California Trip

I've been in California all week. I'm here with a few people from the Illustration department and 2 professors - Brother Barrett and Justin. I'm getting to know people from this trip... they are fun and I'm really glad I feel comfortable with them. It's been lots of fun! So far we've been to 3 museums, Disneytoons, Dreamworks, Riot Games, academies, studios, etc. It's been so exhausting and by the end of the day my brain cannot even think. There is a lot of information and a lot of things to think about. I love Illustration but it's just hard to figure out what to do. This trip is helping me figure out what to do with my life but it's hard when things are not completely up to me. I cannot just decide to move to LA to work at dreamworks or something like that. Having a family is very important, so I hope I can find a balance where I can work on what I love but at the same time take care of my family. Decisions decisions...
Also, today we're going to the beach :) I'm excited. I've been a little stressed here so I hope that helps me.

So grateful... :)

I'm extremely happy right now. I just found out that they accepted my portfolio and now I'm officially in the Illustration program! I am soooo grateful for this. Now I can say that I am graduating this April! So many blessings in my life :)
Getting into the program that I love was not easy for me. In fact, it took a lot of patience, faith, hard work, time, etc... but I can say that everything was so worth it. I learned so much from it.
Here is my story:
When I was little I remember always liking art but I never thought I would do anything with it. It wasn't till my Senior year in High School when I took my first art class (Art 1) that I decided to major in Art. I applied to the Illustration emphasis my freshman year at BYU and I didn't get accepted. I knew I had talent but I was lacking a lot of experience. A lot of people who applied to the program had been taking lots of AP art classes in HS and stuff like that. After being rejected, I decided to change my major to Family Studies because I wanted to do Interior Design. BYU doesn't have that major but they had about 5 Interior Design classes in the Family Studies program. However, I was not enjoying all the extra classes I needed to take to graduate from this major. A lot of the classes were based on long essays and tests which I didn't like at all. Finally I decided to go back to art because I was missing it a lot. I remember how happy I felt once I started taking art classes again. (At this point I wasn't allowed to take any Illustration classes unless I was in the program but one of my friends, Garrett, told me that if I showed up to the class the first day of school I could ask for an add-code... and this is what I did for every single class I took) It was the best and I just knew I had to apply again. I applied to 2 different emphasis: Illustration and Studio. Once again I wasn't accepted into the Illustration program but I got into Studio. (We are only allowed to apply twice). I started taking some Studio classes but it just wasn't the same. Abstract art is not my thing. One day I was talking to a friend and she told me I could transfer to Illustration. It was easier because I was already accepted into the Visual Art program, I just needed to transfer to another emphasis. Since then I've been working hard on my portfolio. I spent a lot of hours on my art pieces. This semester I am taking the last Illustration class that I need to be able to graduate with a BA in Illustration. Two weeks ago I submitted my portfolio one more time and today they told me I got accepted!
During these years I've had moments of doubts. The only thing I knew was that I was enjoying all the Illustration classes I was taking and that Heavenly Father wanted me to do that. The hard thing was seeing not many positive results for years. I'm so grateful for those people who have been such a great support including roommates, friends, professors, family, and my husband.
Here is my portfolio:

Figure Drawing 1

Figure Drawing 2

Figure Drawing 3

Figure Drawing 4

Figure Drawing 5

Still Life

Character Design - Captain

Character Design - Villain

Narrative - Beauty & Beast

Album Cover - A Drop in the Ocean

Menu Cover - Sabor Peruano

It's been a while...

It's been a long time since last time I wrote on this blog. Live is good!
This semester I'm only taking 13 credits which is wayyy nice. I love my classes. I enjoy learning different stuff. Danny and I are taking 2 classes together which makes everything more enjoyable :) We are taking a bowling class. So fun! I highly recommend it. We just bowl 2 hours a week. We are also taking Living Prophets. I LOVE that class. We have an awesome professor (Barbara Morgan) who really cares about teaching her students with the spirit. We pretty much get to read a lot of talks and talk about them in class. I can see a difference in my life since I've been taking this class.
I'm also taking Zumba! This class is awesome :) I love dancing and my professor just makes it so much better. She has so much energy! (not to mention that this class is at 7am).
I'm taking 2 Illustration classes and my last Spanish class! I'm almost done!!!!!!

