End of May Check-In
This week’s check-in will be a quick one. I’m on the east coast visiting family and attending a wedding this week, so there will be no painting for a little while, but I’ve been working on a couple of other things during this visit.
What I’ve been working on
I’m starting a new set of commissioned paintings of flowers and have been making mock-ups for them to review before I start painting. I create these mock-ups on Procreate, so I didn’t need to pack too many materials for this. When I work on commissions, I work hard in the beginning stages to make sure I understand what the client wants for their painting or paintings. This really helps with the painting process because I have the client’s vision in mind while also staying true to my artistic style.
I’ve decided to apply to the California National Parks: Stories of Water exhibit at the Wildling Museum. I’ve started the painting I’ll submit for the call for art. The call for art closes on July 10th, and I’m a little stressed about the timeline because I’ll be away from the studio for a little over two weeks until the deadline. Meanwhile, the application requires some written materials, so I’m planning on working on those while I’m unable to paint. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish the painting and the other application materials on time!
Before I left for my trip, I took down my Plein Air paper paintings from my living room wall and set up a little gallery wall of my collection of ocean paintings. I liked having artwork up on my living room wall and wanted to fill up the wall space with a bunch of my finished paintings (BTW these are for sale on my website!).
Something that I’m working on that is more business related is working on getting sales tax exemption status at the retailers that I buy my art supplies from. I recently learned that if I sell the materials that I purchase, like canvases, frames, paint, etc., I shouldn’t be paying sales tax on the materials because I’ll be collecting sales tax on my sales. It’s not the most exciting topic, but I’ve been working with sales tax laws a lot recently, and things like this do take up a portion of my time to figure out and make sure I’m compliant.
These are the main things I’m working on. I’m still working through the jet lag from the time difference and red eye I took coming over to the east coast, so I feel a bit disorganized. I’m hoping to spend quality time with family and friends this week while also getting some work done!
Mid-May Check-In
We’re at the halfway point of May and it feels like a lot has happened since my last check-in. I wrapped up Plein Airpril and completed all 30 paintings, which is an accomplishment that I’m proud of. A little over halfway through April, I started to lose motivation and felt like I was dragging my feet to paint each day. I’m glad that I stuck it through and painted all 30 days, because they ended up looking really nice together! I’ve also sold a few of the paintings to friends. It’s surprising to me which paintings other people like, because they’re different from the ones that I like. It also feels reassuring when people like ones that are not my favorites, because it’s a reminder to me that people have different preferences and like different kinds of art, so I don’t need to constantly be making a “perfect” painting in my eyes.
The process of painting daily in April also helped me realize that it’s helpful for me to have some external goal to work towards in my painting practice. I have started looking at calls for art from galleries in my area and have been trying to figure out where I would be a good fit. One of the calls for art that I have applied to is a show called 50|50 at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica, CA; for the show, artists paint 50 6”x6” paintings in 50 days. I’ll find out the results of my application next month. Another call for art that I’m thinking about applying to is a California National Parks exhibit at the Wildling Museum in Solvang, CA. I just started on a painting of Joshua Tree for the call for art, which is due July 10th, so I hope to be focusing most of my attention on this for now.
I’m still working on my smaller flower paintings for now, but I think I’ll soon focus on my Joshua Tree painting because I have an external deadline for it. Working on the flower paintings is an internal goal of mine, and I’m sure that I’ll get back to them. Similar to my California Highway One paintings: I haven’t forgotten about them, but I’m taking a break from them for now.
Outputs
I had family visit at the beginning of the month and it was really fun showing them the area around where I live. It rained most of the week they were here, which has been a common theme around people visiting me, but quite uncommon for California weather generally. We did a few hikes in the rain and didn’t see as many wildflowers in bloom because the flowers close up in the cold and rain, but it was quite green, which is unusual for this time of year.
I have a bit of traveling coming up in the next few weeks. I’ll be flying to the east coast at the end of next week for a wedding and spending some time with family. A few weeks after I come back from the east coast, I’ll be taking a week long trip to Yosemite, which I’ve been looking forward to for a while! Since I’ll be traveling a lot before my Joshua Tree painting is due, I’m hoping to spend this week and next week focused on working on my Joshua Tree painting. I want to have a good base down before I’m gone for a couple of weeks and not feel behind in the painting.
I think that’s all for now. Thanks again for reading through my check-in! Let me know if you have any thoughts about using external deadlines as motivation or if you have recommendations for visiting Yosemite!
End of April Check-in
This week I made a point to not procrastinate my blog post, mostly because I’m excited to share what I’ve been working on since my last update!
