I'm trying to achieve all sorts of things this year. Better balance in all directions. I love & am so passionate about creating but I haven't been making enough time for it since I moved my studio last year. Its a cool big space but its unfinished and it was so much work getting stuff moved. Cold winter, busy Christmas, hot summer, blah blah... I kinda lost a bit of mojo I guess. The work has been sporadic. And I'm not putting pressure on myself, I just want to play more.
Anyway, I've recently started messing around and scribbling again both in my paper sketchbook & on my iPad. I can see slightly new things happening and I'm not exactly sure where I am going but I want to merge some of the things I love and see what happens.
Last year I started switching to canvas sheet for my collaged paintings. I still have a few of these coming up for sale. I quite like these because not only are they very cheap to post which is good for buyers, I can get stuck into the machine or hand stitching to add words and additional layers of texture & detail. I love sewing, scrappy sewing. And I can't wait to merge some of my messy stitching & fabrics into my painted collages. I can envision some coolio marriages there.
Up until now, I have also been doing quite busy backgrounds with colourful characters over the top but sometimes less is more and that is a real area I want to develop. Find some restraint in patterned colour on patterned colour on patterned colour. Mature a bit in my work I guess. Yes, grow up a bit, ha! So I have some ideas on that too. And then taking it one step further, I'd like to merge some of my hand made + stitched + collaged + painted work with some of my digital works too.... Exciting times, for me.
Anyway this year I have made some big brave decisions. Not only do I want to focus on my health & fitness and better general life balance but I want to spend regular time on my art making. It brings me great peace. And that is a great thing. It so happens that while all these thoughts and plans are swirling, there's other things at play in our family life right now. Times are tight and we are stretched. But more about that in another post.
I had booked a few tiny trips this year but I've made the very difficult decision to cancel two of them. I'm going to focus more on art making & illustration. I've had to put my blinkers on, and really think very hard about priorities, my plans with my family, and my plans to invest in myself & 'go confidently in the direction of my dreams'. That is a wee bit scary but I need to back myself otherwise I'm just meandering. And I do feel good about the decisions I've made. I feel like I made decisions that sit just right with me & my family.
So anyway, over the coming months I hope to share some of my experimentation & processes here on my blog as I work towards finding a new happy place in my art making. I'll try and list as many pieces as I can in my ETSY shop too. Now that all of my tiny art income will be contributing to the household budget & savings, I will need to get a little more organised in the area of listing & getting prints made! Gee, it would be so nice to have an assistant! Anyone like working for free? hehe
