top of graduation I'll be moving over this weekend as well. Plus, since I'm an RA in my campus' apartments I have to do checkouts over the weekend. Thankfully, I thought enough ahead to take off work for all of this!

As a graduation gift to myself I think I'm going to buy a new nice professional printer. Most like an Epson 1400.  I'm already half in love with it. My art department owns two of them but I've only printed on them twice. The quality is fantastic and I love that it can print on cd/dvds.

And I'm thinking about opening an Etsy store over the next several weeks. Any advice or opinions would be awesome! Thanks!

Memorial Day Weekend

Friday my roommates and I had a Mad Men/1950's party. I've never seen the show but my roomies all loved it. I got there after work and we all had a good time. We were all being silly in our 1950's garb, especially my one roomie pictured below. My boy Matt won the dress up contest with his dad's old suit and awesome hat. He even had a flask that I had gotten him for Christmas and drank gin and tonic's all night.

After working 9 hours shifts all weekend and going to the art department I can at least say I accomplished a lot and made some money even if I didn't have the greatest weekend ever besides the party. It was tough to see everyone's facebook status's and blog posts about their fantastic weekends enjoying the amazing weather, but I bit my lip and just kept working. just kept working. just kept working. working working working.

But for my efforts here are some pics of my most recently commissioned and sold paintings.

Monsters based on my friend Jordan and his girlfriend.

A three piece giraffe for my friends mom. I worked this one on my lunch one during my lunch breaks this weekend.

I also sold a black and white dalmatian square painting but I gave it to its' new own before I had a chance to take a picture of it.

Oh and I sold the second painting in my Italy series.

Today was great. Took a long nap and went swimming!

Hope everyone had a good weekend!