Catching up! Father's day + illustration class

Sorry about my unintentional hiatus. It has been a crazy two weeks for me! Here's the down and dirty version:

1. I quit my job. I have an outdoor education job lined up starting next week and I'm pumped! I traded in my headset, tiny cubicle and steady paycheck for the great outdoors and minimum wage.... and I'm not even a little sorry about it. (This decision was also part of the Happiness 30 in 31 list of mine)

So this week I'm on a break between jobs and I'm loving that I have time to get stuff checked off my to-do list and get my own work done (read: Etsy). Which brings me to my next point...

2. My shop is in full swing with Father's Day quickly approaching! And a little publicity via Buzzfeed didn't hurt, either! The only trouble? Trying to package a million orders all by my lonesome. Tanner was out of town last week and thus his assistant duties were magically unavailable. (This same thing happened during Valentine's Day...) Coincidence? I think not. 

3. I had my last illustration class on Thursday. I'm bummed it's over, but I had a really good time! Our teacher even brought in an agent last week to talk to us about the "biz" and what a book agent really does for a writer/ illustrator. I feel like I came away with some in-depth information and some really great stuff to take forward in the future. Yay for unknown destinies! Wherever my path takes me, I'm excited about really pumping up my portfolio so that I can make a decent website and start writing some books. It's like a kindergarten dream come true. Seriously.

Here are the latest sketches of mine from a short story I wrote about a dinosaur:

And this one is a prompt from a website called Illustration Friday. Every week they come out with a new topic and you have to draw something to fit the bill and link your drawings to the site. (It's a good way to keep the juices flowing!) This week the topic is "Temptation."

And because this particular Father's Day card below is doing so well, I had some fun this week redrawing it in a new style to do a potential 5x7 print of it. What do you think? Do you like the old one or the new one better? Either way, it feels so great to be drawing consistently again. :)