Goals for Spring

I'm a little behind with posting, because so much of what I do requires so much time and attention. Some people think that drawing takes no time, but in fact it takes a long time,especially if you are illustrating or have a lot of detail to get down. I like to do really detailed illustrations, but sometimes I rush and I f*ck up, case in point on some of my sketches for my application back to to Parsons,which I submitted last week and I just have to send them a few more sketches and then it's a simple waiting  game to find out if I was excepted into the BFA program or not.  Below are the sketches I submitted.

I was going along fine until I mucked up the background of the first three sketches so I had to back them and cut them out. I stuck them on a foam core board then took this picture. I had to submit 8-12 sketches but I could only upload one picture with my application so the next four sketches I couldn't send.

These I rushed and the faces were totally messed up. The purple dress should have been more mauve, but I didn't have the right color marker. I really need to slow down and take my time, but sometimes I get anxious when I have a time limit for things. I do better when I'm just drawing for the sake of drawing. It's rather relaxing and I get into a really great creative place. I do believe that's when spirit is working through me becaus e everything just flows so freely. I love being in that place!

I completed some of the goals I set for myself in the first three months of the year. I didn't go out as much as I  wanted , but that had to do with weather, but I have no excuses now! I didn't finish my tailored jacket, but I can continue with that since I don't have anymore sketches to do for my school application.
So,my goal for the next three months are:

1. Finish the tailored jacket ( for real this time!) and all the other little sewing projects I have left undone.
2. Use the screen printer a friend gave me to create  product for my business.
3. Submit a story to Changling Press who is doing  a call for submissions from new authors.
4. Increase my workout time. I'm down five pounds which is good since I slacked off my workouts due to     the cold and snow in February and all the rain in March.
5. Find a stock to invest in.
6. Visit three museaums.
7. Complete the collection of sketches I started for the Parsons challenge. What I mean is do more sketches to make a full collection of about 24 sketches. This will also serve as part of my portfolio.

Vision Boards.

A friend of mine invited me to a DA(debtors anonymous) meeting a week and a half ago because they were doing vision boards that night. I'm a big believer in vision boards. I have mine stuck on the walls of my bedroom so I can see them everyday. I even started to create a vision book. The premise of the vision board or book is to get picture(s) of the things you want: a car, a house, a mate, or a trip somewhere. You can have one picture that represents what you desire or you can have a collage of pictures, the point is to have a visual to focus on each day and to imprint on your subconcious mind so that you will subconciously start doing things that will bring what you desire into your life. The visual is to keep you focused and keep your mind only on what it is you want as well as getting you to do things that move you towards what you want. It's a process. It requires time, focus, patience and a lot of work, not hard work, but smart work.  I use to work hard and all I got for my hard work was tired. If your not having fun or if it's not moving you towards what it is you desire, it's a waste.  This year, I plan to move towards all the things my heart desires. No more holding back. I trust the Universe will deliver.

These are a few of my vision boards that I have up on my wall. The one on the right with "Thanks A $100 Million", I finished on a Monday and by Friday, my boss, at the time, pulled me to the side and told me I was getting a raise! I romptly made all the other boards after that!

I made my billon dollar board because I figured Oprah and Shiela Johnson can not be the only two black women in the billionare club!

Getting things done.

I am coming off the PMS blah's that has kept me from a lot of the projects I wanted to work on this month.I'm also working to keep myself from the anxiety I feel when a day goes by and I haven't done anything that will get me closer to completing a project or closer to completing any of my goals. I've stated some of the goals I wanted to reach within the first three months of 2010, but I don't feel like, say, drawing or sewing, every day, two things I absolutely have to do in order to finish certain projects and reach certain goals. I have a bad habit of overwhelming myself with so much stuff that I don't do anything and time passes me by and nothing is accomplished. I get anxious and it's very frusterating, the feeling of time passing and you are in the same place, situation or whatever and no closer to whatever it is you want to have or where you want to be.

Since I am so not feeling my current living or financial situation right now I decided to start using my internal gps(my spirit) more often. The first directive I  got was turn off the t.v. So, I now I turn off my television for two hours each day. Now, I get to use those two hours to work on whatever my internal gps tells me towork on, whatever I feel like working on instead of forcing myself to work on something. With a laser focus for two houes each day I can do either sketches for my portfolio and my application to Parsons, write, read or work on my tailored jacket.

Like many of the unfinished projects I have lingering, that jacket has been haunting me! What I had done looked really good and I'm impressed with myself, but now I have to go back and teach myself all the stuff I would have probably retained had I finished the jacket years ago when I had access to Anna Lou Plott, who was my tailoring teacher at Parsons and who worked for Ana Sui. There is a lot of hand sewing involved in tailoring. I have to plan what I am going to listen to while I do all that pick stiching on the other half of the jacket. I really look forward to that...NOT!

