Like I said, I've been taking time to get back into things, dusting off my pens and brushes, sharpening my pencils, working myself into a state of insomnia. You know, the usual.

To give myself a little incentive, I spent a few pennies on one of these. Subtle, I know! I've been working and saving for the last 8 months, not solely to purchase this tablet, but to put something towards creating a future for myself.

Exposition time!

Basically, keeping a long story short, I dropped out of school last year. I was somewhat close to actually completing my design degree, but I was also really, really close to losing all sanity and perspective on life. So I walked away from it. I don't know at this point when or in what capacity I'll return to school. For now, I'm really quite focused on regaining and building on the artistic skills I had started to hone in high school and subsequently lost in university.

Having been out of school for about 10 months now, and given sufficient time to decompress, I'm making use of precious free time. I work about 35-40 hours a week as a waitress/manager/designer extraordinaire at the same little restaurant I've been working at for the last 7 years. I love my job and I've actually learned so much now that I've begun working full time. For the first time in four years, I feel productive. It's a nice feeling.

I'm not sure what my ultimate long-term goal is, but I know that I won't be pressing myself back into school for at least another 12 months. I've been working very hard on a giant menu redesign at work, and that's starting to lead into some illustration opportunities. Hopefully, within the next 3 - 6 months, I'll actually be 'open for business' as my own creative enterprise. We'll see!

For now, it's baby steps and building confidence. And for the first time in a while, I'm quite content!

Bear with me!

xo

erin