I am not making excuses.

This is just where I am.

I won't be coming to class today. Since Friday morning when I woke up to now (Wednesday at 6:22 a.m.), I have spent every free minute I had working on a pet project. It is a pet project because it a wedding/anniversary gift for a friend, and it is in children's book form. I love children's books, and obviously I love this particular friend to put some much love into a gift for her.

I am illustrating this piece by hand. I am a decent illustrator at best and it takes me sooo long to create artwork I am satisfied with. I thought I would be done with this by Monday. It is Wednesday morning, and I am halfway done. I have not been fooling around, I have been working non stop because I have to finish this in the next few days. My goal is to make a design piece out of a children's book. Children's books are usually straightforward and simple. What techniques can I use to make it a more sophisticated design piece?

I have declined invitations to social events. I had to visit the family upstate on Sunday (this was unavoidable, I couldn't get out of it) and I had an appointment today that I made months ago. I attended dutifully but left early so I could work. I have to be at the doctors in 3 hours, to get results from blood tests. I was there for an hour and a half on Friday so that a nurse could spend 2 seconds while on the phone to check the results of another test. Argh.

I feel class is important, definitely, but I am tired of bringing in half finished work because I don't feel you guys can give me proper feedback if the pieces are not finished. So I am going to finish the pieces I am working on and bring them in next class. That way you guys can give me feedback, and I will still have 2 weeks to improve the work. Other than work work and this doctor appointment (hopefully the last one for a while!!) I will not be leaving the apartment. No disruptive family events. No engagements that I made months ago. Just work work work.

Part of me hates being a slave to the work, but at the the same time it feels like a drug. Its all I can think about, doing this work. But thats great, because in the past, I used to treat it as a chore.

Speaking of, I am going back to it. Hopefully will have this project posted tomorrow.