The New Year Wears Yellow

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I must say, I am pretty excited to welcome 2011.  But at the same time I think I can confidently say that, by and by 2010 was a good year for me.  I managed to successfully complete my first year of college and sophomore year is most definitely off to a good start!  My grades were great, I made some fun new friends, and most important of all I was accepted into the Individualized Major Program as an Animation and Storyboarding major!!!  I know that most of the traffic that comes here is from Facebook and so this probably isn't anything new to most people, but gosh darn it it's a big deal!  I can now pursue my passion and not have to worry about whether or not I'll actually receive a relevant diploma at the end of my 4 years.  It felt amazing to finally hear those much sought-after words of approval and welcome after working so hard on my overall application process.  I hope to continue to ride this wave all the way into the new year and the new semester :)

So I mentioned at the end of my last post that I had gotten a fun new "toy" for my computer for Christmas. Well it just so happens that I got a brand new Wacom Intuos 4 tablet!!!  For those of you who have no idea what that means, allow me to link you here so that you may educate yourselves.
It was a hefty gift to be sure but goodness it's worth it!  I am predominantly a traditional artist (and most likely always will be), and while having a reliable and solid grasp of traditional skills is always important it is clear that my intended profession continues to move in a more and more digital direction.  This tablet will allow me to improve on my digital painting and drawing skills, and also make drawing directly into programs like Flash a WHOLE lot easier.  While I know that it is not the tools that make the artist, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a few nice things here and there to make your life a little easier, right?
Now since it's the new year and all and I have been playing around and trying to get a feel for using my tablet for the last few days, I figured now would be a perfect time to post an awesome, new years themed picture!  Well I spent basically the entire evening wracking my little brain for something to draw and ended up scrapping at least half a dozen different sketches in the process.  In the end this was all I could come up with:

It's simple and easy and apparently all I could manage today.  I can't say if it's really what I consider to be my "style", but it is a style that I enjoy and is fun to draw.  Figuring out what my own unique "style" is, a plight/goal for all artists, will certainly be one of my main focuses in the new year.  That among a million other things!  

I really do hope that all of you out there have had a wonderful year and were able to bring in 2011 amongst friends and/or family :)  Let's all do our best to make it a good one!!

ps.  fun fact:  purple is my fave color.  I bet you thought it was yellow didn't you?  I'm so tricky.

pps.  apparently here in blogspot world time is like, 3 hours behind the midwest.  I assure you though, it was... is?... was 2011 when I posted this.  Just sayin'!