Saturday, January 05, 2013

New Year New Aims for 2013

Moon over Carrbridge, Scotland 31/12/12
I hope you all have a happy, peaceful and successful 2013.

I've had some time to reflect on the old year and look forward to 2013 over the last few days, especially when taking the dogs for their last outing of the day. When in Scotland we take them into a long valley well away from any habitation or lights so that on clear nights the moon and stars make a spectacular display. While they wandered about on New Years Eve I thought about my aims for 2013.

Having had a quick look back to my aims for 2012 I didn't achieve most of them. There were various real life reasons for missing some but I have to admit that a good deal of apathy also crept in and I spent a lot of time thinking rather than doing. So I'm going to move some of them to become this years aims and some I'll drop for now.

Entering Competitions/Exhibitions
 I'm taking the pressure off this one, if I have something suitable I'll enter, if not then I'm not going to rush to produce work that might be less than my best.

Continue to develop the tuition side of my business by:-
Adding to my 'Coloured Pencil Technique' guides, the next ones available will be wolf, snow leopard and tiger, although I'm not sure which will be first. If possible I intend to make these available as ebooks for people to view on their computers, iPads etc.


I almost have the snow leopard ready to print so I'm going to make producing guides my main tuition aim.
In the second half of the year I will look at giving individual tuition either online or in a classroom situation.

Make my blog more interesting by widening the topics discussed.I am aware that my blog has become a place for me to share new artwork. That's fine and was one of my aims but as I've mainly drawn cats for the last few years I feel it's got predictable and boring.
I want to add interest by:-

  • Highlighting competitions and news which might be of interest to animal/wildlife artists.
  • Creating mini tutorials on different subjects.
  • Posting more about the dogs and my travels in search of reference material.
  • Talking more about why I choose to photograph or paint a particular animal or bird.
  • Having a guest artist spot every month (if possible).
  • Discussing more marketing topics which might be useful to others.
  • Not posting if I've nothing useful to say, I see this as important to maintain interest both for me and my readers
Those were my aims for 2012 and will become my aims for 2013 as I feel I didn't move forward with any of them except not posting if I've nothing useful to say which meant I posted much less in 2012.

Apart from the above I want to produce a body of new work and spend more time on marketing.





3 comments:

Olga Díaz OlgaD.Art said...

Hola Gayle. Muy interesante lo que propones, estaré pendiente de todo.
Feliz año.

Ineke Pluim said...

Ben benieuwd naar je schilderijen en tekeningen!

BeckyH said...

I'm looking forward to more of the 'Coloured Pencil Technique' guides'.