What I’ve been working on
I’m in the last week of Plein Airpril, a month-long daily painting challenge to paint outdoors. I started to lose motivation halfway through last week. The novelty of painting outdoors wore off and I was getting annoyed with things like how bright the sun was and the wind blowing my things around. I realized that these were silly things to get annoyed about, because I had enjoyed experiencing the same things during the first week of the challenge. I was able to motivate myself by hanging up the paintings I had completed on my wall. This helped me see how my paintings were fitting in with each other, which I wasn’t able to notice before because I had been so focused on each day’s painting. I’m really excited to see how the paintings are coming together. Let me know in the comments any themes or patterns you see! I find that other people notice things that I don’t because I’m too close to the process.
The commissioned painting was delivered to the client last week and they loved it! I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to make this painting and so glad that it turned out well!
I’m working on another close up flower painting, still inspired by the paintings that I’ve done for Plein Airpril. I’m happy that I found a new subject to paint. I definitely will still be painting landscapes and seascapes, but it’s been fun trying something new.
Those are the three major things I’ve been working on. I have been good about focusing on a limited number of projects, which means I’ve been better about getting things done. Seems obvious, but I still have to have an internal dialogue about whether I should start an exciting new project or finish the one I’m in the middle of. More often now, I am choosing to work through the project that I’m in the middle of.
Inputs
I’ve been reading a lot lately. I read How to Change by Katy Milkman, Do the Work by Steven Pressfield, and I started reading Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. Since I don’t talk to as many people as I used to when I was working at my old job, I've been reading a lot to get new ideas into my life. I think I’ve found a decent rhythm for painting full time.
Outputs
Outside of my plein air sessions, I’ve been keeping indoors a lot recently. My allergies are getting pretty bad, so I’d rather spend time inside. My family is visiting me next week, and I’m looking forward to spending time with them and taking day trips!
Thanks again to everyone who has reached the end of this week’s check-in. Feel free to leave a comment or email me back to let me know how you’ve been doing, give me book recommendations, or share any advice on finishing projects. I’d love to hear from you!
Middle of April Check-in
I may have procrastinated this check-in for a few days, but late is better than never. I think I’ve been doing a decent job of being “busy but not overwhelmed” by limiting the number of things that I think about working on, and therefore limiting the number of things I actually work on. This has been a big mindset shift for me; I find myself thinking about a number of different projects that I want to work on and always try to work on all of them at the same time. It’s finally resonating with me that I can’t work on so many different things at once and I have to let some things go for the time being and focus a bit.
I’ve also started using a new practice where I write down a short and concrete to-do list each night for the next day and I tell myself that if I don’t do what I set out to do on the to-do list, then I might as well never do it. This has been working pretty well for me because I typically find myself full of ideas and want to plan out these grand schemes at night and then quickly lose motivation to do any of it the next morning. So now, when I start my day and look at my to-do list, instead of having the usual inner debate of IF I want to do the things on my list, I tell myself to just do it and if I choose to not do something, then I can never do it again. It sounds pretty harsh, but I think it’s a practice of not pushing things off to tomorrow indefinitely. Do it now or never do it. I put this blog post on today’s to-do list and here I am 🙂
What I’ve been working on
I have not been working on my California Highway One paintings. I have actively decided to take a pause on these paintings because I’m focusing my time on my daily plein air paintings. The plein air paintings have been a good experience so far, and I have been happy with how my paintings have turned out. I’ve only had one frustrating painting day so far, which is way fewer days than I expected. I expected each day to be a frustrating painting day.
I started painting my close up flower paintings again. It seems like my plein air painting practice has motivated me to work on the flower painting I had set aside for over a month. I’m trying to find a balance of working on the paintings I feel motivated and excited to work on with staying committed to what I had initially intended. In my last blog post, I thought I had committed myself to the California Highway One paintings, but I decided to let the plein air paintings take over my time. And then suddenly, I found the urge to go back to my flower paintings and I didn’t want to fight it. I think for now, as long as I’m painting, I’m going to be happy. I don’t worry that I won’t ever finish the California Highway One paintings; it’s more of a question of when they’ll be finished. I know that I’ll be motivated to go back to those paintings again.
I wrapped up my commissioned painting and the varnish coating is currently drying. I’m really excited to ship it out!
My website update is that I uploaded new photos for all the available paintings I have! You can check some of them out here. I took some time to learn some basic photo editing in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. It took a little over an hour to figure out all the steps that I needed to edit my photos, but once I learned the steps, it was quite quick to edit all 100+ photos. I write this to mostly remind myself that it always takes time and effort to learn something new, but once I accept the time it takes to overcome the learning curve, things will become easier. I procrastinated on learning how to use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop for more than four months, I think out of fear of how long it would take me to learn what I needed to know to edit my photos of paintings. It seems silly now to have avoided learning this for so long. This was the first thing I enforced my “do it today, or never do it” practice because it was coming to a point where I might have avoided Lightroom and Photoshop for a very long time.