This is what pick stitching looks like. The other side  will be much neater than this.

This is the left side of the tailored jacket.

I did and excellent job on the pocket if I do say so myself!

This is to show the funky paisley lining I chose.

New Year, same dreams

This is my very first blog. I was debating with myself if I was going to start a blog in 2010 or stick to my journal. I decided to o both. The blog is to put out to anyone who is interested what I intend to create in my life this year and in the years to come. I figure if other people know what I'm doing I'd be more apt to really do the work and be held accountable for my progress.

I'm an Auqarius, so I'm a dreamer and I dream big. I've always wanted to work for myself , own my own business, own a Mercedes Benz, own my own home, travel like a jounalist and get my passport stamped up, meet that special man, get married (I'm wiling to do it at least once!), have children(4 and if I can get them all out at one time in the form of quads, sweet!) and be supercalafragalistic rich so I can take care of my family. Oprah should not be the only self made, black female billionare! I plan to join her in that club! I will be on her show before it ends in 2011! Guest or in the audience, it's all good to me!

So, It's a new year. Yipee! It was cloudy, here in NYC, but it was bright so I see that as a good sign for the coming year. I have a few goals I intend to accomplish this year that I have been oh so bad about putting off for years now. I figured since this year I will be 40, (next month actually) NOW is the time that I should commit to making manifest the fabulous life I have pictured in my mind. I plan to do it in stages so I don't overwhelm myself and over commit.

The first three months, January to the end of March, I will be intently focused on the following goals:

1. Creating an e-business that will allow me to use my creative, artistic design skills and will bring in enough income so that I will not need to work for anyone . I have been on team unemployed for over a year now and I really don't want to work for another company after the last experience I had. I'll write about that later.

2. I intend to finish all my incomplete projects. Don't judge, but I have a jacket that I was tailoring for a class when I was in school. We only had to do half of the jacket for class, but It's still unfinished...15 years later!!!!!! I will finish that jacket within the first quarter of this year. I went to Parsons school of design by the way and I plan to go back and get my BFA which leads me to my next goal...

3. Fill out the applications for Parsons. I was excepted to the BFA program in 1998, but I couldn't attend because the schedule wasn't flexible and I had to work, but I refused to work in retail ( and I will never go back!) Now I can take the classes online! I'm hoping to be in the summer classes, but I may start in the fall, but it depends on how much my business is making by the summer. If I'm making a decent amount, I plant to travel. Either Australia or Sweden. How much money I have save will determine my destination.

4. Once a week,or more depending on how I'm feeling,but at the very least once a week, I will visit a new part or a part of NYC I haven't been to in a while or see something in the city I haven't seen yet after 16 years here...don't judge! LOL! For example, I was watching Dogs 101 on Animal planet and one of the types of dogs they profiled were Siberian Huskies and they talked about how Balto saved a town in Alaska by leading a team on the final leg of a run to deliver a serum for diphtheria to Nome, Alaska in a snow storm. The Iditarod came from this run. Anyway, I did a yahoo search on Balto, because I'm a curious sort. In my search I saw that there is a statue of Balto in central park near the Tisch children's zoo. I clicked on the picture to enlarge it and on the new page, below the picture there were other links and the link about sculptures in New York caught my attention. So I clicked the link and saw the list of all the sculptures around NYC. I though it would be cool to go see all of them. There are 29 in total, so I'm going to go to all of them, take a picture and post, but I will not try to see them all within three months. I'll commit to getting to 5 and the rest will be in the other 3 quarters of the year, but then again I might get crazy in the spring/ summer and see the rest in one week. You never know with me.LOL!

5. My final goal for the first three months of the year is to commit to walking 30 minutes, 6 days a week. I have fat back...ass, thighs and I don't like it. The fat on my back makes my sciatica hurt, distorts my figure. I'm embarking on a silhouette solution to reshape my figure, tone, tighten and strengthen. I need to release 60 pounds off my body. I went to the doctors back in November and I weighed my all time high of 195, three pounds more than when I went to the doctors two months before that. That is way too much for me and I can feel in in my low engery level and how tight my muscles are and how my joints are starting to ache. Not good. There was a time I was flexible enough to do a back bend all the way through my legs and do "the basket" where you lie on your stomach, push your head back as far as you can, then bend your legs and touch your feet to your head. I'm grateful that I can still touch my hands flat on the floor, but I want to get my flexibility back. It makes a difference in how I move. I feel more fluid and loose. The ultimate reason is for health. My health is so important to me and treating my body with the respect it deserves so that it can perform at it's optimum for me when I need it to.


Ok, so those are my first five goals for January through March. I post as often as I can to update on my progress, post pictures and stuff. I'm known to have a celebrity sighting or two, so I'll have stories to tell about that! Oh, do I have stories...some pictures too!!