I hope everybody has a prosperous and productive New Year. Because 2011 was so crazy for me and I have no idea what will happen in 2012, I’ve decided not to declare any set goals. I did write a list of things that I would like to accomplish, but I have no idea if any of those things will happen the way I would like them. I feel under so much pressure to make every spare moment count for something, so I should be able to make some sketches to post here in any case. I think that will be good enough for now!
2011 was a big year for me, although not so much on the art front. I did have goals for this year, but other things took up my energy. Even though things weren’t as productive as I’d like in terms of my artwork, I did have quite the year personally. I had quite a few deaths in the family and a lot of personal upheavals as well, such as moving.
Of all my goals, I think the only one I was successful with was spending more time in my sketchbooks. Sometimes this was the only thing that I could bring myself to do because I felt so rotten. Now that I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, I expect that this trend will continue into 2012.
Interestingly, I feel that I have been more productive with my time since I had Cate. Perhaps this is because “free time” is so precious to me now that I barely have any.
Since I’ve become a mother I’ve begun to spend more time thinking seriously about my artwork and how I want to spend my time on it. I never really thought about it before, but now I am more serious about creating a legacy for my daughter. I want her to see me as someone who is can work toward a goal and isn’t afraid to take a risk.
This is also the first year that I’ve put my minimalist ideals into practice. I’ve been interested in the minimalist lifestyle for some time now, but moving into a much smaller home really forced me to take some action. Besides getting rid of a ton of personal and household items, I disposed of a large number of art supplies that I was no longer using regularly. I’ve learned that I can truly thrive with much fewer things to manage. In fact, I like the feeling of having a lighter load.
Next time, I’ll explain my goal setting philosophy for 2012.
I never really commemorated blog anniversaries before, but I was looking through my archives the other day and I realized that my blog is turning three today. I have been posting my work elsewhere online since 2005, but this is the first blog that I’ve really made “my own.”
The above painting is another one from earlier this year. Just looking at all my old watercolors makes me want to sit down and paint again. I wish I had more time!
I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a monthly newsletter for a long time now, and I’ve finally decided to go ahead and do it. I’m calling it Delicate Paperwork, because my work is most often described as being “delicate” and I always thought of my artwork as my “paperwork.”
It’s not going to be anything long or tiresome to read. I’m planning on including mostly images, like work in progress photos and a “secret” sketchbook page that I don’t post up on my blog. I know my art goals this year have been waylaid by other things, but when I start selling my work, I would also offer subsciber only discounts from time to time. I’m planning on sending out my first issue in January, and I’d love it if you’d sign up. I put up a sign up form on my right sidebar, or you can click here.
This past Saturday I took a three hour workshop, Learn to Use the Potter’s Wheel, at the Worcester Center for Crafts. It was something that was on my mental “bucket list” and I’m glad that I took the opportunity. I have always loved watching videos of pottery being made, and thought it would be a lot of fun to get my hands dirty. I have also heard that it is much harder than it looks, and this is true, but I’m glad that I had that expectation from the onset. I’m also glad that I took this one day workshop instead of a six week course because I knew it wasn’t something I seriously wanted to take up, but I still wanted to give it a try.
The instructor was Rose Esson-Dawson, who is a really nice and knowledgeable teacher. When taking a class like this it is very important to have an instructor who is patient and alright with being repetitive, because otherwise the whole experience could be easily ruined.
Some things I learned from this class:
1. I’m not built to be a potter. Apparently, it is advisable to be a tall person to be able to sit at the wheel comfortably. The next day after my class I was very sore, probably because of incorrect posture. I believe that if I took this up as a long-term interest and didn’t correct the ergonomic issue, I would most likely develop some kind of major repetitive strain injury.
2. I seem to be allergic to the clay. When I was working, I noticed that my hands started burning and when I washed the clay off, I noticed that I broke out into a red rash wherever the clay touched me.
Although it was difficult to get the clay to behave as I wanted, I do think that with enough practice I could eventually learn it. Using the wheel is very repetitive by nature, and in time I know that “muscle memory” would kick in and I would not be so frustrated. I actually didn’t even care if I came home with anything tangible from the class, but the instructor helped me out and I got to make two small bowl/ashtray looking dishes. I’ll be sure to draw a nice picture of them when I get them back from being fired.
Conclusion: I think long and hard before picking up a new medium, because of the cost and the learning curve involved. For now, I’ve decided to stick with watercolors, because it is low tech and relatively inexpensive, and I’m just getting skilled enough to be able to enjoy it. But taking a short-term class or workshop (especially one that provides the materials) is advisable because it gives you the chance to sample it without jumping in headlong.
This post outlines my 2011 Art Goals. I love this time of year when I can read other artist’s recaps and goals. If you have made such a post, please leave a comment below and I would love to check out yours. I have tons of ideas and I could easily make a list so long that it would be impossible to complete, but I limited myself to four main areas.
Increase Production
I want to focus on expanding and improving my portfolio this year. If I complete, on average, at least one “good” piece per week I will consider this goal completed. When I say “good” I mean that I want to feel good about it and it could be something to potentially sell (see the last point).
Using Sketchbooks in a Different Way.
I want to make sketching more of a habit in 2011. For years, I used to only work in bound books. I would spend hours on drawings that I should have done on a separate sheet of paper so I could have framed them more easily. This past year I started making more of these “finished pieces” that were suitable for framing, but I found that I was neglecting my sketchbooks for actual sketches in the process. I’m not going to pressure myself to post them all online, but if I spend some time sketching every day then I will feel successful with this goal.
