This time last year I was thinking a lot about New Year's Resolutions. I've never been one to make them and if I did it would always be silly small ones like drink more water or vague goals like get out of your comfort zone more often. And every year I would never follow through with them. And to be honest the idea that resolutions are saved for once a year is ridiculous. Changes can and should be made at anytime but I do understand that the clean slate feeling that comes with the New Year helps push people to try and better themselves in whatever big or small way.
So I was looking back at 2015 and thinking how little art I had been doing. And it suddenly occured to me how little I had done since 2010. Every now and again I would start something but it would usually sit on my easel unfinished taunting and shaming me. I would get sudden bursts of creativity out of nowhere but I wouldn't harness it in the moment and so when I got round to drawing the desire to do it would fade fast. I wanted to change this. I didn't want to feel like I couldn't do it anymore.
So on the days leading up to New Year's I started to think about drawing and holding myself accountable to it in some way. I wanted to challenge myself to be better. In the years I hadn't been drawing as much I could have been improving and developing my style. To think of where I could have been by now annoyed me so much but instead of wallowing in what I hadn't done I decided to make a start on improving. The only way to do that was to start drawing again and Sketch A Day 2016 was born. There was no hesitation, just the decision on New Year's eve that it was going to be my resolution. I hadn't thought about the logistics of how I was going to do it but instead jumped right in. And I'm so glad I did!
I considered January a warm up period where I would start to get to grips of how I would start to make it part of my routine. At first I thought of it as a wind down activity at night where I would spend 30 minutes to an hour sketching before bed and sometimes as a waking up activity. But eventually I began to move it around the day just so it didn't start to feel like work. The time I would spend on each piece would get longer because I began to enjoying it more but also because I started to grow self concious of uploading half finished pieces.
Even though I knew it didn't matter what I drew and what the finished piece looked like, just as long as I did it, I still couldn't shake the feeling that I had lost some skill over the last couple of years. Most of my sketches where small to begin with and I spent a lot of time trying to think how I could make the sketches like a diary of my life and also like a time capsule of 2016. I also wanted to try and draw with different mediums every couple of days to mix things up for both me and whoever was following along.
Thinking soon turned into over thinking and by the end of February/beginning of March I started to grow impatient with myself. I saw no improvement. My sketches didn't impress me for the most part. It was exhausting having to shush my self conscious mind just to make another small sketch. But in a way this type of thinking is what helped push me to make better things and it was a sign I was getting into the swing of drawing again. I knew I could do better and so I did.
The make a splash watercolour challenge came at just the right time. I craved colour but didn't have the time for my acrylics. Watercolours where the perfect gateway. At first, as always, I was rusty but despite that I still liked the colours which meant I always appreciated the final piece. My watercolour period ran into my marker period which then led to me trying out different papers and soon people started to express interest and so I began to take commissions. Now there haven't been that many but the fact that have been paid to draw is a pretty big deal to me. And since I haven't been overwhelmed with them I still have to time to do what I want and I haven't grown to dislike them so I've got an okay balance going on.
Let's not lie to ourselves here. I haven't held up my side of the bargain completely. There have been many missed days and dark periods of nothing. I even spread many sketches out over a period of a couple of days which cheated me out of a couple of sketches. So I don't have a total of 365 sketches to show you. But what I have done is kept my creative juices flowing everyday of the year whether that was drawing, painting, writing, making, reading and even singing if that counts. I'm living a far more creative life than before. I have dabbled with acrylics, watercolour, charcoal, graphite, oil pastels, soft pastels, all sorts of pens, markers and ink. I have used different types of brushes, canvases, paper, mdf and even done a little sewing with felt. I'm sure there is plenty I haven't done. Oil and gouache have still to be touched on but I can save that for next year. All in all despite not sketching every day I have done a lot! More than I have done in the last 5 years combined!
Little did I know on January 1st 2016 that this #sketchaday2016 was about much more than simply drawing everyday. At risk of sounding cheesy it was about putting creativity at the heart of my life. I'm not saying I'm magically living my ideal life at this moment in time. There is still a ways to go but I've taken steps to change my life for the better. I feel like I'm working towards something and I wasn't before. Now I don't have a clear and succinct answer of what it is precisely. I just know that I need art in my life in some capacity. Without it I feel like I'm lying or being someone else.
So where to go from here? As I've said before I will not be making #sketchaday2017 a thing. This time the challenge is to make but without the accountability of every day posting. I want to be able to draw without having to share it. And with that I want to start making more personal and original works. That being said I won't disappear off the face of the Internet. I will upload... just not as much. At the moment I don't know when my next blog post will be. We will all just need to wait and see. For now I just want to thank anyone who has liked, commented and followed me through this year. I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to show support in any way, shape or form. And if you've made it to the end of this particular blog gold star for you! It's been a journey.
All that's left to say is I hope you have a wonderful New Year and hopefully 2017 will finally be the year of drinking more water. See you in 2017!!!
Hazel, xoxo
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