Life - Outside of the "Bubble"

As a follow up to my last post - I'm still alive!

I have been working my full time job for about 6 months now, and I love it. I work with some great people, and I couldn't be happier. This job not what every "Sheridan illustrator" would want coming out of school, and I'm sure some of my peers would look at this job as going backwards in my career. I would have to disagree with them.

Working in a structured environment, it has taken me a few months to readjust my personal life and work life to get comfortable. Of course in this time of adjustment, I didn't do any personal work. That's the truth. Barely even a doodle. But now that I've gotten into the swing of things, I've gotten my personal work back on track. With the experience of working with people on an everyday basis at work, and more knowledge of how a business is run, I couldn't wait to get back into freelancing. I started to pull everything together and collected a couple clients. Some who knew me, but I finally got a client who was a stranger to me. It's a step right? It feels good.

I know that Sheridan prepared us to be freelancers...but they also taught us to only be freelancers. Sure, they spoke of the other jobs that existed, like comic book artists, video game designers and art directors, but those were only for the elite. We were supposed to get our money by sitting on a dock with a fishing pole inside the water of work hoping for a bite. The further into these teachings I got, the more uncomfortable I grew. I wanted financial independence. I wanted a house, and maybe even a family. Of course there are Illustrators out there that are very successful and have been fortunate to have all of these things due to their work. But as much as I loved to draw, the reality hit me that maybe this won't get me to all of my goals in life. Getting back to my point, having the full-time job designing is pretty great, and it allows me to illustrate on the side. I just needed to adjust my definition of "success", and it is different for everyone.

I couldn't be more happier with how things are going, and who knows what could happen in the next few years.

Graduated!

Well, we did it class of 2014 Sheridan Illustrators!

See the work here.

It's been a crazy four years. But even typing that seems so foreign. Four years at this institution...I still can't believe that it is over! I still remember the high school days so well. Researching all the art schools in my area, searching the internet for ANYTHING retaining to what a Sheridan portfolio looks like, and emailing grads asking questions. That being said, if any future illustrators/animators/designers want to email me with questions about the school, classes or what post-grad life is like so far, please don't hesitate to send me an email. I'd like to pass on information, as those before me did. 

I get a lot of the same questions now that I am finished. "Does it feel good to be finished?" "What are you going to do now? "What did you graduate with again?" Of course it feels good to be finished. After that grad show, the feeling was similar to running a race. Where you can see the finish line in the distance, but your too busy telling yourself to keep moving. So having sometime to catch my breath was very rewarding. As for the second question, I have found a full-time contract job as a media assistant. It isn't quite the illustration field, but to be honest I'm quite happy with it regardless. I still have opportunities to be creative, to design and problem solve visually. I would still love to kickstart illustrating on the side soon, because I will start to miss it soon. The last question is a bit of a joke. I'm sure I could get this backed up from other grads. But people out in the real world don't understand what illustration is. It's always fun explaining to to others ;)

To wrap things up, I still can't believe I'm finished at Sheridan. I don't feel like an adult yet like I thought I would feel...then again I'm not sure I'll ever feel like that!

Laura

Work that is on it's way!

I'm going to be making a new video, with a clip from: Jamie Oliver's TEDtalk. It will be an animation short, and I'm very excited about it. I've always had a thing for kinetic typography videos. I will be my first shot at it, but I think it will go well. Gotta start somewhere, right?