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Shut Up and Love Yourself

I have a hard time thinking positively about myself. Doubt that I’m the only one on this big blue planet that feels this way from time to time, but when your job requires you to put yourself out there on a daily basis to find work and create a following, having self doubt really can cause problems (at least it does for me). I’m not looking for pity from anyone, I’m just telling everyone how I personally feel relatively often. There are a lot of factors I can contribute to these feels. A lot of things that have happened in the past has effected me and continues to effect me on a daily basis. trying to overcome that little voice in your head telling you repeatedly, “why do you even bother”, or ,”you’ll never been good enough”, or one of my favorites, “you are a failure”. There area times I don’t hear these voices nearly as strongly as other times, usually when I’m busy on a project and being paid well enough to feel like I’m contributing to my little family. But when the projects finish
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Recent posts

Money Can’t Buy Me Love… but it helps.

You can’t deny that life (in a way) is easier when you don’t have to stress about either going to the grocery store or not because money is always tight at the end of the month no matter what you do to save and penny pinch. It’s a terrible feeling that I feel much too often (but then again, I’m a bit of a worry wart so I start stressing about things before most people). My last blog post was filled with the similar tone of “If we made more we would be happier”… and in a way that’s true, but I’m mostly talking about my own personal sanity… Money issues are all too common among the world’s population. It’s a sad fact that we all have to face and most of us have to deal with on a daily basis. Granted, here I am talking about having money troubles when I’m much much better off then a large percentage of the world… so I kind of feel like crap talking about this, but it still is an issue that effects me personally so I don’t feel THAT bad. Like I said in the post before this, my f
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Bitter Sweet Home, California

I’ll always love going back home to Orange County, CA for a visit with family and friends. The smell of the sea and the cool breeze blowing through my hair as we arrived was a refreshing reminder of why I love my old home so much. As the set on the Southern California coast line, the sky burst into color. Pink, orange and purple painted the sky and kissed the clouds as we drove down Hwy 1 (PCH) after a taking the long way home. I’ve always loved the ocean. I’ve spent many summers swimming in the sea, body surfing in the waves and collecting shells, sand crabs and the occasional “marble”. After drying off I would always have a collection of salt in my eye brows and plenty of sand left in my hair. Being back also reminded me of why I left. I have changed since leaving and I honestly believe it was for the better. As hard as it was to leave my home of 28 years, I have grown and finally feel like I can make a difference in my life. While living in CA, yes the weather was nice
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Never Give Up On YOU

I’ve struggled as an artist in so many ways. In this post, I want to share a few of these struggles and how I felt at the time with you. I’ve seen so many amazingly talented people lose jobs and have to start a new career or search and search for their next opportunity to a point where they’ve exhausted their savings and have accumulated a decent amount of debt because they couldn’t afford to pay for rent or even that months groceries. This happens too much to too many people. Whether it’s with in the art industry or not, this is a reality for a lot of good people. I was one of those people last year. 2018 SUCKED! The year didn’t start out bad. We had had a decent Christmas and I was looking forward to the “holiday drought” being over (that’s September thru December where there is basically no one looking for freelancers… at least that I’ve noticed over the years…it’s a weird pattern…) and getting some much needed work to make up for the lack of it. We were doing fine at t
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I’m Not A Writer

As creative as the title is it’s true, I am NOT a writer. My blog won’t be filled will poetic wisdom or anything I would consider truly influential, but that was never my intention anyway. My hope was to use this blog to answer questions, talk about my own life and even about past projects that were extra challenging and lessons that I have learned over my ten years of experience. Firstly, this blog is going to be HONEST. This is me, and only me. Every now and then I’ll post a video or a few pictures and hopefully teach you a little something that can help you down the road, but for the most part it’s just going to be me telling you about my experiences and my trials and my career (which really has only just begun). So if you’re OK with that and actually might be interested to read more over time, go ahead and subscribe. Read my thoughts. Enjoy my humor (which I can only pray comes through in my writing) and most of all, remember, I’m just a human being with my own life and
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Sweet Talkers

Let me quickly start by saying that this post may come off a little harsh on some people. My intention is not to upset anyone but to voice my own point of view based on past experiences… **TRIGGER WARNING** … haha I bet, if you’re anything like me who has has put years of your life into your skills, you’ve come across a few people who I like to call “sweet talkers”. The reason I call them this is because when someone wants something for nothing, they’ll start off talking to you so sweetly. They start with, “Hi! I love your work. You really do a fantastic job! I could never do what you do…” and yadda yadda yadda… sweet sweet sweet… and you KNOW the request is coming… and you KNOW they’re going to offer you next to NOTHING… or worse… nothing at all… or better yet, “EXPOSURE”… If you can’t tell by my typing, I’m rolling my eyes extremely hard. I have met too many people like this who expect everything for nothing or pennies on the dollar. All those sweet things they were s
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And So It Begins…

Let me introduce myself.  My name is Alexa Terry Hanson.  I like to draw.  When I was about ten years old I found a copy of “The Art of Animation” in my middle school art class. I spent most of my lunch periods in there doodling. As I glanced at the pages, my obsession began. Each page, each lesson, each technique had me delve deeper and deeper into a world I only at that moment truly was beginning to understand.  I have always loved animated films and Saturday morning cartoons. With their bright colors, beautiful characters, and entertaining stories, I always wanted more. I grew up in the 90’s which most everyone knows as the golden age of Disney. The Little Mermaid was the first movie I ever saw in theaters. With Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast,The Lion King and others filling my head with such beautiful color and creativity, it doesn’t surprise me at all that I began to draw as young as three years old (according to my mother). Years of doodling, sketching, and painting ha
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