 Hello there, it's Sandy Alnok, and today I am celebrating my 10 year art anniversary. Not 10 years of making art, but 10 years of being an independent artist. And I've got a drawing to share with you and some stories. So settle in, grab a cuppa, and let's sit down and have a chat. Have you ever had one of those standing on the precipice moments in your life? When you had the training, you had a foundation under you. You had at least some experience, and you had an inkling of what was out there, but you weren't at all certain of the outcome ahead. My last day of working for a normal paycheck was exactly 10 years ago today, and I remember it like it was yesterday. I got up that first day of being unemployed, getting out of bed with just a short walk across the hall to my art studio, carrying a hope and a prayer that day one would somehow be the start of a new life as an independent artist. A kaleidoscope of butterflies was holding a rave complete with discolites in my stomach, and the devil on my shoulder chided me about how insane it was to think that I could ever make it on my own. I had just quit my perfectly good day job with a temporary plan, a minimum wage salary to meet my more than minimum wage bills. After working for free as executive director of a charity for years while holding down said day job, the board had finally agreed to pay me a small stipend for the art and administrative work that I was doing for the remaining 18 months of the organization's shelf life. At least that was something as I tried to figure out how I was going to bring in money as an artist. I found myself that first morning standing out on that cliff's edge at the entrance to my art studio, my toes wiggling nervously as they felt the breeze of the open air ahead. I had a glass of juice and a bowl of cereal in my hands, and while having breakfast at my work table for the first time, I was able to decide for myself what my day ahead was going to look like. I was committed to moving forward, that is truly about all I knew that day. I have to admit the years since that morning have been the hardest working ones of my life. Doing what I loved was a dream come true, but it required an array of skills in addition to creating art, building websites, keeping books, planning social media content, keeping up with tech, and it's continued that way, living the creative slash administrative life day after day for a decade. I've often thought about these pushed out of the nest moments in my life. We've all experienced that feeling when it was time to move out and get an apartment, a new job, making a relationship commitment, taking out a first car loan. I even remember how grown up and terrified I was when I bought my first real sofa on credit. I was taking on my first quote unquote boring adult debt, and with that, I had closed a door to ever moving back in with my parents. I would never trade in those feelings as scary as they are. Those huge leaps forward, standing on an abyss knowing that the only thing left to do is to lift one foot and place it forward, understanding that it is time to fly. Years of training now to be deployed, baby steps no more. The investment poured into me by mentors preparing me for this day. The moment when it's time to see what this artist is made of. This is also the feeling that I relive when I'm working on certain art pieces. Not just a simple drawing, but when I have an idea, a crazy idea, something that might not make sense, something that I may not really know what it's going to look like or how to get there. But I have a clue. I want to tell a story, create a feeling, pull together disparate ideas. I have enough knowledge to be dangerous, just enough to take a step up to that ledge and take that leap. There are plenty of times that feeling is rewarded with a belly flop. Maybe in the middle of the piece, it becomes clear that more training or practice is needed. And it's way too easy to see that flop as the end of that story. But it's really just another step on the journey. Other times the reward is that airplane takeoff moment. Feeling the runway moving faster and faster underneath you until the land starts to become smaller with all its negativity and the butterfly-inducing lift leads to getting lost in the art and in the process. I can't say that I've had more takeoffs than belly flops in my day. Some of my flights have had their fair share of turbulence as well. But I can definitely say that over time, especially in these last 10 years, my belly is scraping the ground a lot less often. It takes a long while for our art venture to feel like we have arrived. But I can promise you with steady practice, progress will come. My mantra is just to keep taking off day after day. Every piece is a new opportunity to fly. I know that I've grown because now standing on the edge of that cliff has transformed from the terror of gravity into a moment of excitement at the possibilities to come. I don't take this 10-year journey for granted. Many businesses never even last five years. And I owe such a debt of gratitude to my mentors, my patrons, students, followers, art collectors, and business partners who have taken a chance on me. Bless you all for your love of art and thank you for coming along on this journey for trusting me and supporting me. For months leading up to this milestone, I've become quite introspective and maybe it's also caused by aging. Hard to say. I'm reminded of all that I've learned from falling down and getting back up and also developing my own rituals as an artist and controlling conscious thought patterns to keep myself creatively encouraged as an artist who's alone in her studio all day long. And I'd like to share that journey with those who'd like to go down that road with me. I don't promise I'm any pro since my best learning comes from stumbling into walls, but I hope I have a little wisdom I can pass on and make your journey a little bit easier. To that end, I've done something a bit scary. I've started a sub-stack. My friend Nisha, the sneaky artist, talked me into it a few weeks ago after a long conversation on a boat dock about what I would even focus a sub-stack on. I've been going through my journals and sketchbooks where I've written and sketched lessons that I've learned from life and ways to turn them into self-motivation for my own art journey. It's already been helpful just revisiting some of these notes that I've forgotten. Each Monday, I'll be posting one of these encouraging stories in a newsletter for paid subscribers to my sub-stack. It's about a dollar a week. I'm thinking of this like a journal to get these scribbles out of my notebooks and into a searchable place so I can see where I've been growing. I'll also be collecting my daily sketches on sub-stack, and that part is free to subscribe by email. Please know that I do not expect most people or even any people to join me for this journaling adventure at all. There is so much email flying at us, I do not hold it against you if it's just one thing too many, and you want to throw something at me. I totally get that. But as an encouragement to come join me there, I'll be giving away this drawing next week to a subscriber on my sub-stack. My friend Lisa got a peek at it when I texted it to her a few days ago, and she loved it so much that she'll be hoping she wins, and maybe if she's my only subscriber, that will make her dreams come true, and we will both be happy. On YouTube throughout August, I'm going to pick out a few of my video tutorials from years gone by and redo them in a new way. It might mean redrawing the subject, using a different medium, a different vibe. Who knows? I'd love your suggestion of an oldie that you'd like to see revived. The drawing today is actually inspired by my very first video ever, my belly flop introduction on YouTube, and I think it is actually the worst video on this website. Hello, friends. This is Sandy, and I'm going to give you my very first ever tutorial on coloring. I set up a little contraption with my camera. I'm not really sure how well it's going to work, but we're going to give it a shot. Now I want to add a little bit of ground underneath of him. And this is where people get very confused, and they get very worried about making it blend or making it look natural. I add just a little bit. You don't have to add much. It can be just a little line like that. If you use a light enough color, you don't have to use a blender on it. I told you I had belly flops. Isn't that proof that I have done my share of falling down? I still don't even know why I haven't deleted that video, maybe just to remind myself where I began. In today's mixed media version of this drawing, I've turned Snoopy into my dog Vienna, since I don't want the Schultz estate coming at me for the $4.82 that this video might bring in on YouTube. And Vienna is painting her brother Gialo in gouache. She's such a talented pup. Please leave me a comment with your pick for a video to revisit during this month, and also tell me about one of your standing-on-the-cliff moments. I'd love to hear your story. If you'd like to join me for the newsletter, there's a sub-stack link in the Doobly Do. And if you become a paid subscriber, you can actually join the conversation each week there. And while you're in the Doobly Do, there's a link to the sale in my Fine Art Shop where I just added a bunch of new paintings and sketches. The coupon code is posted over in the shop itself. I appreciate that you stuck around to the end. Please do subscribe if you haven't already. Leave me a big old thumbs up because it means a lot to getting this channel viewed by more artists who want to learn. Now get out there and create something every day. I'll see you again in the next video.