So it has now been exactly one year since I did my first post. I was thinking about what I had wanted to achieve in the first year and, like a lot things in art, I think everything takes a bit longer than you think it will. My goal had been to do a post a week. I knew I had missed a few weeks, but when I mapped it out I realised that I had missed 13 weeks. I guess that’s not too bad although sometimes I was doing two posts a day when I maybe should have spread them out. The Watercolour Wednesdays was one of my best ideas and I’m finding that it helps to keep me thinking about art all the time. Initially I had grand daydreams about all the things I would achieve in the first year and how I would end the blogging year with a big art show, but it looks like all that might take two years. I’m reminded of all the processes involved with print-making when I was in University and how I would plan on one step taking two hours and it would always take four.

I think my most noticeable achievement this year was reforming the habit of making art, with the blog functioning as the deadline that I needed. But beyond that I also shook out the cobwebs with applying for shows and started (though just barely started) getting more involved in the art community here and talking to other artists. The newest development is that I have joined a sort of art club that has come about as a result of the Drawing Club I was involved with at my work. We are paying for a Studio space that we will be sharing and using every Sunday. Today was the first session. I painted the view out the window by my easel.

All in all I’m pretty happy with the year, although the more art I do and the deeper into it I get, the more I realise how far I have yet to go. I am more critical of what I am doing and why I am doing it and acutely aware that I am not “there” yet. I guess that means that I am now back in the artistic mind-set. Now to get on with the good stuff ;)