My Lifeguard Walks On Water

Santa gifted me an online Illustrator 101 class. You know, the kind that’s just a video series you follow along to and turn in homework once a week for the teacher to critique.

I figured that would be a handy way to learn without the commitment of having to drive somewhere, park, and set aside a certain time every week. Going at my own pace seemed like a handy way to manage my time.

Instead, it’s kinda turned out to be irritating because of my recent Russian worm virus (or, with a Russian accent, I like to pronounce it Russian verm) that struck my main computer, a PC.

Switching from a PC to a Mac is a long time coming, yes. Being forced to change is stressful enough and adding instruction on a new-to-me program threw me into a tailspin. Luckily, the teacher sympathized with my plight and transferred my scheduled class to the next one, giving me some time to adjust to the wonders of Macdom.

Our first week explained the basics, mixed with some magical tricks only Illustrator can do. She encouraged us to peruse Etsy for ‘poster typography’ examples and create something utilizing what we’ve learned. I had seen the following words on a picture on Pinterest and came up with the design on my own (with plenty of mistakes, redo’s, start over’s, and jimmy-rigging to do what I wanted)…

A graphic designer friend nicely told me I did a great job (thanks, Joel!), knowing that I’m new at this and have NO design background. I’m excited to learn more and hope I get more natural with the design process so it doesn’t frustrate me so much. With so many ideas in my head, it’d be cool to figure out a way to get them on paper (or in a digital file, haha).

Practice makes closer to perfect so I’ll keep plugging along :)

P.S. Do you get that the lifeguard is Jesus? Is that implied or do you go ??? at the end?