Inputs
I’m reading Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher. I had read Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth first, which pulls a lot of concepts from Small is Beautiful.
Outputs
I took a day trip out to the coast to do some plein air paintings. I haven’t been out to the coast in a while and it was really nice to get there early while it was still cloudy and cool out and then see the skies clear up and warm up while painting.
That’s all for my check-in. Thanks for reading all the way through! This one was a bit more rambling as I processed how I figure out how to stay motivated and what to work on (I also don’t reread and edit my posts because it makes me self-conscious, so we just have to accept the typos and bad grammar). If you had any thoughts or suggestions that came to mind as you read through this, please share with me in the comments. Working alone has sometimes become an echo-chamber of my own thoughts and I know that I get stuck into the same practices and thought patterns. I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction to help bring in new ideas, but I also hope my blog posts are a space where I can share my thoughts/processes and get some feedback! And if you don’t feel comfortable writing a comment, send me an email or a text, I’d appreciate it! I hope you are healthy and well.
End of March Check-in
I can’t believe it’s already the end of March! It’s my first Monday back from my vacation to Hawaii and I feel like I have lost my sense of time in both the day of the month and the time of the day. This hasn’t been an unpleasant experience; it’s a bit refreshing and it feels helpful that I’m not really following a schedule right now. Today I reacquainted myself with my studio again, and I’m going to use this blog post to help me sort out what my priorities are for the coming month.
What I’m working on
I have at least two, potentially three, more paintings to finish for the California Highway One series. I’m currently working on two paintings. I’m debating whether or not to paint one more painting (for a total of seven paintings in the series). I have a reference photo picked out, but it is similar to a painting I have already done for the series which also is my least favorite painting in the series so far. I think I’ll make a decision next week based on whether I have attention/time for it in April.
I sent over the second draft of the commissioned painting that I’ve been working on. I’m really happy with how it turned out with the changes and I’m excited for the feedback!
I started some plein air paintings. I really want to stick with painting en plein air each day in April, so I figured it would be helpful to start building the habit before April starts. Painting en plein air reminds me of the painting class I took in college, and it’s bringing me back to caring less about how my painting turns out. I’m still very focused when I paint, but I think I’m more loose with my painting and nothing is really a mistake during this process. Taking the judgment away from these paintings has been really nice.
Last post, I had a long section on improving and updating my website. Writing out a list in my blog has actually kept me accountable, so thanks for indulging me! The updates are:
I updated my artist bio.
I wrote a description for my embroidery hoops page.
I took photos of all my finished paintings with not a phone camera, and I plan on editing them this week in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. I plan on updating my website with these new photos soon!
Inputs
I’m re-reading Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman again. The takeaway from this read through is that I am going to try to be better about working on less than five projects at once. Ideally, I’d like to stick to three projects at a time. I know that I just listed out four things that I’m currently working on, so I’m hoping to stick to those four things for the time being. I want to be “busy but not overwhelmed”, so I think sticking to a smaller number of projects at a time will help with that.
Outputs
I just came back from a week-long trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. I have never been to Hawaii before and I had a really good time! I took a lot of photos, which I’ve uploaded to my external drive but haven’t looked through yet. They might turn into paintings one day 😀
That’s all for this check-in. I hope you are all doing well. Hopefully the weather is warming up wherever you are and spring is rolling around. Say hi in the comments and let me know if you have any recommendations on staying focused and not picking up too many projects at once.
Beginning of March Check-In
March is kicking off with a lot of rain in the Bay Area, which I think is slightly unusual because it doesn’t rain here much and we’re at the end of the rainy season. But I’m enjoying it because the overcast skies are providing the perfect lighting for painting in my studio. I’m still working on the same set of paintings for the California Highway One series and started the largest painting, 24”x36”, in the series. I also have many ideas for other series of paintings and art business related things I want to do, which I’ll share under the What’s on the Horizon section. I think it’ll be helpful for me to share what I want to work in the future in this blog so I stop procrastinating so much.
What I’m working on
I’m actively painting three of the California Highway One series paintings. Each of the paintings are in pretty different stages. In theory, I’ve finished three of the paintings, but every time I look at the paintings, I find that there is something that I want to change or improve. I had the ambitious goal of finishing the series of paintings, which would contain six to seven paintings, by the middle of March before I leave for a trip to Hawaii. I’m not so sure that I’ll make this timeline, but the timeline is pretty arbitrary and I have been using it to motivate myself to keep painting when I hit a mental block on a painting. I know myself and I know I work pretty well with deadlines, but I also know that I don’t need to stress myself out too much as long as I keep making progress.
