Overview of my creative year

This year I often had the feeling that I never had enough time for painting. There was always something else that was more urgent or required immediate attention. I only finished 3 paintings this year, and 2 of those got their first layers last year already. So for me it's important to make this overview, to see whether the year was really so bad artwise as it sometimes feels ....

January: January was the month that our container arrived from Australia, so almost the whole month was taken up with unpacking boxes and trying to find room for everything. But I did some artjournaling that month. My art supplies were amongst the first things that I unpacked :-)

In this spread I needed to bring out some softness and kindness after all the horror going on in the world. You can see a bit of the progression in this post.

February: February was my 29-faces-month! I managed to keep up with the challenge the whole month :-) Here's an overview of the faces I did:

March: almost all of March was taken up by videotaping my lesson for Soulfood. My very first online workshop! It was a lot of work, but I so enjoyed learning and being a part of such a wonderful group of teachers. This is a spread I did in preparation for this workshop:

And for those of you who missed out on Soulfood: I will be offering this class as a stand-alone workshop on my blog next year! So if you want to learn how to make these weird figures: stay tuned :-)

April: This was a very productive month! I finished one painting and started another one, and I discovered a new love: ACEO's. And finally figured out how to put paypal-buttons on my blog.... Also, my class in Soulfood went live and I loved interacting with the students in my class and seeing what they did with the ideas I handed them :-)
Here are some ACEO's that I made:

May: more ACEO's and finished my second painting! While it was still in the early stages I posted a picture of it on Facebook and sold it to a lady in Puerto Rico before it was even finished. Took me quite some time to figure out how to ship a painting like that, couldn't believe the prices those couriers were charging... In the end I decided to take it off the frame and send it rolled up (the lady suggested this, and I do admit it scared me a bit to do this...), but all went perfectly :-)
It's called "A world that I long to see":

You can find the progression pics of this painting in this post.

June: in June I finally tried out something I'd had in my head for a long time: painting furniture, more specifically small sidetables. I went to the recyclingshop and got some cheap wooden tables, and then went to work on it with paint and dots. LOVED doing this, and discovered my love for dotpainting all over again!

the first three ....

July: the Summer of Color challenge is another of my favorite challenges, but for some reason this year I didn't enjoy it as much. I only did 4 of the 6 weeks, also because it was summer holidays and we went to the south of France with our family. This was a week I really enjoyed doing: 2 shades of green and one shade of pink:

August: in August I did a bit of everything. I was participating in 3 artmarkets and needed to make some new products. So I painted some more rocks and boxes and sidetables and some new things too, like these little papier-machée men, and wooden bowls:

September: another 29 faces challenge! And I managed to finish it again. I always love how many faces I have after this challenge, to use in other projects, like my calendars or my Society6-shop for example :-) Here's the overview I created when the month was done:

October: this was the month I worked on my calendars, and finished my third painting. It's called: "we are never broken", and you can find the in progress pics here.

November: finished 2 calendars (actually 3, since I also made a Dutch version of one of them), and started preparing for my Christmasmarkets.

You can find them here and here. It's never too late to order ;-)

December: made lots of new stuff for my Christmasmarkets: small paintings, boxes, finally that coloring book I'd been wanting to do since a loooong time, postcards and mixed media wood slices, that I really enjoy doing:

And that's it for this year! I must say I'm really glad I did this overview, I'm pleasantly surprised by all the things I did achieve this year. I always tend to focus on all I didn't do, but that's wrong of course. And it has to do with the fact that I always plan too big. Things always take much longer than I think, and it's only natural to feel frustrated when you sometimes don't even get half done of what's on your todo-list. So that's my goal for next year: plan less, go more with the flow, and be aware that I do the best I can with the (sometimes limited) time that I have.

And now it's time for a break! I want to wish all my blogreaders the very best end of the year; whether you celebrate Christmas or not: I do hope you can be together with loved ones and do things that you like doing. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and taking the time for reading this blog. I love connecting with each and everyone of you :-)

I might post one last time this year, if not: I'll see you in the new year ♥ ♥ ♥