Illustration Sunday.....

I am guilty. It has been many months since my last Illustration Sunday post, but let this be the start of a new beginning. A few of my friends from Art School and I are getting back together on a regular basis, to motivate each other and to hopefully be more productive. I know I really need to make drawing a priority again, and it really hasn't been since I graduated 4 years ago.
Finding out that I was pregnant with my second child just a day after presenting my senior thesis project pretty much removed my priorities from Illustration on to more important things. I think this might partly be because I was so burned out from school. Art school kind of killed my passion for drawing,especially after illustrating and entire book in 6 weeks.
But, my son is three now and I am getting older too. I set a personal goal to get the story I wrote an illustrated published before I turned thirty. In the 4 years since graduating I only wrote to one publishing company. The bright yellow envelopes that I made with an illustrated logo, have faded. I could have done better.
But there is still time(not before thirty mind you, because that is less than a month away now). How can I ever be an illustrator if I don't draw anymore? In the past few years the paintbrush and pencil have been replaced with knitting needles and a sewing machine. I found it much easier to make money sewing...and so that became the priority.
Spending time working on a book that may or may not ever be published seemed sort of like a waste of (precious)time, when I could earn money almost immediately for my family by spending that time sewing for my shop.But it makes me sad to give up on a dream. So I am not going to do it, I am going to find a way to make it happen. I am going to give it my best shot so even if it doesn't get published at least I know I gave it my all. It would be great to be a published illustrator while my kids are young too, so that it could better our lives financially, even just a little. But a little these days would be a great improvement as I am sure is the story for many families in America these days.
Then I wouldn't watch the trailer for this movie and bawl my eyes out, or maybe I still would because it speaks to my soul in such a huge, huge way.
Anyway, I am back. Holding myself accountable here on my blog to work harder for that dream, for myself and for my family and to hopefully get a little feedback along the way.
The above illustration is for a logo contest that I just entered for this years Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. Here are photos from last years festival. This was just for fun. Gotland sheep and drop spindle are the focus of next years festival and the diamond is the festivals overall symbol. I may have gone a little too straight forward with the sheep spinning his own wool, but it was just the idea that stuck with me and was great fun to draw. One of my rough sketches showed the sheep with lacy panties on, but then I realized I drew a male sheep and needed to make a slight adjustment..he, he. Anyway I just mailed it off and the deadline for entries is February 1st. Wish me luck :)!