I’m working on a second draft of the commissioned painting that I’ve been working on. I met with the client and they provided great feedback that’s helping me move forward with the painting. I’m really happy with how it’s turning out and I’m learning a lot through this process because I’m painting something that I wouldn’t have chosen to paint on my own.
What’s on the Horizon
As I mentioned in my last post, I started painting close up paintings of flowers. Those paintings have been on hold while I work on the paintings for the California Highway One series, but I hope to pick them up again and have multiple paintings of different flowers.
In April, I want to try to paint en plein air every day. Back in 2020, I participated in a plein air challenge called Plein Airpril, hosted by Warrior Painters on Instagram. I want to participate in the challenge again to help me grow as an artist and practice painting en plein air.
A general art business goal that I have is improving and updating my website. There are a number of items that fall under this category and I’m procrastinating on all of them.
Learning how to use Adobe PhotoShop and Lightroom is something that I’ve mentioned before but haven’t made progress. I want to learn how to edit the photos I take of my paintings to have better pictures on my website.
I also want to update my artist bio. I have a hard time writing about myself because it feels awkward and uncomfortable, but I think I just need to get over that hurdle and put in time and effort to write a better bio than the one I currently have on my website. I think writing these blog posts have helped me become a little bit less self-conscious. But now that I’m talking about it, this all feels awkward and uncomfortable again 🙄
Related to writing, I want to write out descriptions of my collections of works to describe what the collections mean to me and the process of how they came to be. I think I did a decent job of writing a description of the Thought Collection.
Related to collections, I want to update the portfolio page of my website. I don’t really like the way I designed it and it doesn’t have paintings from the last year.
That’s all that I can remember in terms of things I hope to start working on in the near future, but I know that there’s more, so I’ll probably be adding to this list in future posts. If you have any recommendations on tutorials/how-to’s for any PhotoShop/Lightroom or writing artist bios or anything else, let me know in the comments (password is bonvoyage to access the blog), I’d greatly appreciate it!
Inputs
I’ve been reading Aging Well by George E. Valiant, which shares vignettes of the lives of participants in a longitudinal study of aging to provide guideposts on “how to age well”. It’s more of a descriptive book than prescriptive books and it’s been a nice read.
Outputs
I haven’t been out that much because of the rain and I’ve been painting a lot in the studio. I do have a trip to Hawaii coming up, which I’m looking forward to! Maybe I’ll come back with another series of paintings that I’ll want to work on.
That’s all I have for this check-in, thanks for making it this far in the post. Say hi in the comments!
End of February Check-in
We’re a week away from the end of February and things have been busy in the studio. I finally decided to figure out how to send out email reminders with my blog posts (it really wasn’t all that hard, I just procrastinated), so if you’re here reading my bi-monthly update/check-in because of my email, leave me a comment saying hi! I probably haven’t spoken to you in a while and it’d be great to hear from you! As a reminder, because I don’t really like oversharing with strangers, this blog will be private and password protected.
If you try to open this blog post in the browser and it asks for a password, its ‘bonvoyage’.
So if you’re reading this, it means that I’ve personally given you the link to the blog and the password because I feel comfortable sharing this level of information with you and want to stay connected with you. This is implied, but let me be explicit: Please don’t share my blog with others. There may be a moment in time where I will feel comfortable sharing this with a broader audience of people I don’t know, but that moment is not now. If you do want to share my artwork and progress with your friends and family (which I would really appreciate if you did), you can always show them my Instagram account (@margaret.luo.art), my TikTok (@margaret.luo.art), or my general website link (margaretluoart.com) and they can sign up for email updates outside of this blog. I’m also hoping that, by keeping this blog private to those I have directly shared it with, you’ll feel encouraged and comfortable to comment on my posts, using your first name, so I know who’s talking to me. So please do comment! The artist life has been a little lonely, especially since I’m in a pretty heads down period where I’m building out a body of artwork and painting a lot.
What I’m working on
I’m in various stages of multiple paintings from the series of California Highway One coastal paintings. I think by the end, I want to have six or seven paintings in the whole series.
I also started to paint some floral paintings because it’s kind of springtime here in northern California. It’s not quite consistently warm, but the flowers are starting to bloom and I feel inspired to paint flowers.
Inputs
I finished reading Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, which I think has helped me focus on working on one thing at a time and not feel pressured to fill up my day with a bunch of different tasks. I’ve accepted that there are an infinite number of things that I could be doing with my time and that I’ll never be able to do them all, so I now just stick to picking one thing and then committing a lot of time and undivided attention to it.
Outputs
I spent a long weekend in SF with family and it was a nice break to get out of the studio and have a change in schedule. I don’t go up to the city that much, mostly because it feels far away, but I enjoyed my time there and I feel refreshed!
That’s all for now, I hope you all are doing well!
