Overview of my creative year 2022

One more day and this year is over. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It started promising, with covid finally relenting, but then in February the war in Ukraine started and the world was plunged in darkness once again.

It had a profound impact on me too. I started out the year with plans of finally painting on large canvases again, and when the war started it was as if all my plans evaporated and I couldn't find the motivation anymore to work on something big.

So when I started looking through my files to make an overview of my creative year, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I created more than I thought. So without further ado, here we go!

JANUARY

I started the year with a brandnew painting on canvas. It was so much fun to finally be painting big again. I worked all of January on this painting and finished it in February. Here's the finished painting. It's called "Is there anybody out there?" and measures 60x80cm. You can see details of it on my Instagram and on my website.

FEBRUARY

In February I started a new background on canvas right away and worked in my artjournal because I wanted to finish it this year (I didn't ....). Here's a collage I did:

MARCH

The war in Ukraine inspired me to get out my roadbook again and make mapfaces. I don't know why but whenever there's something going on in the world that deeply troubles me I tend to go back to my map paintings.  

I also started a "Celebrate women"-month, because of International Women's Day, and because I think it's important to keep fighting for equal rights for women everywhere. I made a whole series of drawings with a quote about women.

APRIL

In April I was preparing for an art market and an art exhibition in May. I painted some boxes, which was a really long time ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

MAY

Still working for my artmarket, I painted some small paintings on cut-out forms in MDF

JUNE

In June I was obsessed with making patterns. I want to do more with this, it's so much fun!

JULY

In July I started making backgrounds for my new calendar.

AUGUST

Working on my calendar-pages, and also re-working a painting from earlier years 

that I wasn't happy about:

SEPTEMBER

Yep, still working on my calendar-paintings, but getting there ;-)

OCTOBER

Putting the final touches to my calendar-pages and adding the quotes

NOVEMBER

I made a few new paintings on cutout MDF, inspired by Klimt and Hundertwasser. Glad to finally be doing something else than calendar-pages ....

DECEMBER

I participated in another artmarket and was busy preparing for that. And in the nick of time, right before the end of the year, I managed to make another journalpage in the journal that I had wanted to finish but didn't. Oh well, that'll be for next year I guess. Or whenever....

And that's it for this year! 

The only thing left to do is to wish all of you a happy, hopeful and joyful new year!

Take care of yourselves and your loved ones.

See you in 2023!

hugs, Denise ♥♥♥