#Art 2013 and Beyond!

 The start of a new year brings reason to log on for an update on what's been going on. Happy New Year to everyone! My last post was in October, so there is much to mention. I'll briefly discuss the end of my 2012 and then move on to what I'm currently working on.

 QUICK UPDATES:

• The Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference is next month at UNCG. I haven't decided if I am going to attend or not. I have no real reason not to, but Idk...
• I did not win the J. Holiday tee shirt design contest (or the California Wives poster contest or the Open Doors book cover contest either). BUMMERx3!
  
• I was not awarded the Emerging Artists Grant, but did receive good feedback on my application.
• I have not seen any more cows or attended any Sketch meetups recently.
• I painted a custom painting of a friend's mother and had my first shipping art experience; it was also displayed at the Carrack's Winter Community Show.
• I am getting requests to design logos, and have enjoyed creating my most recent logo.
• I am newly in love with digital painting, designing, illustrating.... all of it! Below are two images, both of Jeremy Lin I created in my leisure. One a scanned pencil drawing with Micron graphic pen on top and the other is it's digital coloring. Enjoy!

 I spent the last few months at Durham Tech CC taking a couple of classes to finish up my degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Delaware. I'm so happy that I successfully completed those credits. There were many days I wondered why to God I even had to finish, but it was way too late to turn back. I had to stick it out and I'm thankful that I did. I can focus on my career now without looking back... only ahead!
 With that said, 2013 is full of many opportunities and I am preparing myself for them. I have some new materials and gadgets that have made my process of creating art so much more innovative and interesting. These include the Wacom Bamboo Create Tablet, the Lightpad by Artograph,, and the newest... Toshiba's Camileo X200 camcorder. I love working with traditional media, but since opening my world to digital designs, I feel more and more like a designer or illustrator. I plan to do videos in the future as reviews for these products and I hope to do some tutorials or join some hangouts on Google.. I've finally gotten comfortable in my design process of sketching, inking, scanning, editing and then adding color. I now need to get familiar with my camcorder and set it up appropriately.
 Lastly, my goal this month is to keep on designing. There is a huge deviantART contest with a Jan. 20th deadline that I plan to enter (use that link for more details, especially, if you want to know about the grand prize trip to Los Angeles). In addition to that, there are always a number of contests through Creative Allies and one particular UNC contest to design new BGPSA tee shirts that I will also be working on. That's about it... back to the drawing board!.