# 54. Tower

Any college kid should be able to see the symbolism here. I think I have the early stages of senioritis. I have a ton of school work to do and it feels like it takes a ton of will power just to make myself open my text book. The reading isn’t necessarily bad I just really ,really don’t want to do it.

I guess the girl in the background is kind of how I feel right not. I’m forcing myself to keep my nose in the books but I can’t help but look away to watch/do something more entertaining. Sigh.

# 22. Mother Nature

I know Mother Nature usually means landscape like drawings but for this theme I decided to go with a Native American look.

This is a drawing I created for a lady that I work with. She trained me on some of our quality systems at work and has been extremely nice and given some great professional advice. After she heard about my background in art she called me up and asked if I would be interested in designing the program cover for the upcoming national convention of her organization Native Americans, Alaskan Natives (NAAN). Each year they have a contest to see who can come up with the best design that fits their organization. Well come to find out the following week she told me that the contest was actually already over for this year. I decided to go ahead and draw what I had in mind anyway and give it to her. If nothing else it’s just a token of my gratitude for her kindness.

It's nice to know that there are still good people in the world that look to help others. It's even better to know that there are some people that look for opportunities to help others. I find it's amazing how several people I have met randomly in the recent past that I've had conversations with about myself and how I am pursuing a professional career, and in the end they end up being eger to share their experience and advice with me. I feel blessed

# 16. Questioning

Another collage I made. I have to say this collage reminds me of someone that has some gambling problems. Although I do find it a little funny that I collect cards and enjoy using them in my artwork yet I actually don’t like to play poker. I’ve been to Las Vegas several times but never did anything more than play 10 minutes on a penny slot machine.

# 50. Breaking the Rules

Normally for the challenge you are suppose to create new artwork for each them. But hey, what better day to break the rules than your own birthday! This is a drawing I did for my final in my drawing II class my sophomore year working on my art degree. It is also my most favorite drawing I’ve ever done. The hands were drawn completely in a cross hatch style. Basically the hands are made of small lines crossing each other rather than traditional shading. 

Someone recently asked me “Why don’t do sell your artwork?” well personally the ones that I think people would actually want to buy, like this one, I feel personally attached to. There were several night that I stayed up til 4:00am meticulously working on this drawing. I guess I finally understand why some painting cost ridiculous amounts of money. When you put a lot of time and effort into something and then it comes out better than you originally thought, it's really hard to let it go.  

# 47. Creation

This is my 3D collage creation I made for my art therapy midterm. It’s awesome that I had a midterm that wasn’t actually an exam.  The assignment was to create a 3D collage about yourself. I think mine was the best in the class = ) most people just took an object and collaged magazine pictures on it.

Ingredients and Symbolism of this piece:

Books – represent the collection of my education. I was asked in class if they were specific books or just random. They are just random. They were some old books that my mom didn’t want anymore. I think one of them was a book on cats and another was a self inspiration book.

Newspaper – I wrapped the books in newspaper mainly because I didn’t like the color on the covers of the books… or the random titles. So wrapping them in newspaper made them more uniform.

Cog wheel – represents my automotive back ground. Although it was kind of funny the guy that sits next to me in Art therapy was like “What is that? Is it a saw blade?”

Playing Cards – most people don’t know this but I actually collect playing cards. I have about 100 different decks from all over the country.