Procrastinating....

I am sure many of you struggle with this. Procrastinating is terrible, because if you are like me, you will even procrastinate on trying to stop procrastinating. Ugh. So I have decided to really try hard this time. With college starting soon, it will not be a good idea to keep up the habit if I want to succeed. So I will do the following:

I will tell myself that I am not a procrastinator. Because if you convince yourself of something, it has the greater potential of happening, I have tried it. If I think about how I am going to be very diligent with my homework, thinking through specific things I am going to do and when I will do them, when I get home from work, then I have a higher likelihood of actually doing it.

I will find someone to hold me accountable outside of family (which will be hard anyway at college). I was trying to overcome another struggle of mine and having a friend hold me accountable actually proved to be the most successful strategy I used.

I will create a schedule. I find that for myself writing down what I need to do and when I will do it helps me to actually complete it. The feeling of crossing a task off your list is pretty great.

I'll keep you posted.

Sarah

Famous Faces

I love drawing faces for some reason. They are all unique and have distinct contrast and interesting shadows. I thought I would find some pictures of famous people to copy, the more I practice the better I get at drawing conceptual faces, or so I have found.

None of the above are actually finished and I don't know if they will be finished, but I have lots more to start!

Some tips on getting realistic drawings of faces would be to draw what you see not what you think it should look like. For example, we have an idea of what an eye looks like, but all eyes are different. Another thing that I would suggest is getting a pretty detailed light sketch of the face and making sure it is right before you start shading. I sometimes struggle with this because shading is my favorite part:)

I use different pencils with different levels of hardness so that I can achieve the dark colors with soft led, and use harder led for the light sketches. Also make sure you have a good eraser to fix any errors.

Oh and another tip, make sure that you do not have sunscreen on your hand when you are drawing or one of your faces will have some beautiful yellow smudges...personal experience.

Have fun drawing!!

Sarah

Out of Boredom Came Creativity

So yes, you guessed it, I was bored -- again. But this time I didn't actually have some other important thing to do that I was avoiding...I had a 8-9 hour long bus ride to endure and I was not ready to sleep yet.

So I got out my sketchbook, and inspired by another artist (Mary Doodles), I began to doodle.

Basically I just scribbled or had someone else scribble on a blank sheet of my sketchbook, then I took that scribble and turned it into a creative drawing.

Example of "random scribbles:"

Examples of what I made from some other "random scribbles:"






Ok I think I have a tendency towards seeing and drawing unique fashion or fashionable animals in these...

I have since found this to be a great way to start drawing when you feel your ideas have been drained or when you just need something to do.

Have fun this week and be creative! Everyone is, just in different ways:)

Sarah

Costa Rica...More Stories!

I am going to tell you a story about how this shy and anti risk-taking girl, me, learned to take risks and overcome the fear of trying new things.

So like I said I, up until this trip, refused to take risks. I am still terrified of the idea of change, but I have learned to work through my fear and take the risk!

I am not a swimmer, in fact I can't stay afloat for long, maybe I should take some lessons from my little brother who is a competitive swimmer:) Besides this I am not necessarily afraid of heights, but I would not say that I enjoy them. So these two things combined equals not happening! Well...I didn't let that stop me.

I knew that if I didn't jump off the rock into the bubbling water at the bottom of the waterfall (no worries it was not that far and we had chaperones that would not let us do anything too risky) I might regret it, but I might not. What I learned though is if I wanted to do it I needed to jump in the moment and not let myself think about it. So I jumped! Yes! I did it!

My next opportunity to take a risk was towards the end of our trip when we had the opportunity to go tubing. When I heard we doing this, there was no way I was going to go. Jumping off a rock into water that wasn't going anywhere was one thing, but tubing down a river full of rapids, rocks, and trees hanging over it was quite another. In my mind it looked like a sure way for me to bash my head against a rock or drown.

Well this time I was lovingly forced to go. Some of the college students on the trip said they would make sure that I came out on the other end just fine. I went, and I actually enjoyed it! (I have never done tubing of any sort before). At the end of the section of river we were on was a small cliff, that was higher than the rock I jumped off before. I was hesitant at first because I knew I could not swim well, but they made sure I would have a tube. I jumped. And no I have never screamed in public like that:)

I loved the exhilaration I received from taking risks and I am now less afraid of change and doing new and different things! I will continue telling stories from Costa Rica over the next couple weeks so stay tuned!

Go conquer some fears. The only way to get rid of a fear is to conquer it, and the only way to conquer fear is to face it head on like I did.

Sarah