2017, A New Year

A lot happened last year. I know, for many people, globally, it wasn’t the best year, but I have to say, for me personally, it was pretty good. I made a lot of changes in my life and started taking some significant steps forward that I’m only starting to appreciate, looking back on it.

The first big change was my Etsy shop! Although I started my Etsy shop in 2014, I only tried it out for a few months before giving up. It wasn’t until this past year that I started taking it seriously. It was a steep learning curve and I’m still learning things every day to make the things I create better and the way in which I sell them more effective. It has been a lot of trial and error, but I’m slowly finding my feet. More importantly, it has been fun. Not to mention incredibly satisfying that some people are actually interested in buying some things I have created! I have also started attending craft fairs. I only managed to get to a few at the end of last year, but it is something I intend to carry on with, and hopefully expand on, this coming year!

I also started to post on this blog. My first entry was on the 20^th January, so in a couple of days it will be a full year! Although I lost my way with it in the last few months of the year, by not posting, the times I did post I really enjoyed. It made me try new things, do more artwork and, most importantly, share my work with other people. It’s not something I’ve ever been particularly comfortable with, but forcing myself to do it every week has slowly started to change my attitude. (Especially since I haven’t always been sharing amazing, perfect final pieces like I initially imagined I would be!)

There have definitely been some struggles with this blog though, namely a confusion about what I wanted this blog to be. So far, I have done a bit of everything: step by step guides on how to make artwork, tutorials on techniques, sharing ideas on new ways of working, talking about my own practice, keeping you updated on new work I make… And as much as I have enjoyed doing all of those things, it has made me feel a little unfocused and, as a result, a little disheartened.

However, I think taking a break was the best choice. It has helped me stop feeling so negatively and taken a lot of the pressure that I was starting to feel, off. That said, I’m still working out exactly which direction I want to take this blog, but that decision feels much more exciting than it does daunting, which is a big change from a few months ago.

I worked on some fun projects this past year. My interests have always been varied and I think it shows in what I’ve done. I tried new techniques, such as creating stamps out of clay, made different uses of old ideas, such as heat embossed art, and made myself work in new ways, such as doing a daily art journal. A lot of it was fun, a lot of it didn’t go as expected, but all of it inspired me to keep making and trying and it gave me the courage to explore my weird and wonderful ideas (even the bad ones!)

Here are some of my favourites from the past year…

Print making

My first experimentation on this blog was with clay stamps. It was an idea I thought about one day and decided to give it a try. The results weren’t especially successful, but they weren’t terrible either and it is still something I want to try again to see if I can make them any better.

I came across some old prints I had made while in college and decided to try making a collagraph again. It was a lot of fun to do and I still really want to try and make a larger version of my triangles print.

Monoprinting is so simple and straight forward, especially with the Gelli plate. I know I barely scratched the surface of what is possible with this technique and it is something I want to do more of. That said, I do find that it is so different to my normal style that I don’t really know how to incorporate it into my work.

I’ve done a bit of linocut in the past and never been particularly happy with the results. I did like what I’d done, but looking back on it, the stamps might have benefited with being smaller which might make them more versatile. I fully intend to do more linocut printing and hopefully I’ll be able to share my results.

Daily Projects

I did two daily art journals. Both were old notebooks that I’d written notes in that I no longer needed and so, instead of throwing them away, I decided to reuse them. The first one I did a page a day and the second, smaller one, was a double page spread. I enjoyed them both and tried to experiment with the style of work and use of mediums, but in the end I found my work got a little same-y. That said, when it wasn’t, it really helped me try out new ideas on a small scale before taking the idea further into a bigger final piece.

For my collage journal I, again, used an old sketchbook as my basis. This project was really fun as it was something very different for me. It made me think a little bit more about composition and colour, neither of which I’ll admit I think about (or at least consciously think about) when doing my work. It was also I really handy way of getting rid of a lot of small scraps of painted paper I had lying around!

My 100 day photo project was my response to the 100 Day Project on Instagram. Although I haven’t developed any ideas from the photos I took, like I hoped I would, it was a good lesson in the benefit of taking a camera out with me and photographing things I see, even if I don’t end up using the photos for anything. It made me look and pay attention to things around me and see those things in different ways, which I have definitely not been doing as much lately.

I started my Daily Mark Making Exercise project around the time I finished my second art journal as a new thing to do, but that was much less effort. Although I didn’t end up with something finished, it could be possible to do that same technique again, but with the intention of making the marks or elements you put down each day work together.

Sketchbooks

As well as my daily journals, I worked in a few sketchbooks. One of them was from my holiday in the Lake District. Most of my work in there was just initial ideas on what I’d seen and how to best represent that. I have recently printed some photographs I took, which I intend to add to the sketchbook and use as a jumping off point for potential artwork. I really liked some of the sketches I did (or at least the thoughts behind the sketches) and I have always found the Lake District to be incredibly inspiring, so I hope I can create work that reflects that.

The other sketchbooks I work in were hand bound mark making sketchbooks. The first one started off as a sheet paper that I washed and worked into with purple acrylic ink. I cut it up and folded it into a book. This was a really fun way of using my painted paper and something I need to remember in the future as I liked the results.

My mark making art sketchbook project was really fun to do. I enjoyed the process of mark making, especially without the pressure of working on a blank piece of paper. Although it didn’t lend itself to a source of inspiration as I hoped it would, I actually think it is a beautiful object in its own right.

After visiting the Lake District and completing my 100 day project, I wanted to do more sketching outside. The result was my nature sketchbook. Although I’m not convinced that it works either as an inspiration source or as an object as it is, I’m really glad I did it. It encouraged me to start taking art materials out with me while walking the dog, for example, which is something I never really did before. I think I found the idea a bit daunting because I knew my time would be limited, so why bother? But I have since done it some more and it is such a relaxing and rewarding experience (and also really makes you stop and take note of what you are looking at!)

Artwork

Towards the beginning of the year, I did two step-by-step tutorials on how to make two mixed media pieces: ‘Royal Decay’ and ‘Peach Garden’. They were both ways for me to try out a couple of different techniques I’d never done before, whilst also creating finished pieces. Of course, making it up as you go along (which is essentially what I was doing) doesn’t always yield the best results and, whilst I am mostly happy with the pieces I created, they could have been better, especially in terms of composition.

In May, I did a few posts about heat embossing. I had previously done a bit of heat embossing while card making, but hadn’t really thought too much about the possibilities of it and how I could incorporate it into my artwork. The Simon Says Stamp challenge started the ball rolling and by the end I had created a series of works that I am really pleased with. (And will hopefully go up for sale on Etsy this year!)

My final post of the year, after some delay, was my mixed media piece, ‘Decay’. I used a lot of materials and techniques I’d never used before to create it (such as Lutrador, Xpandaprint, soldering etc.) but despite that, I really liked the finished piece. It was also a return to exploring processes and materials before committing them to the page which I’d lost over the years and found incredibly useful to go back to.

Last year was also full of attempts at ideas that didn’t work or I didn’t like the results of. I want to try and do less of that this coming year! I still want to keep experimenting as I think that’s important, but I want to make sure that what I share on this blog is helpful and valuable.

I have a few projects that I’ve already started, such as another ‘outside’ sketchbook (which I began in September of last year) and my nine patch project which I talked about in a blog post here. I also have a stack of visiting cards which I’m trying to make art on every day (like a mini art journal).

There are a lot of other ideas I have in the back of my mind to try out. In fact, I have a long list of things I want to do, but I think that this year my main goal is just to create and, more importantly, to enjoy creating!