Thanks Sami from Flickr!

Snow is falling, acting as prelude to the bitter cold that is arriving in a few days. I’m tired of cold weather, and sometimes, I’m tired of the snow even though it’s so pretty. I’m not a fan of winter; it’s depressing and drags on too long. All the bleakness makes it hard for me to feel fervent, which, if you think about it, fervent sounds the opposite of what it truly means. Anymore, I just feel so down and hopeless and it’s hard to find that silver lining or little glimmer of joy. Click to read more …

Tags: anger, Birds, Boyfriend, clothes, clothing, Depression, Disney, do, Dreams, Dying, expression, expressions, Family, Flickr, Food, Freem, game, Graduate School, guy, hope, Issues, Japan, Kyoto, lines, Love, Lyrics, Married, Night, personality, reading, real, relationship, Relationships, Santa, school, side, sky, Snow, song, Star, Tala, teaching, Travel, University, view, Weather, wing, winged, wings, Work, write, Writing

Oh my God, do I have a lot to say! Bear with me, folks, I’ll try to make this as brief as possible with a bonus tutorial! Yay!

First news on the docket: I am currently applying for a job in Japan. Yes, Japan! I’m currently applying for a job as an English language teacher, which goes along with what I plan on doing with my life. I want to teach ESL students, so teaching in Japan is MORE TRAINING than what I can get at my university. WOW! I am so thrilled about that! I would have a lot of perks, I would get to mingle with the people I LOVE SO MUCH, and leave the country for a year! Yes! Pray that I get this opportunity of a lifetime!

Second, Tala is officially a student at my university! YES! I’m so happy for her! Now if we can just raise money for her tuition…

Thirdly… I forgot what my third thing was.

And what is with men? Last night, I hinted to my boyfriend that he could come over to visit me today. I HINTED not so subtly! Apparently, not so subtle was way too subtle because I am currently boyfriendless and lonely. *Sigh.* Class starts in a few days and that means I will see him, but less so because of work and stress. Hopefully, our semester together doesn’t suck as much as last semester did. I’m tired of fights, coldness, and bitterness. *Sigh.* Hope for the best, I suppose.

See, I told you that was brief.

For today’s tutorial, I’m feeling a little lazy (I was sick–girl issues), so I’m going to use a tutorial I did for E-How over the summer. Today, I’m going to show you how to shade by stippling. Stippling is done by using a series of tiny dots to create the shading effect.Stippling may be time consuming, but it is fun and creates awesome effects. Lighter and largely spaced dots are for light shades; slightly darker and medium spaced dots are mid-tones; tightly packed and dark dots are for dark tones. So, do you have an image handy? Alright! Let’s go!
Click to read more …

Tags: Art Tutorial, Bottles, Complaints About Men, drawing tutorial, ESL Teaching, Japan, Kyoto, Men, Period, PMS, Purdue University, shading, Shading Effects, Stippling, teaching, Tones, University