Experiment with New Subject Matter
I’m really curious about still life and I want to complete a number of still life drawings and paintings in 2011. I find some still lifes to be without a soul and I’m not interested in them merely as an exercise in rendering difficult subject matter (think lots of reflections on metal objects). I do, however, have a number of sentimental objects that I would like to capture. I have some ideas for a series, but I don’t want to set a quota on how many pieces I need to produce. I have already added a number of still life painting blogs to my RSS reader and any recommendations would be appreciated!
Start Selling My Work
I am not going to rush myself on this one, but it is something that I have been thinking about. For a long time I held off because I thought my work was substandard, but I have gotten to a point where I feel I am ready to start looking into it seriously.
I also have a few other projects that I have started work on, but they are not ready to unveil yet. I hope everyone has a very happy and productive New Year!
Last year I set myself some very basic goals (to make it easy to meet them). I wanted to put in more hours in the studio and declutter and get rid of stuff. I am happy to report that I have been successful on both counts.
I did spend a lot more time on my artwork than I did last year, and I also feel that my skills have improved quite a bit which is a real plus. November was definitely my most productive month (because of Art Every Day Month). I still seem to fluctuate between periods of working many hours in a stretch and other times where I will go a few days without picking up a pencil. I would like to develop more disciplined daily habits so I am doing something every day as a matter of practice.
In terms of decluttering, I moved into a new studio and spent a lot of time getting rid of stuff in the process. I gave away a lot of supplies that I would never realistically use. I also chose to hold onto some supplies that are more along the lines of odds and ends (mostly free samples from art supply stores). I am going to have to find some kind of creative use for these things in this coming year, or I will make myself get rid of them as well. I am thinking of maybe working these scaps into some kind of series. Most importantly, I have been really disciplined about cleaning up my studio at the end of the day and before I start working. This makes me feel a lot more relaxed when I sit down to start something.
Some other highlights from 2010 are some site updates that I have made. My blog is set as the homepage, but I have a number of static pages and I could theoretically call this a “website with a blog.” Earlier this year, I changed my wordpress theme to Atahualpa (very good for a free theme) and put all my links onto a static page. I also created a portfolio and contact page. Just the other day someone actually used my contact form and that was a great feeling.
I also set up a facebook page for my artwork, and have become more active on Twitter. This lead to the great opportunity to participate in the Twitter Art Exhibit and I ended up connecting with a lot of other artists as a result.
I must say thank you for all the encouraging comments and emails that you all have sent me this year. At some points I think I might have given up without them. And lastly, my greatest highlight of 2010 (not art related) was that I got married in September (eloped, actually). It was very low key, and I managed to shock pretty much everybody.
Stay tuned for my 2011 goals which I will post tomorrow.
Here is a photo of some Moo MiniCards that I ordered recently. I have never purchased anything from them before, but I have seen examples (Roz wrote a nice review). I wanted something to hand out with my web address and artwork on it, and I thought these were more fun than full size business cards. I am really happy with how they came out. They show the crisp details of my work and the printing is high quality. The only problem that arose was when I chose a crop using the edge of the image. In this case, there was a small white border on that side, so I will be sure to avoid this situation next time. Their website is very easy to use, but it doesn’t have an option to save your work midway through. I would advise selecting your images beforehand if you are uploading a lot of images. All said, I am happy with my cards and I’m thinking about getting my Christmas cards printed by them next year.
On another note, I also recently updated my Portfolio page. I think it looks a lot more professional that what I had before. I would have liked to incorporate a slide show feature, but I couldn’t get it display to my liking. For 2011, expanding my portfolio will be a major goal, so stay tuned.
Today is the last day of my month long projects of Art Every Day Month and NaNoDrawMo. I am happy to report that I have completed fifty drawings/paintings and have made artwork on the vast majority of days this month. I almost didn’t finish because I have caught my mother’s cold and was sick in bed yesterday and most of today. But I managed to make ten small ink drawings today to finish it off.
I am so thankful for all the kind and encouraging comments I’ve gotten throughout the month. It has been so incredibly successful for me that I am a little sad to see it end. I hope that my momentum will allow me to have a successful December and start of 2011.
My plans for December are to slow down with my posting (probably twice a week) but to maintain my same productivity. This will allow me to work on a few projects that I want to keep secret until after Christmas and also to build up a reserve of work for future posting. Michael Nobbs wrote an interesting post on this recently where he outlined his “catch-up” goals and how he plans to accomplish them. I’m not sure if I have the discipline to make this work, because I find that I make more when I put pressure on myself to post often. So this is a bit of an experiment for me as well.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in this room lately and I’ve gotten it cleaned out enough to show you all a picture. Like I said earlier, the purple walls aren’t my favorite, but I really didn’t feel like painting them right now. And I am so excited to have my own space at all that I’m not very picky.
I’ve never had my own room to do my artwork. I’ve always had to use some other part of the house, usually my bedroom and most recently, a large part of the dining room that I commandeered. I had a large table to work on, but it became cumbersome. For example, when we wanted to have Easter dinner at the table, I had to clear everything out. Also, I didn’t have a good place to store my materials and I was always trekking to other parts of the house to look for something. Now I have everything I need in one place, except for a sink. I also like the idea that I can close the door and be alone when I want.
Here is a photo of some 
