Keeping up my motivation!

     It's been tough the last few years keeping up with my art work.  During college, I built up a pretty big portfolio of art work.  It mostly consisted of landscapes and figure drawings with a few abstracts.  I was always more interested in drawing people than landscapes although my landscapes seemed to get more attention.  When I started teaching art, I had less and less time to do my own artwork.  Slowly but surely my motivation began to diminish.  I seemed to get my artisitic creativety satisfied through helping my students create.
     A couple of years later, a friend gave me a couple of dozen nice frames and mats.  I used them to frame up nearly my entire portfolio and sold everything.  I made a few thousand dollars and believe me that was great, but I felt a little empty.  My portfolio was now empty.  And to make things worse, my skill had lost its edge.  I hadn't really made and serious art for a few years and found myself struggling to make anything on the level I did before. 
     My daughter was born around this time and I found myself sketching her a lot. 

Ignore my reflection.

     I kept doing sketches of her as she grew.   She was 2 when she really went trick or treating for the first time.  She was a fairy princess.  Sorry my sketch was just a headshot but you can still see her crown.



Again, sorry about my reflection.

     I started getting positive comments from friends and coworkers about my sketches of her and began to get requests from people wanting similar drawings done of their friends and loved ones.  I even started doing drawings of family pets.  Next thing I knew, I had a nice little side business.

     I finally got my motivation to do art work back again and it was thanks to my daughter.