Happy Mother's Week.

I'm late, I know. I had been searching for this video on Mother's Day until my own mother took precedence. But I LOVE this commercial, and I love my mother, and I know you all love yours. And we can just call this mother's week.

They deserve more than one day, afterall.
Cheers to our magical mothers.

The written word.

I inhale books. My bookshelves are home to several genres: magical fairytales, autobiographies, plays, and classics, every Jane Austen, a couple Hemingways, of course the Potter Heptalogy & as of yesterday the Hunger Games trilogy.

I love books because they transport you into a new world. A world that is guided by a set of unknowns: unfamiliar laws, incredible rules, new love, and heartbreaking loss. You know the characters more than you may even know your best friends. You hear their every thought. See their every move. In most of my favorite books, there are mystical creatures lurking around every page corner. You paint an entire world, a new landscape, a whole LIFE within your mind that is inhabited by these characters. And they live there, forever. Never to leave the confines of their hardbacked cover.

I love books. But with four years of ridiculous studying, too much coffee and lots of textbook chapters clouding my eyes- I let that love go unnourished. And I had forgotten. Until yesterday afternoon, while laying in the sun I picked up my first post-grad book. It was closed by dinner.

And a piece of my identity had been rediscovered.

The written word: my magical simplicity.

Compilation: a character sketchbook

A magical journey
The Sketchbook Project: Limited Edition
A character sketchbook

Character sketch two: Rachel McAdams

Character sketch three: Gemma Ward

Character sketch four: Emma Watson

Character sketch six: A Little Sister

Character sketch seven: Max.

Character sketch eight: Gerard Butler

Character sketch nine: My love.

Character sketch ten: Thomas

Character sketch eleven: Papa.

Character sketch twelve: Miles.

Character sketch thirteen: Betsy (from Peru)

Character sketch fourteen: A little brother

Character sketch fifteen: Genevieve

Character sketch sixteen: Revisiting Rachel

Character sketch one: Adventure of an amateur.  

You are now leaving Oxford.

A map of home: from etsy

On May 5, 2012, I came upon a milestone. I crossed a stage, moved a tassel, threw my cap in the air and shook the dean's hand. Then I carried my diploma back to a folding chair and smiled to myself. I did it. We did it.

We did it: all four thousand and some of my graduating classmates.

We did it: I mark the half way point for my family's collective college career.

We did it: late nights, early mornings, thousands of pages of paper, hundreds of pens, two dorm rooms, two apartments, eighty odd credit hours, eight semesters, countless interviews, unbearable exams.. we did it.

And on May 8th I packed up, moved out and drove down 27 to home, no longer a Miami student- but an alum. I am starting a new chapter of my life. Oxford was good to me, it will always have my heart. But it is time to say goodbye.

Cheers to a new adventure.

Sketching the lovely Genevieve

Well, the time is up and the sketchbook is in! I mailed in my Art House Co-Op limited edition sketchbook yesterday and what a feeling it was!

I will post a few pictures later, but for now- a sneak peek into the process of one character #fifteen. The lovely Genevieve.

Cheers!