Tulip wip

A few hours into this one

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Emmafrost wip

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Wing outside

Wing detail

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Wing progress

Wing progress 2

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Down to specifics

I briefly touched on art goals for 2010 in my last post but I thought perhaps i should jot down to some specific targets I’d like to hit this year.

Since I purchased James Gurney’s Imaginative Realism, I have rekindled my fascination with the fantastic. I realise that one of my limitations in pursuing this style of art is my skills in the figure and anatomy. So the first set of goals relate to this style of art.

1. Complete Drawing the human figure DVD course.

2. Find a life drawing course close to home. There is one in Eltham that I am waiting for information on.

Then I’d like to translate some of the characters from my imagination, and perhaps some descriptions from my favourite fantasy authors into illustrations. I know the industry trend is to work digitally but I’d like to stay with traditional materials.

From there I’d like to turn those illustrations into completed  sculptures, although if I am using James gurney’s recommendations I may produce basic maquettes in between.

I know I have a lot to learn about character creation before I reach this stage so it will probably be a long process to get to this point.

I’d also like to explore the traditional coloured pencil  topics of still life and botanical art (as opposed to illustration – not so much about detail 🙂 )

So the next of my goals is;

3. Complete 50 pieces of art this year. I’m not restricting my self by genre, medium or size, indeed the only restriction is that it’s frameable, and not part of a sketchbook.

So there you are, only three specific art goals for the year. I’ll let you know in a week how I’m going.

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Word of the year 2010 – Completion

When I woke up this morning I was lying in bed thinking about how to coalesce my desires for the coming year into a single word. Completion came to me as I lay there and I initially discounted it and too negative and foreboding of endings. Then  was reading Lisa Call’s Studio Newsletter and there was the word staring up at me, highlighted as a link and all! (I just realised I never clicked the link – check it out here)

Then I was checking my facebook page and there was the word again in a link from GTD Guru David Allen.

In my experience the universe gets annoyed when you don’t pay attention to it so this is me listening to the cosmos.

My fear of this word is twofold; I have completion hooked up with endings in my head and I  don’t want endings in my life, I want the completion to lead into new challenges and new levels of my journey.

The other fear is the fear that when something is done I will look back on it and be unhappy. My work is currently all snippets of art, 1 leaf in a sketchbook, 1 sketchbook on etsy,  I don’t create to completion.

So one of my first implementations of the word will be to go through all the UFO’s (unfinished objects) in the studio and determine whether to discard or complete them.

I would like to work on a larger scale than my sketchbooks creating pieces of art that stand alone and are suitable to hang, gift or perhaps even enter in a competition!

I would like to promote my sketchbooks to other artists. I have a feeling etsy may not be the best way to do this as I think quality work may just get lost in the crush.  I’ll need to work out a plan of how to effectively promote the book side of things without taking away from the at side of things.

Living this word in 2010 would see me posting wip’s and finished work to my blog and flickr. It would also see me tidying up some unfinished things around the house such as ebaying off some unwanted items, sorting the spare room, cataloging my seed collection, finding a new accountant.

The Big dream art goal for this year would be 50 pieces of art.

The Blog goal is 52 Weekly reviews.

The CED2010 goal is to be creative EVERY day! Not to get sucked in by my major procrastination methods of internet & tidying up.

Well it’s Day 1 of January 2010 here in the southern hemisphere ASO i’d better go get started!

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Focusing on what I’m good at.

I’m the distractable type, I’m the first to admit it. I like trying new things and techniques with art.  I fiddle, I faddle, and i have fun.

And sometimes, i think that maybe there should be something more.

Recently I’ve signed up for a few swaps and  begun organising the local sketchcrawl. I’m a good organiser, after all it’s what i do for a living, and I enjoy it. Being involved in these things has put me in touch with a lot of people who DO things with their art.

If I’m going to do something i need to focus on what I am good at. My most marketable skill is definitly bookbinding, and i love makeing books that people want to use. I’d like to push this kind of thing towards the art side of things and so i’d like to combine bookbinding with sketching to create small limited edition art books.

Lisa Call inspired me to put my goals down, not as big amorphous intangible things, but as short “sprints” that I can acheive in a month, using the scrum methiod to breakdown my goals into tasks and move forward.

So tonight I’ve cleaned my studio,  and sat down to think about these goals and the tasks I need to perform to move forward.

I hope you all stay tuned to see what eventuates.

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