Just a quick update on life:
1. Danny and I have been married for a little over a year now. (14 months next week)
2. Danny finished applying to different schools for his PhD. Yay!
3. We are waiting to hear from those Universities. So far we've heard from one. Georgia Tech accepted him on Friday. USC has sent a letter in the mail so we'll probably know this week. That's all we know so far. It's pretty exciting :)
4. Danny has been working a lot on his research. They want him to finish things pretty soon. Danny finally has a coworker who has been very helpful. Danny is teaching him all about the project before he graduates.
5. I finally finished my portfolio. I submitted it almost 2 weeks ago. I'm waiting for my answer. It's driving me nuts! I've been checking my email like 100 times already haha.
6. I've been trying to be more healthy. Those who know me pretty well probably know how hard this is for me. I just LOVE chocolate and sweets and HATE to exercise. Well that has to change if I want to be healthy. I've been eating a lot more healthy in the last month. I'm trying to eat a lot of fruit/veggies and drinking lots of water. I've also been dancing in my Zumba class, running a couple of times a week. And I'm going to start going to the gym soon. We have a friend who's a personal trainer and she's going to help us :)
7. I'm going to California in March with the Illustration department. We're meeting with artists from Universal studios, Disney, etc... going to art museums, and doing other fun stuff. We are going for a week. I'm way excited!
8. Graduation is coming pretty soon. 3 more months are we are done.
9. This summer Danny and I will be in Texas with my family. Danny has an internship in Houston.
10. After graduation (and before going to TX) we'll be visiting Danny's family in Seattle. I'm excited to go back, especially during the summer.

I'll try to be better at writing. Hope everyone is  having a good day :)

A growing experince

I can't belief this semester is almost over!!! when did this happen?! It's been a CRAZY semester. Lots busy, stressful moments which means lots of growing moments. I'm very grateful for this semester. I've been working on my portfolio as I've been in school and it's been very hard to do both things at the same time. I've spent LOTS of hours on one art piece and I feel like I work so slow but in reality things just take time. I've had lots of moments when I didn't know what else to do, but moments of inspiration will always come at some point. I'm been very grateful for one special professor who has been helping me this semester. I cannot even express how grateful I am for Boston. She's my Character Design professor and she just loves teaching and helping her students. Her class goes till 10pm and she would stay after class to just look over my progress and help me see how I can improve it. I really appreciate her staying extra time to just  talk to me. Also, she has to drive all the way to Salt Lake because that's where she lives. She's a great example to me. I just wanted to talk a little bit about her because she's change my life. I'm not talking just about helping me have a better portfolio, but about serving others and loving it. I can tell how excited she gets when she gets to help. She doesn't have to tell me how happy she is, I can just tell. I want to help others and do it because I love that person, even if I don't know that person very well. Going along with service, yesterday another art professor told us that art can become a selfish career and we should never let that happen. He explained that as artists we are trying to become better and better every time. He said that when we find ourselves thinking about ourselves and our talents and how to become better artist, we need to stop and think of others. He explained that we should use our talents to help others. Service is just so great! It brings blessings to our lives and to those we serve.
I usually don't post stuff online but I decided to post this piece that I've done in my character design class. I'm still working on it but I'm almost done :) Thanks Boston for all the things that you have taught me!

GOOD NEWS!!!!!!

I'm sooooo excited!!!!!! I really want to talk about this really quick because it means so much to me. Danny and I have been very blessed this morning! A few months ago, Danny applied for an internship this summer. He had some interviews and stuff with a company called GE Oil and Gas. We hadn't heard from them for a long time and I was thinking that maybe he didn't get the position. Danny emailed them Saturday hoping to hear back from them. He did! This morning, after I turned my phone back on I got a call from my husband. I thought it was weird because he was calling me during his Capstone class and he never even checks his phone during that time. He called to let me know that he got the internship position!!!!! BUT the best news is that the internship is going to be in HOUSTON, TEXAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohooooo!!!!! That's where my family is from and I couldn't be more happy about it. We are going to be in Houston during the summer. I'm sooooo excited :) :) :) Danny is also going to get paid very well which is a HUGE blessing since we need to save some money for Grad School.
Heavenly Father is aware of us. He really does know the desires of our hearts. I know that. I am so grateful for this amazing opportunity that He has given Danny and me. I'm also very grateful that I get to be with my family this summer. I love them so much <3 and I love my wonderful husband too :)

Fun moments

So life has been extremely busy lately. That's why I haven't been able to post anything for a while. Danny and I are always on campus. It's been crazy. We are only at home whenever we are done with our day and we need to sleep. We spend all day on campus. It's kind of hard because I feel like there is no free time and if we want to do something fun that means that we are going to get behind in school. It's a little frustrating. But we've been able to sacrifice a little bit of time to do fun stuff.