Beginning of February
It’s been a while again since my last blog post. I’m trying to figure out the right cadence for my updates as well as thinking more about what I want to include in these posts. I think for now, for simplicity’s sake, I’m keeping just the “What I’m working on”, “Inputs”, and “Outputs” sections to help myself keep track of what I’ve done over the course of the year when I look back at these posts. I often forget what I’ve accomplished because I’m more often forward looking to see what’s next and what else I have to do, which sometimes makes me feel like I’m on a never-ending treadmill. I’m also keeping the biweekly cadence and posting on Mondays.
What I’m working on
I’m making decent progress on the commissioned painting I’ve been working on. The first review is due soon and I feel confident about making the deadline.
I’m working on the third painting of the California Highway One series. I use it as a break from the commissioned piece.
I sketched and did the underpainting for two more paintings in the California HIghway One series but I haven’t really started them yet. I am trying to limit the number of things I start.
Inputs
I started reading Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, which was recommended to me. I have the tendency to want to do different and many things because I think they’d be moderately interesting to do and I know that I could do them. But I think the lesson here is that just because I can do something doesn’t mean I should do them because we have finite time. Instead, I should prioritize the things that really interest me and focus less on all the things that I could be doing. It’s helping me reframe how I spend my time and feeling less stressed about missing out on things that I think I’d want to do. It’s also helping me focus on one or two projects/tasks at a time because I was beginning to start and take on all these projects at once and making little progress on any one thing.
Outputs
Two weeks ago I took a road trip down to Death Valley with a friend, and we had a lot of fun together catching up, sightseeing, and hiking.
Middle of January
It’s been some time since my last blog post because I caught a pretty bad cold last week and I’m still feeling a little sick. So not much has happened in the last two weeks besides a lot of sleeping and resting to help me recover. I’ve also decided to move to a biweekly cadence for my blog post because things have been moving a little bit more slowly, which is intentional, compared to the end of last year.
In my last post, I focused on the habits I wanted to build for the new year, and getting sick didn’t really help with giving me the energy or focus to work on those habits, but I’m still trying. I do feel a little discouraged since I had to take a break on some things like trying to adjust my sleep schedule and exercising everyday. I am trying to remind myself that progress isn’t linear and sometimes things need to go backwards before moving forwards again. Plus, I can’t really control that I’ve gotten sick and need time to recover (I’ve been sleeping 12+ hours each day last week), so I’m trying to be compassionate and patient with myself as I continue to work through this cold.
Here’s my update of the last two weeks:
What I’m working:
I’m slowly making progress on the 9” embroidery hoop. It’s really daunting and I’m trying to just enjoy the process and not rush to finish it because I’ve got a long way to go.
I finished my knit sweater right before sickness took over!
I started painting a commissioned painting that I had sketched out but was dragging my feet to start painting, probably out of fear that I would do a bad job. It’s turned out pretty good so far, but painting has been on hold since I’ve gotten sick.
Inputs
I read The Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner, which is a short book about being more present and mindful during the process of achieving a goal, to the point where the process/practice is the goal itself to alleviate the stress and burden of trying to achieve a goal in a set amount of time. This is something I’ve constantly struggled with because I want things to be done, which creates stress, and then I don’t enjoy what I’m doing. So I want to work on changing my mindset about working towards my goals and being present for the process and striving to focus on doing something instead of achieving something.
Outputs
I went up to SF a few times the week before I got sick (which is probably where I got sick 🙁) to see friends and I ended up visiting the de Young Museum for a free admission Saturday. It was all very enjoyable, but there’s definitely something going around, evident from the empty medicine shelves.
I’m hoping to go to Death Valley next week. I had originally planned this trip earlier this month and I hope that I feel well enough for the short trip.
First Week of 2023
With the start of the new year, I am currently working towards creating a weekly and daily schedule for myself. The holiday season is generally pretty disruptive towards my normal schedule because, in past years, I travel home and usually struggle to maintain the schedule I had before the holiday season. I didn’t travel home this year, so the week between Christmas and New Years was not disrupted as much, but vending at the holiday fairs definitely changed my schedule and I still didn’t really have one since I started working for myself full time. So now that I’m coming off of a couple of weeks where I didn’t really like the schedule and didn’t have much of a routine, I am working on figuring out a new system.
The first thing I’m working on is waking up earlier. I’ve gotten into the habit of waking up around 9, which feels late to me. My goal is to wake up at 6, so right now I’m working on trying to wake up around 7:30. I start my day with journaling and eating breakfast, studying Chinese for around 30 minutes (one of my personal goals this year is to study Chinese every day), embroider, and then lunch. After lunch, I paint until I go to work out around 4pm. Once I work out, I consider my “work day” over and I do more unstructured things. I want to have a longer “work day”, but I don’t want to push back my work out time because I’ve maintained working out around 4pm for almost a year and it’s a solid habit that I don’t want to change. So that’s how I’ve decided to try to wake up earlier to have more hours earlier in the day to paint.
