The past two months have gone something like this: grad school, vacation, grad school while on vacation, grad school upon returning from vacation, a vacation from the vacation, final exams.  Notice the lack of breathing in between – and the lack of art making, and of course, blogging.

Through the haze that is my second-to-last semester of grad school (so close!), art found me – even when I had decided that I wouldn’t have time for any side projects until the week after finals. Months ago, I signed up for elance.com – if you’re a commercial creative (designer, web designer, illustrator, etc.) and you haven’t checked out elance yet, do. It’s lovely.

I initially looked at the site because it had been recommended to me in my search for a web programer. As a graphic designer, I get a lot of clients who want me to make them websites. Since I can design them but not actually make them working sites, I normally outsource the programming portion. While I was searching through the droves of potential web-guys from all corners of the globe, I decided to also sign up as a contractor myself – extra work never hurts! That meant, among other things, that once a week I would get an email with a summary of the jobs available for bidding that most fit my profile. I hadn’t yet taken the time to completely fill out my profile (grad school, again), so the suggestions I was getting were a little all-over-the-place. Somehow, in my mostly unhelpful email from elance two weeks ago, I stumbled across a woman from the west coast looking for “word art”.  Even with a blank profile and no history on the site, I bid on her job and linked my bid to my etsy shop so she could see some of the typography paintings I had already done.

She hired me immediately.

She asked if I would do a piece featuring the word “move” and the colors purple and teal. It just happened that there was  lovely story behind the to-be-gift, and she was kind enough to share it with me via email. Continue reading →