No art to show today. Not that I haven’t painted. I have. All day long. Work is having a competition for decorating doors for the holidays. Our office is open plan so we are using our reception desk as our “door”. It is about 40 inches high and has a ledge on it. today I spent the day painting a fireplace on unstretched canvas to put under the shelf area which will serve as a mantelpiece. Woking with the canvas on the floor was extremely tiring. My back aches and my knees are agony! Yesterday we made a Christmas tree from green card (in true Blue Peter fashion!) and also some candles that we will put on our “mantelpiece”. Tomorrow I must make stockings to hang off the ledge.

I read on Tina Mammoser’s blog today about looking back and evaluating the past year and thought that that sounded like a good idea. The year started for me with my making a lot of resolutions about creating regularly but got off to a very slow start! I was struggling with finishing the grisaille of the chair – at least now I am putting the colour on that (note to self – 2009 will see the end of the chair painting!), I did a few pastels and not a lot else until October. I did sell 5 pieces this year (four pastels and a drawing) so that was a bonus.

Things learned – I’m suddenly much more comfortable with using colour, I understand more about how it positions itself in space according to hue and value. A lot of the things I learned with pastels I am being able to put into my oil paintings and find that surprisingly – they work! I made a commitment to a painting a day and have by and large kept to that for the last month – admittedly there have been a couple of days when I have painted but not completed a painting but sometimes its nice to feel you are doing something of substance.

I’ve set myself some goals for the coming year that I’m not putting into writing yet – if they work out I am sure that I will be saying more. I’m planning to get out and paint plein aire – one of those feel the fear and do it anyway things. I also want to investigate getting work on Imagekind and other selling avenues.

We will be moving again next year so I have to plan how I will get over the hiatus of a couple of months without materials – or maybe put together a travelling art box to take with me – just leave the clothes behind!

So an early end of year assessment – progress made, more to make, but feeling very positive about the direction in which I am headed. It just remains to say thank you to everyone for their continued support – its great to have you along fro the ride!