This week’s check-in/update:
What I’m working on:
I finished the 5” embroidery hoop and decided to start a 9” one. I know that I had mentioned that I felt like I was starting too many projects and starting a new project right when I finish one doesn’t really change the number of projects I’m working on, but oh well.
For my knit sweater, I’ve moved onto the cuff of the sleeve. I’m almost done!
I’m almost done the second painting of the series of Highway One paintings that I want to work on. I need to work out a number of details and it’s really coming together.
Inputs
I finished listening to Upstream by Dan Heath on audiobook. The final chapters of the book talked about Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and health care and I thought that was fun to hear about things I worked on at my old job without being really stressed about it.
I started listening to Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein, which is about “noise”, which I think can be interchanged with variability, in human judgment. The authors are using this book to bring more attention to noise/judgment because they find that not enough attention is paid to it compared to the amount of attention paid to bias in human judgment.
Outputs
I went on a ~4 mile hike this weekend, which was very refreshing. I hadn’t gone hiking in the wintertime in California until this weekend and it’s currently the rainy season, so it was nice to see a lot of green on a hike I had done before in the summertime.
Last Week of 2022
I hope everyone is having a restful and safe holiday and end of year season! I’ve spent the last week resting, spending time with friends and family, and creating things that make me happy. It’s been nice to slow down and spend time recharging.
This year, like previous years, I am not making big resolutions for 2023. I find resolutions hard to follow through on and I usually forget them. Instead, I have some smaller specific goals for myself for 2023, and I set quarterly projects or goals at the beginning of each quarter. My specific goals related to my art are:
Post on social media four times a week
Paint or draw every day
The goals/projects I’ve set for the first four months of 2023 are:
Finish painting a collection of paintings (seven to ten paintings in a cohesive theme)
Finish painting one commissioned painting
Create a photobook of my trip to Joshua Tree and learn how to use Adobe Photoshop
Finish painting the watercolor of the botanical illustration of the Northern California Tidal Pool creatures
I’m trying to stick to the concept of no more than five projects at a time and I have smaller breakdowns for when the work for these projects are going to happen. Recently, I haven’t been very intentional about when I’ll be working on or doing something, which has been giving me a sense that nothing is really getting done each day. I’m working on finding the balance between making sure I make consistent progress on my projects while having time to create and do things just for fun. And thankfully, I still find painting fun and rewarding in itself. I just want to be a little bit more intentional with how I plan and use my time.
I’m curious to hear how others are thinking about the new year in terms of resolutions or goals or if you’re simply not. I always think the new year is weird because I don’t like waiting for a specific time to make changes or doing something new.
And finally, here’s my little check-in/update:
What I’m working on
I am working on my 5” embroidery hoop without beads because I felt like I was starting too many projects at once and I should finish what I’ve already started. This one is almost there and I think it’ll be done soon and will be up on my pegboard with my other embroidery projects.
Something unrelated to painting, but a project nonetheless, is a sweater that I’ve been knitting over the course of the year. I have maybe 2 inches of the sleeve and a 4 inch cuff to knit and then it’ll be done. So I’m hoping to finish that soon.
I finished painting the first painting of my Highway One collection! I started two other paintings from that collection that I’ll move onto next. Again, I want to be careful of starting too many things at once, because I get overwhelmed when there are many choices of what to work on.
Inputs
I’m still reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and listening to Upstream by Dan Heath on audiobook.
Outputs
I spent time with family for the holidays. I’m going to be spending New Years with friends and I’m looking forward to it!
End of Holiday Fair Season
This past weekend was quite busy with three days of vending outdoors. To be candid, the fair wasn’t the right market for me and I’ve decided to cut my losses and not attend the last two days of vending I signed up for on the 23rd and 24th. Instead, I will spend the time I would have spent at the fair resting and with family. I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated, but I think a main takeaway from this vending season is that I need to do a little bit more research on the events I sign up for and even visit the events as a visitor/consumer before deciding to try to sell at them. Something else I thought a lot about was branding and creating a better focus on what I am/what I want to be: an artist and not necessarily someone who makes crafts. So I think the fairs were helpful in directing me to decide to focus my brand on fine art. I have some initial thoughts on how to better demonstrate this through redoing my website (in progress), nicer packaging, more thoughtful captions in my social media posts, just to name a few ideas. I need to do some more thinking on this and then coming up with realistic and actionable tasks.
What I’ve been working on
I started another beaded embroidery hoop as a way to decompress and destress.
