V.VIII.XIV

On May 8, 2014 I married my beautiful wife. She is amazing and we have had a great 2 months together so far! She makes me happy and I hate not spending time with her.  I also took a long break from writing on the blog because I was just taking my time from that crazy semester.  Needless to say, I survived and we made it through with heads clear above the water.  Life has had some getting used to, sharing a bed, my credit card and I don't do well with sleeping in the summer because of the heat.  We are waiting until summer comes more into the cool beginnings of Fall. Then it might get a little better, but then again it may not. Only because WE WILL BE IN CHINA!  (Remember when I said we were going to do that???)  We actually got our flight plans yesterday and we will be leaving on the 26th of August and coming back in December.

I heard that things like Facebook and Google are banned/ limited while we are there. So hopefully I can put up cool pictures and updates while I'm over there. Other wise it will just be another break from the good old blog again with really cool updates later!

I have been doing some design work, mostly working with my Mentor and working on getting better, which I've almost completed another sketchbook! I love going back and seeing the progress that has been made. I was going to try and put some of the work that I had done up on here this time but they are all PDF files and not images so the Blog won't let me put them up. BUT.. I will get them up this week. PROMISE!

Here are some of the pics, a couple from our engagements and a couple from the wedding day. She just makes me such a happy guy. I love her!

This has been a handful of a semester. I honestly feel like if I get through this semester with my head above water then I can pretty much do anything. It has honestly been going that way. I have mentioned before that I haven't ever not cared about grades. In fact I've generally always done well in school. And now that I'm paying for school it is more intimidating to do well cause otherwise that is a lot of money that I will have to pay. This semester has been pushing me to so many limits I wonder how I get through and done with everything I have to do. Taking 18 credits is 6 classes in college for me. 5 of them are generals an one is a pre req's for my major. Then on top of that I apprentice once a week with my mentor and try and improve my skills further. Which is more homework that needs to get done. Which is fine. And has been fine up to now. My grades are doing well. Overall high b's and a's. With one c. I'm proud of myself for doing this well with so much on my plate. As well as having to change to 40 hours a week at work just has been piling up. And lastly we are a month away from our wedding!! So we are really getting down to crunch time. But it's been a real crunch time because we are fast approaching finals season. And with finals season comes finals. And with finals comes stress and studying and hoping that the grades stay above so that I don't have to retake classes. It's just intimidating and I feel ok now but every time I think about it I just start getting nervous and anxious that I'm gonna mess it up somehow. And I think the scariest part are the papers cause I've always struggled with those. Struggled with writing them. Struggled with doing them well. Just all around strugglefest. And I know that is where most of my points will get docked.

Anyways like I said. In a month from now we will know where we are standing. An if I get through it all and an still alive. We will be in such great shape.

Since I wrote the above paragraphs it has been a couple of days, I have turned in a couple of the huge assignments that I had. and It is so much of a relief that is done. I feel good enough that I did well, but it's more that it is done that is getting me feeling good.

We also got a lot of wedding stuff done this weekend.  We finished all of the invitations pretty much. There are a few stragglers that we are remembering but we got the big bulk done, as well as the sign in book and started a sign that we want to get done.  Needless to say that the stress levels are going down for now, just finishing up life as a student for this semester. and then getting married and taking a little break. It's going to be so fun! 

Branding and New logo

This week I have thought a lot about the one little logo 

that I posted on here with an art update. 

It really bugged me to the point that I couldn't leave it alone. I talked with my buddy a lot about 

what I was thinking and what was coming from it.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could better improve it and make more designs from it. 

I went to his house last night to talk to him about what we could do with it

and where I thought it could go and where he thinks it can go

and just talking about life.

I thought about it as I went to bed. 

Earlier this week I came up with this.

I showed it to him last night and we brainstormed a lot of good ideas about how we could continue improving it all and making it move forward and in a good direction. He said that we should do more brainstorming and come back together.

I drew a bunch of thumbnails as artists always should when getting an idea and driving for the creativity inside.

This is just proof to show that I had a lot of ideas going through my head after we spoke and that I couldn't move forward with out getting them out of my head. 

