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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