I am redoing my website in a way that makes more sense to me and hopefully simplifies some things from a consumer/visitor standpoint. I may ask some friends to do some user testing once things are a little bit more finalized.
Inputs
I haven’t been able to read much since last week, but I’ll have more time to do that again.
Outputs
Nothing to share here again. Once the holiday season has passed and the weather warms up, I hope to go on more hikes and trips to the coast!
That’s all for now. My mood isn’t quite that festive, but I think a few more days to give me some space from the fairs will help and I look forward to spending time with family. I hope everyone has a safe and kind holiday!
Holiday Season Midpoint
I’m at the midpoint of my holiday fair season after completing four days and have five days left. I’ll be in Berkeley on Telegraph Ave Friday, December 16th - Sunday, December 18th and Friday, December 23rd - Saturday, December 24th. I’ve already done three weekends of events and have these last two weekends. While I’m sure many people are just starting getting ramped up in the holiday season, I’m ready for it to be over so I can have my weekends back and things are a little quieter in the studio. I’m also still looking forward to these last few holiday fairs because I’ve learned a lot from the experiences. Maybe I’ll make a post that’s a bit of a retrospective on my experiences.
What I’ve been working on
I’m still working on the foggy landscape of the cliffs and the Pacific Ocean from a spot along Highway One. The experience is overall going well and surprisingly not as difficult as the ocean waves in Thought Collection. I wasn’t expecting things to go as smoothly as they have, which probably means that my painting has improved 🙂
I started another painting of the cliffs and Pacific Ocean from a different spot along Highway One. This one features more wildflowers in the foreground. I probably should come up with names for the paintings so they’re easier to talk about. Until then, I’ll just keep describing them broadly.
Inputs
I finished reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. There are many good reminders in there to create for the sake of creating and enjoying the process.
I read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which was, in my opinion, an optimistic read about the different lives one could have lived. I would recommend it!
I started reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker because I’ve always been someone who has consistently highly valued sleep, has prioritized my sleep, and continues to do so. I really value schedules and consistency! I also have people in my life who don’t have the relationship to sleep and I thought it’d be interesting to learn more about sleep.
Outputs
Once again, I haven’t really had any outputs other than the holiday fair this past weekend. Any free time is spent inside reading and recharging.
That’s all for now. I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe these winter days!
Beginning of December
I’m a few days late on my blog post and I’ve been quite busy in the studio! Last weekend, I had a holiday makers market in Oakland and I had a really good time at the event and meeting makers in the Oakland community. I think I’m starting to get the hang of the fairs and I think I am prepared for my upcoming events. I will be in SF at the Harvey Milk Center of the Arts this Sunday. Then I’ll be outside on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley on the 16th-18th and 23rd-24th. This week’s update will also be brief.
What I’m working on
I’m painting a foggy landscape of cliffs and the Pacific Ocean from a spot along Highway One that I photographed. Over the past year plus since I’ve moved to California, I’ve been taking trips to the coast and taking pictures of the ocean and the cliffs. I’ve selected a few photos from all that I’ve taken and am trying to shape them into a collection of paintings to commemorate my time living on the West Coast.
I started embroidering again because I wanted something mindless to work on while I listened to podcasts or audiobooks. I think that I’ll always like to do different types of activities, so I thought it’d be good to pick this up again.
Inputs
I’m reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I have listened to on audiobook but haven’t read. I’ve owned this book for a while and it sits on a shelf in my studio where I keep my other art/self-improvement/pop psychology books. It’s been a helpful read because I do feel like I’m in the throes of figuring out my art business while trying to maintain the joy of creating and creating work that speaks to me.
I started listening to Upstream by Dan Heath on audiobook. The whole premise is to encourage people to solve problems upstream before they happen vs. solving problems in a reactive way after they happen. I just started the book and I am reminded that I like to listen/read about psychology terms/definitions and studies.
Outputs
All my outputs have been these holiday fairs, which do take a lot of energy. I spend my time during the week mostly at home painting or reading. I did pick up volunteering at my local food bank again and hope to make this part of my regular schedule.
That’s all for now. I’m hoping to get back on track to my Tuesday update!
