First off a belated Merry Christmas! We had some last minute storms hit the UK just before Christmas Eve that threw off our travel plans, so I didn’t get chance to post or update as much as I’d have liked before we left for the annual family gathering! Anyhow, I hope that everyone had a great time and is feeling rested and relaxed ready to hit 2014 hard.
I’ve been thinking for a while about how best to write something like this, as 2013 has been one of the most fulfilling and artistically dramatic of my life. I’ve been on the artist’s path now since about 2006, back when I was living in Bristol and wanted to draw Spider-man (A LOT), and to date I don’t think I’ve had a single year in which I have changed, grown and developed as an artist half as much as I have in 2013. I finally took the plunge and invested properly in my education, and committed myself to learning…and the inspiration for that I owe to both my fiancé Charlene, and to my mentor, Chris Oatley. I listened to
Chris’s Artcast for about 18 months before I decided to take the plunge and join the Academy, and it has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Not only is he an inspiring example and all round great friend, but he is single handily one of the best teachers I’ve ever had the fortune to study under. Following the path that Chris has built along both Painting Drama 1 and The Magic Box, I’ve learned (and have more importantly grown) more in the past year that all of the previous 6 combined. So if you’re looking for a kick start for 2014, I’d highly recommend the joining the
Academy!
For a bit of fun to wrap up the year, I thought I’d go back through my sketchbooks and take an old drawing and rework it. I found a barbarian character design from 2008/9ish and redrew it the other night, before doing a watercolour pass for a bit of practice (with my new set I got for Christmas!). The hardest part to be honest was finding a suitable drawing to work from; every sketch I did for pretty much 3 years involved Spiderman or a Marvel character – I did so few original designs that there wasn’t much to work with!
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| New watercolour set for Xmas – Yay! |
So… Goals for 2014?
To Continue to learn; to keep pushing and focus on specific learning goals. To keep up the studies and experimentation, keep up the sketches and to lose the fear of traditional tools. In short, to keep climbing the mountain with no summit – that of artistic mastery!
If you’re looking for inspiration for goals, or rather healthy artistic goals, I’d highly recommend the podcast that started it all for me: Chris’s NY resolution post from a couple of years ago: Artistic Growth is not a Goal.
Right, that’s it from me for 2013 – see you all on the flipside.
