Number One

This is number one. My first artistic blog. I did something crazy last year. I quit my job (a career like one of those ones people retire from). I helped students achieve their academic goals for a living. I held meetings focused on time management, making the most out of campus resources, and maneuvering the higher education system on a pathway to a career. I walked away from it.
Am I a martyr? Nope
Was it a toxic environment? Not really.
Did I find another opportunity? No. I had no job lined up, well, no secure job. I’ll explain in a second.

I quit my job for more or less one simple reason: I made the mistake of drinking the artist Kool-Aid. You know, the flavor that “I’m kind of good at this art thing, I want to do it all the time.” How foolish of me.

I’ve drawn since I was a child. Anyone who knows me knows that drawing is my longest and most consistent pastime, though I put my pencil down on many occasions. Throughout high school, I drew. In elementary school I drew, in college, my notes are filled with doodles and drawings. In my adult life, I sketched on and off again. I’m hooked and I finally realized it a couple years ago when I started studying Rembrandt as part of my studies as a photographer. One of my favorite photographers mentioned their influences as the old Dutch masters and from there, I went to work. I rented books from the university library on the old master painters like Vermeer, Rembrandt, then Da Vinci and the floodgates opened. Pretty soon I was drawing the skeletal system all over my white board at work and filling notebooks with skull studies. Yeah, I go in.

Anyway, this isn’t about my studies. We’re here until I don’t write blogs anymore so I’ve got time to explain that in another post. The story goes like this. I fell in love with realism and drawing and realized dedicating myself to this work would take more time and energy than I would have. I decided to make a move. I made a move. And here I am. Just published my official art website. Studying hard everyday and making ends meet through assignments of art and photography and support of my family. My mantra became I would either make art for a living or I would design my life so that classical and realism figure/portrait digital painting could be my focus and anything else a supplement.

Number one done. Now time to draw.