Tammy Mouncey

I picked up my pencils about 5 years ago, after years and years of no art in my life. Like so soooo many of us, I was told as a child that what I had joyfully worked so hard to draw, and was SO proud of, was told it wasn't very good and that I should know that I could do much better. It didn't take me many times to hear this before it broke me, and I stopped drawing for years. Oh, I dabbled in typical art classes through school, but never drew something on my own. Sadly, and quite shockingly, my downfall was due to the criticism from a parent, who, ironically, was an artist himself. Flash forward to the early 90's in college. I had a HUGE dream... to become a veterinarian. I love animals and, as an early teen, was always glued to our vets hip, asking tons of questions and wanting to watch procedures when he was at our place working on our horses (and our menagerie of dogs, cats and goats!) So... I enrolled in college. By this time I was married and our son was 2 and I had no choice but to take him to classes with me, as we couldn't afford child care at the time. Trust me, biology lab was Michael's favorite... he thought watching me dissect stuff was great fun! To fulfill some of my elective credits, I naturally chose a drawing class, and fell in LOVE with the art department there. Here's the very long story made short. Along the way I began to realize exactly what my dream of becoming a vet would mean in terms of the sacrifices that would have to be made by my family for me to achieve my lofty goal. It wasn't fair to them. Besides, I couldn't keep bringing Kidlet (as we still affectionately call our son to this day, and he is 36 now!) to classes with me and the financial strain was already becoming challenging. So, after agonizing for quite awhile, and through many, many tears, let go of my long wanted life as a vet and changed my major to art. :-) Alas, in the end even that didn't stick. Life, and finances kept getting in the way and despite heroic efforts to stay in school, I had to quit going. Life kept on and spent many years working a parade of seemingly endless "mom" jobs. I drove school busses (LOVED that job), lots of retail jobs, grocery stores, worked in pawn shops and fine jewelry stores. Most recently, I've been working for a national home improvement chain store for the past 8 years. In that time I'd risen from part time cashier to the stores full time professional kitchen designer. While I loved part of the job, (cad designing on a computer is FUN!) I was so tired of the rest of what went with it. I was just as likely to be on one of those hydraulic lifts, 12' in the air, pulling down in stock kitchen cabinets from warehouse shelving as I was doing custom design work at my desk. I was in my mid 50's, overweight and unable to continue as the daily grind of work was wearing me out physically. Because of my longevity in the store, I was fully cross-trained in many departments... from kitchens, to flooring to doors & windows to selling appliances to occasionally mixing paint... and more. I was all over the place, and a favorite go to for many of our regular customers. What kept me going for quite sometime was my wonderful coworkers. We got along great and made a sometimes difficult job fun. At some point, around 5 years ago, boredom at home got the better of me and I was wandering around YouTube and discovered a colored pencil artist's tutorials. Needless to say I was instantly hooked, and dove in head first... which is what ultimately lead me to finding Bonny. :-) I purchased some pencils and began drawing again, since I had previously done some colored pencil work 30 some years prior, in college classes and really liked them then, so why not give it a try again? I began by jumping in head first and drawing a picture of on of my horses and while I was pleased with it, my family RAVED about it!! Encouraged, I showed a picture of it to some of my coworkers. My best friend there, Steve, asked if I could draw him an elephant for his daughters birthday. Without hesitating, I agreed. HA!! Me being, well, me, thought "Bonny makes this look easy... I've watched a lot of her videos (and had joined her Patreon by that time) so I can do this. I bought a full set of Polychromos and some Luminance and some Pastelmat and went to work. Damn elephant took me a year and a half!!! I didn't have a clue how Pastelmat worked (insert eyeroll emoji here!) but I kept at it. Trust me when I say that I stretched the limits of that poor paper and scotch tape till I figured it out. The end result was worth it. Steve and his daughter LOVED it. Guess what? I really am an artist and I CAN DRAW!! Meanwhile, the job was causing me near daily pain (I have arthritis in an ankle due to having severely broken my leg at the ankle joint back in '08) So I began seeking a job that I could do from home, and was fortunate enough to find one with the same company I was already working for. Great! I applied and was accepted!! So began a new phase life on the phones, getting my customers started on the process of having doors and windows installed in their homes. That was going on 3 years ago. Meanwhile, I've kept drawing and studying with Bonny, as well as several other colored pencil artists. I've completed several commissions now and have been published in Hidden Treasures Vol's 8 and 9, as well as having been spotlighted in Ann's Pencil Corner! I decided to officially launch a pet portrait business and built my own website. I began building and working on my plan to go full time and leave being an employee behind forever. About a year and a half into the new job, I began getting quite dizzy and had a lot of difficulty in doing my job. It demanded a great deal of multitasking and was becoming nearly impossible for me to keep up with my super busy workload. I was leaving early quite often just so I could close my eyes and hide in a quiet place till the room stopped spinning. Another long story short, I was diagnosed with chronic vestibular migraines and a neurological condition called PPPD (persistent postural perceptive dizziness.) My dizzies never fully go away, but medication and a DRASTIC change in lifestyle has greatly reduced the debilitating effect it has had on my life. I've not been safe to drive for over a year now (which STINKS, trust me!) and have to be very careful out in public as it doesn't take much to induce a full case of my dizzies. The one thing I can still do is draw!! Since I'm sitting still and can minimize the amount of information my overstimulated brain has to process, I find that the mindfulness of drawing is soothing and calming. I am still employed, but have been on a leave of absence for over a year now, which leads me to "the rest of the story..."

Website: https://tammymounceyfineart.com
Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550527103112