Sometimes that's a great feeling sometimes it feels like a scary one because I want it to be just like I have imagined.

More updates to come. 

More ideas to spread. 

Also, for those who live in the Utah area, and know about colorfestival... even though I'm positive that people outside of Utah know about it (it's not even from here, just really big with all the college kids)

I'm going today and totally stoked. 

Pics to come! 

Sometimes, actually most times I don't know why or how things work out the way that they do. Sometimes, in college, I just feel lost and like I don't really know what's going on half of the time. It seems like I study and study and study and try and make sense of what is going on in each class. -Now I realize taking so many classes and getting a new job that has more hours and helping plan for my wedding it just all adds up- but on a poor college student, I think that is when most kids start doubting themselves and their confidence in supporting the direction if their life. Things add and build up and they know what they are doing is supposed to help them in the future and with supporting themselves and their families but it's often so hard to have that perspective when you're in the moment.  I found out that my grades are improving today (not that I have ever really gotten bad grades) but I am honestly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  Also, with so many classes it seems hard to stay focused when you bounce around from class to class to class.  I worry that it is going to catch up to me especially around finals time. Today in my class that I am struggling the most with I found out that right now I have a B- and that it jumped up from a C- with the last test.  I don't know why it is working out so well right now but it is, and for that I am grateful!

Superhero Saturday 1.1

I was scrolling through my social media this week and I noticed this picture,  It made me laugh and I thought that I would share it for Superhero Saturday! I am 99.999999% sure that as I have kids (male or female) they will learn to love superheroes and what better way to reward them for eating their fruit?!

If I could choose what hi super powers were in this moment it would be to generate watermelon that heals sicknesses, because watermelon tastes so great and it would help out lots of people. 

His second super hero power would be to make spring come sooner than it is. So that it's a little bit warmer and not so dull looking outside :)

Painting update and quick sketches.

I ended up finishing the Bountiful Temple paining last week! 

This was the final product,

I was really happy with the way it turned out, the texture of the sky stands out and was one of my favorite parts of the piece. I also really enjoyed the shadows on the building itself and want to push myself to work on landscapes more.

I also was thinking of some ideas with one of my friends logos and had some fun playing around with those. Just some rough sketches to get out but really a fun idea!

And then a simpler logo. 

I'll be getting my other projects back this week as well and will post those here then!

This is Sparta!

So I went to class, I usually get there early enough to get a decent parking stall and today I decided that I would park backwards to get out those 4 seconds faster (time is money).  In my parking endeavor I readjusted out of common courtesy a couple of times to ensure that any other people trying to get decent parking stalls would be alright with opening the door and having the convenience of space surrounding their bubble to get in and out of the vehicle.. you get the picture.
I come out to my car, and although Mr. Truck you are in your stall, You are too close.  As you can tell in the picture ( which I take for those who think I make this stuff up) I have a full body shadow in between the line and my car.  I still struggled to get in and out of my car, which still took away those four seconds I was trying to save.

The other fun activities of the day were the blessing of getting my promotion at work a couple weeks earlier than I was expecting or hoping for. #HUGEBLESSING So, as part of the reward system in place we went to the arcade with some friends and did some basketball shooting and dance dance revolution and tried the stupid machine that you use the claw of doom and never get the stuffed animal (while the stupid teenagers before you got lucky and DID get the stuffed animal and sat around watching you laughing that YOU seem so incompetent to be able to grab the stupid animal) they got lucky anyways, and then finished the night with Frozen the cute little movie. I had never seen it but my nephews are pretty good at singing the songs so now we can sing them together.

Then finally, to a little bit of a throwback and an inside story. (Kind of like an inside joke but I'll do my best to fill y'all in)
At my old job we would play games for physical activity with the boys. It was often basketball, soccer or football. I usually participated, well because I need it, and because it helped keep them from getting too crazy and intense.  It got to the point where some of the kids got a little crazy and I ran in yelling THIS IS SPARTA and then they would laugh and run away from me. ( Knowing if they kept their behavior up I would consequence them) So we had a This Is Sparta joke for a little bit and I saw a picture of this sign and it reminded me of them and so in honor of them trying to improve their lives

THIS IS SPARTA!