This week my mother-in-law came into town. On Wednesday Danny and I carved some pumpkins with her and Danny's sister and nephew. It was my first REAL time carving a pumpkin. The first time I kind of carved a pumpkin was 2 years ago for FHE when Danny and I became friends. haha. I didn't do much last time though. It was way fun :) 

Thursday was Halloween! Danny and I dressed up as Mary Poppins and Bert! We had lotsss of fun making our costumes, especially Danny's chimney sweep broom. It was legit lol. So many people told us that we were cute heheh it was funny. People were staring at us a lot. We also had over 100 likes on our picture that we put up on facebook. Success! We actually didn't do that much for Halloween. My classes got cancelled which was nice but I still went to campus with Danny to work on my portfolio. Danny and Ron had to take a test for their Neuromechanics class. They were both done by 10pm. Lame! We tried going out to eat but it was after 11pm so most places were closed. We tried going to some restaurants in Center Street but they actually closed early because they ran out of food because there was a free Halloween dance in Center Street. Our plan was to go to the dance but when we got there it was a little sketchy and I was exhausted. We ended up getting Wendy's for dinner and watching a movie at home. I was in the mood of doing something pretty chill so that worked out great. 

Mary Poppins and Bert for Halloween :)

Ron and Danny studying for their test. They were cute so I decided to take a "sneaky" picture. 

On Friday we ended up hanging out with Danny's mom. It was lots of fun. We went to Comedy Sportz. It was pretty funny. Then we went out to eat at Winger's. Ron also came with us. I love wings! but they were not the best. Maybe I just didn't get the best sauce. It was still good though.

Today, we came to campus to work on homework and stuff. Then we went to Midville to watch Ron (my brother) and Hannah (Danny's sister) compete. I only recorded one video and then my phone ran out of memory so I couldn't take pictures of anything. Lame. It was fun. I LOVE ballroom competitions. Ron competed Novice Latin and Pre Champ Latin. Hannah competed Novice Latin and Novice Ballroom (Standard). Ron made it to the semi finals on both. Hannah got 6th place on Novice Latin. Ron checked his scores and he didn't make it to the finals on Novice Latin for 1 point. So he actually got 7th place and Hannah 6th. Funny they competed against each other. It was lots of fun. But I always get to nervous when I see Ron competing. It was a little stressful haha. They both did great.
Tomorrow is Sunday. Yay!!! I LOVE Sundays! There are the BEST!!!!!! Also, my little nephew is getting blessed tomorrow at church. Can't believe he's almost 3 moths.

I'm glad we were able to do some fun stuff this week :) That probably means that we are behind in school..... oh boy... It okay. We got this!

Feeling proud

So I just wanted to talk about how proud I am about my husband. He really is a great guy with so many good qualities and great potential. I love spending time with him and learning from him. My husband helps me become a better person. He's very smart, dedicated, passionate about learning, very spiritual, etc. I could talk about him for hours, but I only have a few minutes because I have to run to class.
Anyways, I guess I wanted to talk about him because this week he's been very blessed with things related to his career and I just feel so proud of him. Yesterday, he got to do a presentation about his research that he's doing. I was very excited because I helped him create his poster. I took pictures, created some diagrams, and graphs. This is probably the only time I've been able to help him with something related to school. I usually don't understand any of his homework (mechanical engineering stuff) so this was a unique experience for me :) He did a great job during his presentation. Some of his family stopped by the Clyde to hear his presentation. This weekend Danny is going to Chicago. He got a travel scholarship to go there for the weekend. I'm not exactly sure what it actually is, but he's going to be learning about grad-schools and their engineering programs, doing some workshops, and just making connections with some important people. He's going with 2 other people who also got this scholarship. He's also being doing some interviews for internships for this summer. This is so exciting! Thinking about our future makes me very excited. I've been blessed with such a great man in my life. What else can I ask for!

Danny's presentation. Poster in the back