Goin' to the Chapel and They're Goin' Get Marrrrried!

Well it's official. I'm officially living with a married couple. The wedding was beautiful. A short (only 20 min!) ceremony followed by a party is the best kind of wedding!

Best wedding kiss ever!

We had a pretty good time too.

Since then my roomies have left for their honeymoon in Myrtle Beach. (I refused to be at home the night the got married since they weren't leaving until the next day. I stayed at a friends house instead.) Without the roomies I've had plenty time to re-evaluate a lot of things...grad school...job applications...what I want to do with my life, all the big questions. It's a lot to think about and I am starting to understand why all my friends were stressing about it last year.

In my own way I've decided to go all or nothing.

I have requested information for graduate schools from:

- Pacific Northwest College of Arts (my favorite so far)
- Academy of Art
- University of Washington
- Maryland Institute College of Art
- School of Visual Arts
- Art Center College of Design
- School of the Art Institute (Pittsburgh, Seattle, Portland and Chicago)
- Marywood University

If anyone has ANY insight into schools for Illustration or Graphic Design PLEASE do not hesitant to share. I could use any advice I can get during this process.

Until that whole ordeal is finalized, I've decided to do what I can to further my career. I figure there's no point in just lagging around at my dead end job waiting to go to a school that I haven't picked yet and have no guarantees of getting accepted. I do not do well without deadlines or structure so I've decided that I will apply to one design studio a week minimum while continuing to enhance my portfolio.

I highly recommend reading How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul by Adrian Shaughnessy. It's super enlightening and focuses on helping recent graduates and people just going into the design field. 

In addition to this I finally got the balls to open an Etsy shop. You can find me HERE. I'm really excited to start this business. I only have one print up so far. Today found me doing a lot of additional research on how to run a successful shop. I'll be sure to update you whenever I add more prints and original pieces.

One last thing for tonight. I'm finally getting back to illustrating the book I started during my last quarter of school. It's all written (it's about dinosaurs!) and about half the pages have been illustrated. Unfortunately it got put on the back burner once I graduated but now I'm vowing to finish it (including photography and mockup) by Halloween. That's about 8 weeks to complete over a dozen pages in addition to everything else I have decided to do. But here's a taste of the book. I based the whole story on some illustrations I did my sophomore year for an English class. The new story is done with cut paper and marker. I'll have more for you to see in the next few days so be sure to check back soon!