So here’s an update. I worked at the local art gallery all summer, which (I must reassert) is the best job ever. My mural team and I painted nearly 40 canvases that make up a total area of 11 x 36 FEET. Yes, my friends, it was a big job indeed. It’s still incomplete, and I must still do some touch ups as they were damaged in transit, and at the moment, I don’t even want to think about painting. Woe!

Beyond that, I’m still working at the gallery, and will until my planned move to Vancouver at the end of March. I’m teaching art classes in addition to retouching our pieces for the mural, so at the moment I am still quite busy (who knew there was going to be such a demand for my classes?!) but I hope — hope — that once everything evens out I’ll have a drive to work on my own projects, as well as start marketing myself to clients.

In addition to beginning a freelance career, I would like to fix up my website a bit more. And when I put my portfolio book in the Summer Show at the gallery I had several requests to purchase it and to make more. Seeing as my current portfolio was $150 (a bit pricey!), I think I may make a miniature version through Lulu.

I’ll post again soon, and this time with a few sketches that I managed to do in my down time.

However, I am always proven wrong. This last month has been so busy! In addition to my full-time job at the Dawson Creek Art Gallery, I’ve also been busy with side projects (like organizing the local film festival) and family. I can’t even keep up with the Illustration Fridays. It seems like every time I turn around its Friday again!

May is particularly “bad” for being preoccupied with family, because the entire month is filled with birthdays of cousins, uncles, aunts, siblings and even my own! I turned 22 on the 29th. And fortunately, for a joint birthday-graduation gift, my family purchased me a lovely SLR camera of my own!

So, I’m in the process of learning the ropes of using such a camera, which is a total upgrade from my dinky, cheap, point-and-shoot. So you may get to see some of that work in the future, though right now my cat has been the only and unfortunate subject of my attention while trying to teach myself. But I’m not so arrogant to believe that simply owning an expensive camera would make me a “photographer” but I would appreciate having the skill to photograph my own work, as well as my surroundings. So practice it is!

The other projects on my plate are:
- Designing and assembling floats for the Tourism and Art Gallery for the annual parades
- Designing additions and touch ups for two current murals
- Designing an enormous (and daunting!) mural for the new Events Centre
- Doing work for the Summer Exhibition
…in addition to several other, smaller side projects.

I’ve been a busy, busy girl with stuff I can’t exactly… scan. But hopefully, with the aide of my new camera, I can at least photograph what I’ve been up to. Soon.