Closing in on Completion - Musical Art Piece

I'm working on the last one right now and hopefully only have about 2 more hours of work on it, and then it's shipping off! What do you think about it? Do you like it?

My second art sale!

My in-laws have had on display in their home my the hand-made pinneapple-inspired vase, and decided they no longer wanted it on loan; they wanted it as a permanent part of their art collection, so they bought it!
In other news, my work on my musical piece has slowed due to family illness over the last two weeks, but will hopefully pick up speed like an airplane taking off. I really want to finish it in the next week, before I move.

A Musical Piece - Half Way

I've been working on this piece for about 2 months officially now, and it's taking me longer than I expected. It doesn't help that I decided to make the images 8.5"x 8.5" instead of 6"x6". I decided to go with the bigger images because it filled out the 22"x30" BFK paper so much better!
The second image, of piano hampers, took much longer than I was planning with all the measuring I had to do! It's definitely the most technical of the images and with no negative space. But, I'm really happy with how things are going so far. The next ones should continue to go quicker. I really like how each individual one has turned out! They are looking great! I just hope that all six images together will be as concise in its design and concept as I envisioned. I selected the images carefully and took a mock photo of how it should look when it is all done:
What do you think so far of the piece? Do like the overall image? Individual ones? Are you excited to see the completed work? Let me know! I love critique!

Also, does anyone have suggestions for keeping clean lines when doing charcoal that does damage the paper? I've been using masking tape and it's not always foul-proof. Thanks!

An Art Table!

I forgot to mention the fact that I finally have a place to do art! My family of four are living in a two bedroom place, so there's not definitely not a lot of room for me to have an art space, a space where I can leave my work out day after day without worrying about little hands getting to my things.

However, that has changed! My dad so wonderfully brought me my old drawing table that I had in my bedroom growing up! (He's a truck driver). It's not a great table, but it's big, angled, and flat! I scrubbed it down, set it up in our bedroom, (under a window to give me ample natural light), stole one of our dining room chairs and viola! I have an art space!
We make sure to keep our bedroom door closed so I can leave my supplies and projects out. It's great to have a place to peacefully work on art. It also helps a lot that my husband is a school teacher and is home for the summer, freeing me of some of the daily parenting duties so I can devote much more time to art!

A Musical Piece

I am currently working on a commission for a family at church and am very excited about it! They gave me the theme of "classical music," telling me that their daughters play a violin and cello, as well as piano. So, I looked around for some ideas, and decided to do a sweet piece with 6 6"x6" charcoal drawings, using the same techniques I used on my maternity drawings. I wanted to show you some of the pictures I took that I have to choose from to include in the piece. What do you think?

The Cello:

The Violin:

The Piano:

Unfortunately my reference photos for the piano haven't been very good, so I still need to take some more, give myself some more options. I find that taking my own photos eliminates any need to obtain permission or copyright, plus it's a ton of fun! I am not much of a photographer so it's a slight gamble, but well worth it in the end.

Experience

I've had two job interviews this year (!) for teaching art. My first one was for a position as an Outreach Instructor for the Indianapolis Art Center. The interview went really well, and she later said she thought I'd be a good fit, but it turns out I wasn't as good as another candidate that must've interviewed after me. The second job was for a position as an Enrichment Teacher for Summer Advantage USA and after passing the preliminaries, I was chosen for a phone interview and a Saturday interview. However, after my horrible phone interview (you know it's bad when she says at the beginning it will take about 20 minutes and it only takes 5) I realized this position was WAY over my head and so I told them I wouldn't be coming to the in-person interview on Saturday.

The problem is that I really don't have any experience working with kids. I was technically only in the Art Ed program at BYU for one year, and only one semester of that in Art Ed classes. Besides that, I've had limited experience teaching/working with children. Sure, I can do art, but what do I know about lesson planning, curriculum, classroom management and so on?

Sometimes I wish things would've worked out a little different with school and I could have not only earn my teaching license, but also a Bachelor's of Fine Art(BFA) instead of just the BA. I feel like both would've given me more experience in learning how to be an artist, as well as how to teach. Some of you might think that there's not much to being an artist or to teaching, but without experience running your own classroom or putting together your own art show, you often feel inept at what you earned your degree in.

I just need more experience.