Well hello and welcome to 2016! This is the first year since Frank and I have been together that we’ve celebrated in Calgary. In true Stephanie style, I was more excited to go to bed so I could wake up early to start my January 1st. I’ve already de-Christmas’ed the house, made my first sketch of 2016 and now to tackle one more thing – returning to the blog. I know, I neglect this space terribly.
I discovered last year after finally abandoning fashion illustration that I have it in me to produce impressive amounts of work. So I’ve set a goal for myself this year – five sketches a week. Considering the first sketch of the new year is done and I’m itching to create more, this might be easily more doable than I thought. I also thought if I can sketch that much, surely I can take the next step and blog about it…once a week. Will once a week kill me? No, absolutely not. Will it require the discipline to climb back onto the Wordpress platform and write about things when I could be drawing? Well…yeah.
January will be a little more challenging because we are leaving for Brazil on Monday for three and a half weeks. Wowza! I’m setting some time aside the next few days to get posts prepped and ready to launch while we’re away. Once upon a time I had all my devices synced and the ability to post to the blog from anywhere. I think that was 2013.
So what do you talk about when returning to an abandoned blog? I want to talk about my process mostly. I really enjoy reading Urban Sketching books cover to cover, and the direction I’ve gained from them has helped my own processes immensely. Why not share where I get started to see if that will inspire others to do the same? So stay tuned. The illustration above is my January 2016 calendar illustration. I actually painted this last year on my birthday. I decided to take part in the Inktober challenge – which was super rewarding in itself. You want to develop a habit? Commit to it daily for 31 days. Honestly – you’ll suffer through the burnout and then as soon as the pressure is off, you’ll be itching to keep going.
So let’s keep going! It is the first day of a brand new year. Every single thing you do today can be the start of a new habit or resolution. Think about that.
Talk soon.
Steph