Goodbye, 2011

Thanks for your challenges and opportunities, your joys and sorrows. You’ve been a good year, tough, but far easier to navigate than your predecessor. 2010 was brutal. You’ve been gentler. Thank you for that.

On the personal side, my family handled a big transition as we cleaned and renovated Mom and Dad’s old house so that it could be sold. We, they, had lived in it for 36 years. I was sad to see it go, but good heavens it actually sold!

Mid-year, I lost my little dog Maddie at the age of 16. Her last few months were tough as her health failed. We had so many good years and she was a wonderful little buddy. I treasure those memories.

Around the same time  little Miss Cass came to live with me. She’s a sweetheart of an 18-year-old cat. Having her here has been a joy. She’s helping me type this by sitting on my left arm, so pardon any typos.

Art-wise, I got back on track. My art was put on hold in 2010, so it needed a serious jump start this year.

I began painting larger, which I’ve greatly enjoyed. I’ve painted so small for so many years that even a modest 12×12 inch format is challenging. I experimented with some new materials and techniques, and have thoroughly enjoyed all of it.

At the beginning of the year, I set myself some goals:

Develop a consistent studio practice

My goal was to put in 10-15 hours each week in my studio. I didn’t get there, but developed a consistent habit anyway.

I’m big on tracking things, writing them down, which I didn’t do for the first few weeks of the year. Once I started writing down my hours daily, I realized how little time I was devoting to my art and began increasing it.

Since the beginning of September, I’ve averaged 8 hours per week. Darn good. I’m happy with that. I’ll take it.

Finish larger works

I like painting small. My small paintings are wonderful. So why paint larger?

I want to begin entering juried shows and hanging work in public venues, and the small stuff just won’t work. They won’t make it into shows, and it takes a ton of paintings to cover the walls of an exhibit space.

So larger we go. I finished 13 paintings in the Colors and Lines series, plus 2 others.

And, I began to work smaller in the form of hand-painted necklaces. They were a big hit at the shows this fall. Although my 2-dimensional art is my first love, the necklaces were an enjoyable diversion.

In addition to the larger work, I:

• took 3 workshops, mostly around art journaling and travel journaling. I want to begin taking my art with me.
• sent 200 tiny paintings to Artomat for their vending machines
• completed another sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project
• finished 3 smaller 8×8 inch paintings
• blogged 80 times, which is on par with previous years

Teach

I had wanted to develop a workshop and begin offering it to students, for many reasons. Teaching is a wonderful way to learn, too.

I haven’t put together a workshop yet, but have several ideas. I often get asked about my technique and am thinking about offering a class on that. We’ll see.

Get my art out “there”

Ah, yes. The eternal challenge for us introverts. My goal was to enter 6 shows this year, didn’t matter if I got in or not, just go through the exercise of applying.

I entered about a dozen shows, got in some and not others. And, I found 2 places who were willing to sell my art on consignment.

Several of the shows were arts and craft shows that turned out to be great, sales-wise. My sales have never been so good!

Plus, the exercise of getting ready for a show is really valuable. I’m getting skilled at the business of packing, lugging stuff, setting up a display, and talking to potential customers. Definitely worth doing.

All in all, I’m pleased with 2011 and will remember it fondly. Can’t wait to see what 2012 has in store.

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 31st, 2011 at 6:20 pm. It is filed under Blog and tagged with accomplishments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.