Enough people are asking me on a regular basis how my job hunt is going that I’m thinking of making this blog your official source for all of my job hunt related questions. Not that I mind people asking if I’ve found anything yet, but I lose track of who I’ve told what, so maybe this can fill in the gaps in my friend chain.

I don’t have any job leads yet. I’ve applied to more than twenty positions, and had one interview (which was bogus because they’d already hired someone but “wanted to meet me” anyway). I’ve also applied for unemployment, concreting my status as a jobless leech. I know that Unemployment Insurance is something I’ve been paying into for as long as I’ve been working in Washington, but I can’t shake the childhood conception that drawing unemployment is something lazy or talentless people do.

How ironic would it be if that turned out to be true?

So, to keep from feeling like a completely ineffectual blight, I’ve been practicing painting. I’ve never liked painting really, because I’ve always been obsessed with my line work. I grew up drawing cartoons so everything in my world is separated by nice clean lines. I also rarely worked with color. So whenever I tried painting, the finished product usually looked like a paint-by-number but without the subtle nuances of hue.

Also, I had the worst painting teacher in college. I only took one semester of painting (making sure it was acrylic painting because I was too impatient and rigid to work with water or oil), and I almost instantly recognized it as a mistake. Despite the name “Beginning Acrylic,” the instructor taught as though I already knew what I was doing. This was the first time I was introduced to “under-painting.” She didn’t explain what the under-painting was for, so I only saw it as an obstacle between me and my finished painting. A waste of time. She caught me skipping the process once or twice, so I did have to experiment with it a little, but never saw any appreciable results.

The first project we turned in was a “mood” piece using color and composition to convey an emotion. I stayed in the studio for almost five hours working on that piece, and I was so happy with it that I could hardly sleep when I got home.

She never gave me a C- and a note that said “You obviously didn’t try, so neither will I.”

My final project required me to take two personal objects and a found object and use them as the subjects. That piece got the same grade as my first along with a scalding comment about my landscape being cliche.

So, a combination of no experience and bad experience has lead me to this point in my life where I’m trying to teach myself how to do something new with my art. It’s frustrating as all hell, and I feel like I’m 10 years old and trying to learn how to shade with a pencil.

I’m not crying.

Anyway, you can see some of my new stuff on my gallery, and I’ll be keeping y’all posted.