What to do...

So when all was said and done I ended up with 5 classes this semester.  This is a HUGE leap from

previous semesters where I was taking 2-3 classes.  And most of these are studio classes.  On the off chance that you don't know what that means...

A regular 3 credit class where you meet 2-3 times a week for about an hour to an hour and a half at a time (spending 3 hours on campus in class and thus making it 3 credits)- you can plan on your homework being about 2x's the amount of time that you spend in class.  So adding it up: 3 hours in class per week + 6ish hours of homework outside of class.  So theoretically 9 hours total per week in a 3 credit class.  Obviously this time can vary a little bit based on professor, some assign a little less homework some a little more; but on average it's about 9 hours homework+study+class per week.

A studio class on the other hand... still counts as 3 credits.  Usually we meet twice a week for 2.5 to 3 hours each time.  That is 5-6 hours of class time.  Now our projects tend to be 3x's the amount of time spent in class is spent on the project- which means 15-18 hours a week outside of class.  This number can clearly vary per artist depending on skill level, sometimes faster sometimes slower.  I would say though that most of the projects that we do are *at least* 20 hours of work- regardless of skill level.  (the skill level impact is simply how 'finished' the piece looks at the end- I will post about this another day)  SO adding that up 5 hours class time + 20 hours of work = 25 hours per class per week.  I have 4 studio classes- that is about 100 hours total of class time plus work.  I also have a programming class, but it a normal class and only takes me about 6-9 hours (it's an online class instead of an on campus lecture class; that does make it take less time).  SO let's add up my time commitments, it's easy- 109 hours per week for school.

Each week has 168 hours in it.  Now, if I'm fully honest with myself I'm probably not spending quite that much time per class; so we'll say 5 hours each class per week (my classes are 2 days 2.5 hours) and 15 hours of homework per class.   So 80 hours a week total.  Plus kids, plus home, plus plus plus plus.  Honestly- it's no wonder that I get only about 4-6 hours of sleep per night :P

I'm not saying any of this for pity or anything of that nature.  I chose to go back to school.  I chose to have kids, and for some reason I chose to do it all at the same time.  I don't regret any of this.  I'm tired, I'm stretched thin, I'm busy... but that is life? There is no such thing as an easy path.  I could go on a whole tangent on this subject; but it would be more appropriate in a different post.

No; my whole point in this is simply:  I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do the 365 challenge.

I'm faced with a dilemma here.  One thought I've had is to upload a sketch a day and call that good- however, even though this is an 'everything' blog- I'd rather keep the majority of the posts like that on my art blog.  Technically- as I've pointed out before; I've already failed the challenge.  Since it was supposed to be something to do every day.  So this blog might fade out.  Perhaps I'll tackle the challenge again when I'm not longer in school.  The good thing about all of this is that I've been writing more.  Not fiction like I'd like- but writing *something* and that has been good.

Though I think what I might do is this: I'll finish out the year with posts once a week to update on life and things.  I'm going to keep a notebook with me from this point on and jot down post ideas, topics and whatnot and then next year try again.  And really commit this time.  I got lazy pretty fast last year- mostly because I ran out of things to say.  Well- at least when I was sitting down to the blog.

So this last week has been CRAZY.  I had 3 paintings due all within a day of each other.  It was non-stop painting and drawing.  It was AWESOME.  In some ways it was a bit of a train wreck- I learned a lot this week and will be scheduling out my time better for the next group of paintings.

Here is one that I did digitally- don't judge to harshly, I'm still VERY new to digital painting.

 I'm going to post a longer post about the paintings from this week on my other blog http://aliciahawks.blogspot.com/ tomorrow.  So if you are interested stay tuned!

~Nikkie