Monday, January 05, 2009

New Year, New Start

First week of 2009, Sydney Harper
pen and colored pencil in sketchbook

Rick and I have been off between Christmas and today. It's been wonderfully relaxing and much needed. We've all been doing a lot of sleeping but I think we needed it. Tomorrow it's back to the routine, though. I'm starting to feel a little restless so I guess it's just as well. I decided that I would do a weekly combo sketch. I may not do it every week, but I like the idea. I'm ready to move on to a new year. Last year was an okay year and ended on a good note, but I'm hoping for a better one this year.

I'm taking
Christine Kane's advice and picking a word for the year. My word is Delight. I hope to find delight and give delight to others this year. Then to take it a step further, I decided to keep my goals simple too.

Enjoy
Be Creative
Make Money
Promote
Participate
Be Healthy

Obviously I don't have complete control over all of these, such as money and health, but my plan is to do my best. I have more specific plans for the year but I want to focus where I'm headed rather than specifics. One thing I want to do this year is learn Photoshop and Illustrator. I've already started learning Photoshop with the
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Classroom in a Book. The instructions are good and I've having a great time with it. I don't know how it compares to the other books that are available but this one has been easy to follow. I've been moving through the book at a pretty good clip since I've been on vacation. Once I finish this book, I'll move on to Illustrator.

2 comments:

Robyn Sinclair said...

Good luck, Sydney! I have failed miserably trying to learn Illustrator. Probably because I just haven't invested the time necessary. It's such an amazing piece of software and to have it and not use it is tragic, isn't it?

Sydney Harper said...

I'm really glad I got the books for Photoshop and Illustrator. They're both amazing pieces of software. I'm still in awe at their capabilities. Right now I'm focusing on Photoshop but I'm going to start on Illustrator soon.