You know that feeling of slight disbelief whenever you accomplish something despite yourself? Like, when you set out to do a drawing and it comes out exactly like it’s in your head, on first try — and you sit back and just gaze at it in wonderment and awe? And maybe want to pinch yourself a little? Or do a little victory dance?

That’s kind of what happened to my life this summer. :D

I headed out to sunny California with a Plan and a car full of stuff. I enrolled in summer courses at the Concept Design Academy and for 2 months I worked my patootie off. (College seems like child’s play, now. Or just irrelevant.) I engrossed myself in the mysteries of storyboarding. I discovered a field that is finally challenging in all the right ways and appealing for all the right reasons. I finally had an instructor to teach me anatomy. That may not be a big deal in and of itself, but I’ve been self-taught up till now, so having a teacher was absolutely dreamy and inspiring. Someday I’d like to write up the experience. :) I learned so much about art and about me. All in all it’s been a wonderful, terrible, challenging and indescribable summer.

And now here I am — a storyboard revisionist at WB Animation. Yeah. I think in my head I’m still just sitting back and letting it all sink in. I am SO excited about everything to be learned that I want to do a little dance. Or maybe pinch myself. ^_^

Cozins, the last couple of months have been totally hectic and absolutely and utterly awesome. :) I am a real art student at the Concept Design Academy in Pasadena, CA. (A dream come true for a self-educated gal like me!) Came down to LA for the summer, and I’m thinking I’m probably staying here indefinitely. ^_~

So at the end of May I packed the essentials into my trusty Prius, waved tearful goodbye to lovely Seattle and headed down the Pacific Coast. Instead of following I-5, I decided to take the scenic route along highway 101. I figured when will I have another 2 days for a leisurely drive like that? It was prime opportunity to visit some roadside attractions and make this into a proper road trip! :D

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And what a trip it was! It took three days instead of two, and I could’ve easily made it into four but ran out of time. I cannot recommend it enough, cozins! Aside from all the places I planned to visit, there were so many hidden local charms along the way! Driving off road and getting lost and marveling at the beauty of nature and finding my way back – awesome adventure indeed. (It doesn’t hurt to have your environmentally friendly spaceship equipped with a GPS. LOL)

Along the way I saw much of gorgeous Oregon coastline.

Visited the very stinky, but very awesome Sea Lion Cave.

And discovered my most favorite place in the world – the California Redwoods. It’s truly magical and awe inspiring.

On the heels of talking about how to manage your presence on the web, I am presented with an opportunity to experiment with how much I am present here at all. Extended presence does not equal extended productivity, of course. More and more I find myself surfing aimlessly, looking up references I don’t use and refreshing the same sites instead of actually working on my art. Well, here’s my chance to do something about it.

Last weekend I moved into a new place in West Seattle, and it is perfect in every way except that there is no internet. No dsl, no wi-fi, no unsecured wireless networks around to “borrow” from. While it might seem unthinkable at first, this is a perfect chance to fight the distractions of the interwebs! A chance to conquer my bad surfing habits.

The official countdown started yesterday, April 16th. My goal is one month of no internet connection at home. This doesn’t mean I’ll be off the web entirely—I can still surf during brakes at work, answer e-mail and comments and the like. And my blackberry is connected to business e-mail so I can fulfill all Etsy orders in a timely manner.

The pros and cons so far:

+ free time to play with cat, clean, stretch, think!
- can’t upload files/photos from home – problem solved with the purchase of a flash drive.
+ I already “found” the time to do a few sketches yesterday
- cannot update finances in Quicken. Possible solution: bring laptop to work
+ hopefully now I can make some progress on Artist’s Way, and institute the habit of sketching for 1 hour every day!

Results to follow. :)

You might say that more often than not, artists and creative people suffer from a lack of self-confidence. (Since absolutely everyone is creative in some way, this applies to each and every one of us.) It’s such a cliché that artists are forever insecure, unhappy with their art and the world around them.

Yet I have seen it too many times in friends and gifted artists alike — a crippling lack of self-respect that goes beyond mere humbleness. No matter how good they are, or how many affirmations they receive from fans, it’s never enough.

I myself am no stranger to self-doubt. While I’d like to think that I have a pretty healthy view of my abilities, I spend too much time and energy worrying whether I’m really good enough, if I’ll ever achieve anything with my art, will I ever be able to create for a living. Icky stuff, and it all stems from not having enough self-confidence.

I have been working on fixing that throughout 2007, and today I saw a post on zen habits on “25 Killer Actions to Boost Your Self-Confidence.” I highly recommend this site: Leo Babauta’s advice is priceless, eye opening, and truly useful in transforming your life for the better. I hope the article will inspire you to take a look at your own fears and doubts, and start the habit of squashing them before they do any damage. >:)

I also want to make a small suggestion on the subject of exercise.

Now, we all know we should be exercising. Especially we the creatives, leading a sedimentary lifestyle. We all know exercise keeps our backs happy, our skin looking young, it prevents repetitive stress syndrome, keeps us healthy, extends our lifespan, and a whole slew of other fantastic benefits. But above all, exercising makes us happy. Whenever I’m confronted with my self-doubts or just having a bad day, there’s nothing like a rush of endorphins to banish them all and feel like a million bucks!

You’d think I were exercising every day, huh? ^_^ Alas, no. I am just as reluctant to get off my heiny as the rest. But here’s a little life hack that I discovered – dancing. Not in a sense of discovery, I mean who can claim to have discovered dance. :)~ But here’s what I do. I close my curtains, I grab my Zen player, I put in my ear buds, and turn to the latest boppy song du jour. (Bollywood is always good for that!) Then for 15 minutes I proceed to embarrass white people everywhere by dancing all over my living room.

This produces three results:
1. It offends the cat.
2. It gives me a chance to try out some dance move I saw in a Bollywood flick.
3. It gets my blood flowing, makes me warm, and kills my bad mood.

Okay, so that last one was actually three benefits in one. See how great this is? You’re still exercising, you’re doing cardio, and you’re feeling great about yourself all at the same time. I greatly recommend it. :)