First Check-in of 2024!
Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful and restful holiday season and feel refreshed for the new year. I spent the majority of the last two weeks resting and spending time with family and friends. I feel excited and ready for what 2024 will bring. I have two resolutions and a couple of art-related goals. My resolutions are:
Work out 20 minutes 20 times a month all months of the year. This is based on the Garmin monthly badge; I just want to be more consistent about exercising (and tracking the exercise) this year.
Read 50 books in the year. Last year, my resolution was to read a book a month and I ended up reading 41 books total, so I think that this is achievable. I also finally joined GoodReads to track my books.
My art-related goals are:
Paint 60 paintings. I painted 62 paintings last year; 30 of them were smaller daily paintings for Plein Airpril, so I think this is a good stretch goal.
Release 3 collections. I released 2 collections last year, so I figured it’d be a good goal to do one more.
Apply to 10 art calls. I applied to 4 art calls last year. I also have a number of art calls lined up that I want to apply to this year, so I think this is another good stretch goal.
Participate in 3-5 in person events. I only participated in one weekend-long in-person event last year. I have a schedule lined up for the events I’d like to participate in this year: some of them require an application process and some of them are open studio events that all artists can participate in.
Post 2 YouTube videos a month. This is my biggest reach goal. I have been posting on YouTube shorts, but I’d like to post proper videos on my YouTube channel. You can subscribe follow along to see if I stick to my goal here!
So now I’ve shared my art-related goals to almost every social media platform I own and now it’s in email and a blog post. Hopefully that’s enough commit devices 😂
And now for a quick update…
What I’ve been working on:
I finished the 30”x40” Yosemite painting, wrote up my artist statement (which went through editing, thank you to those who gave me feedback!), and submitted my application to the art call (That’s 1/10 on my art call goal). I’m really happy with how the painting turned out, and I’ll hear back in about a month.
I painted a 30”x40” ocean painting. I actually painted over the stormy ocean painting that I submitted to another art call at the end of 2023, which didn’t get accepted. I kind of knew that the artwork wasn’t going to be accepted because as I looked at the painting more and more, I started to really dislike it. So I gave the canvas a new life as a different painting and I’m much happier with the painting it is now.
I am back to working on the 30”x40” seashell painting. I’m hoping to submit this painting to an art call that’s due February 9th. I was actually hoping to submit a collection of 10 paintings to the art call. I had heard about the opportunity back in October, so I thought that I’d have enough time to paint 10 paintings. I was also thinking that I’d paint a collection of National Park paintings for the collection of 10 paintings, but I was inspired to paint these seashells, and I also didn’t plan my time out accordingly to ensure I’d be able to paint 10 paintings by February 9th. I think a big theme of 2024 will be balancing the different opportunities and prioritizing what I want to do. So now, for this specific opportunity, I’m probably going to submit 1 painting to the art call.
I’ll wrap up my check-in for now. I’m really looking forward to what 2024 has to bring and the things that I have planned for. I know that not everything is going to go according to plan, so there’s a lot of flexibility in my plans for different opportunities and events to come up. I’d love to hear if you have any resolutions or goals for 2024 and would love to have more accountability buddies!
