Wait. What? Counseling to Art?

What leads a person to a particular vocation? This is fascinating to me. It turns out that most college grads end up in fields that don’t relate to their major. This could not be more true for me. I have a BA in Human Development and a post graduate degree in counseling. And now I draw funny pictures of dogs and people. (And Stacy, our resident comedian, has a math degree. Huh?)

But life is a journey. Wouldn’t it be boring if our own didn’t have some speed bumps and detours along the way?

One of my detours was a certification in graphic design. This undergirded my lifelong passion for anything visual.

Graphic Design to Art for the Sake of Art

My evolution has its roots in my beginnings in the graphic design field as a graphic and web designer. I realized that I loved creating art for the sake of creating. But designing for someone else stressed me out.

Maybe that harkens back to my fear of rejection, but that is another story for another time.

Drawing Dogs and People to Making Greeting Cards

Enter Boomer, my full-of-himself, oh-so comical Wheaten Terrier. He never failed to deliver when it came to comic relief. He stole and ate underwear from houseguests suitcases. As he aged, his eyesight waned. But, Mr. Magoo insisted on running an entire agility course, even though he couldn’t see most of it. (I was right there, hanging on to him for dear life on all of the risky parts.)

Boomer: Always into Everybody Else’s Business

Inspired by Boomer, I began dabbling with drawing dogs.

Enter my longtime comedian friend, Stacy. One day, we started lobbing funny captions back and forth for the dogs I was drawing. This was fun, and it made us laugh. And we said, “Funny greeting cards! We can make those!” We added the “ladies”, because our lives are rich with humor. This provides unlimited material for our cards.

Sassypants Design was born. So now I draw dogs and people. And it’s fun.