Something I realized that I forgot to mention once I published this page is that I made a Trello board to track my projects for my art business. I realized that I am very task oriented and I feel more motivated when I break my work out into discrete tasks. I also know that I enjoy using a ticketing workflow/task management system from my previous job and moving tickets into different stages of progress gives me a little serotonin boost. I think I would have preferred a Jira board because it’s what I’m used to from my previous job and I like the functionalities of linking tickets and creating sprints, but Trello is free so here we are. I’ve created five lanes on my board, starting from right to left: “Done”, “In Progress”, “To Do”, “Backlog”, “Ideas”. I put a reminder card at the top of the “Done” column to remind myself that I should be doing these things for my art business because I want to be doing them and I am enjoying the process and not to just “get things done”. Tickets “In Progress” are tasks I’m currently working on. I’m trying to stick to the five project rule with the “In Progress” lane to make sure I am making time for my tasks and not feeling overwhelmed. The remaining three lanes are a little bit trickier to explain but they make sense to me. Tickets in the “To Do” lane are what’s upcoming and should be moved into the “In Progress” lane first. Tickets in the “Backlog” lane are prioritized after the tickets in the “To Do” lane in that they should get done, but they will get done after the “To Do” list is cleared. Tickets in the “Ideas” lane are not really ideas, but are the tasks that should get done once the “To Do” and “Backlog” tickets have been cleared out. And tickets always move left to right and ideally at one lane at a time. Even though I named the board “December 2022”, most of these things are for quarter one of 2023. The board is a nice way to visualize the planning I’ve drafted in my journal and planner into discrete tasks on tickets that are easily movable, editable to include details or checklists or resources, and added or removed. I’m super excited about it 😃
End of November
It’s become quite busy in the studio with the holiday season officially in progress. My first holiday fair of the season went fairly well. The location in Santa Cruz was great and the weather was warm so there were a lot of people passing through. This was my first event with a 10’x10’ space so I learned a few things on how to better set up my booth, better pack my supplies, and manage the giant canopy tent that will be helpful in my other upcoming outdoor events. This week’s post will be a brief update.
What I’m working on
The big accomplishment this week was setting up my Instagram Shop. I started the process two weeks ago and then landed in “Website review” purgatory for two weeks without any feedback or additional information on how to proceed or change my status. After reaching out to the Meta help desk and updating some html on my website 🙄, I finally got my website and thus my shop approved! So now I can tag products in my Instagram posts, which I think will help with marketing. Instagram Shops were something I knew I should set up, but I was dragging my feet because I thought it’d be annoying and difficult to set up, which I was partially right about. So I’m proud of myself for actually setting it up and hopefully it helps with my online marketing and directing more traffic to my website.
I finished an ocean sunset painting that I started. I’ve been alternating painting this painting, the foggy Highway One painting, and my botanical illustration of Northern California tidal pool creatures when I do have time to paint.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of admin stuff including tracking my spending, sales, and sales taxes so I’ve been spending more time on the computer. I kind of have a system and I’m hoping it becomes a more efficient process or I find ways to improve it.
That’s all for now. I hope everyone had a nice and safe Thanksgiving weekend and are ready to take on December!
Thanksgiving
I somehow forgot to write a blog post yesterday, which I guess provides some insight into the state of things in the studio. Last week I wrote about feeling ahead of schedule, which quickly went away as the week progressed. I let a few small, final touch things go undone and they quickly piled up. However, I listened to The Lazy Genius Podcast episode on How to Make the Rest of 2022 Easier and went through the exercise of naming what is happening, naming what I wish were happening, making things smaller, writing out what I need, putting things in their place, and categorizing. This really helped me figure out what I still needed to do in terms of Thanksgiving and holiday fair preparation, find a time to do these things, and really prioritize. So now I feel back on track and less overwhelmed as tomorrow is Thanksgiving and then my first holiday fair is this Friday and Saturday!
What I’m working on
I finished the remaining paintings of the mini 4x4” wave studies, photographed them, varnished them, and packed them up for the holiday fairs. I plan on putting up the photographs of these paintings in my website portfolio, but here’s a picture of all of them here for now.
I photographed all my prints and put them up on my website here! I really dread photographing my paintings/prints/products in general, so I’m proud of myself for doing this. I’m working on styling the photographs better and I still hope to learn Adobe Lightroom so I can better edit my photos. That being said, you should check the photos out and leave me any feedback in the comments. I’ll also say that they’re great holiday gifts 😉
I painted one morning sunrise over the weekend. I’m still working on sorting out my sleep schedule and decided that this week was not the week to drastically change up my routines. It was nice waking up early to paint and be outside, so hopefully more morning sunrises will come in the future.
I started painting an 18x24” painting based on a photo I took overlooking the coast of Highway 1 on a foggy morning. It’s in the very beginning stages and I hope to consistently work on this painting over the next few weeks.
With the help from my partner (read: he did most of the work), we drafted a contract form for commissioned paintings since I will be working on one soon! I really dragged my feet on this, but now that we have a form, most of the work should be done for commission contracts!
I’m about 95% packed up for my holiday fairs. I have some lingering items I need to pack like back up chargers and batteries and packing tape, but otherwise, all my paintings, prints, coasters, etc. are all packed up! The biggest concern now is playing car tetris and making sure everything fits in the car!
Inputs
As I mentioned earlier, I started listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast.
I started reading Duped: Truth-Default Theory and the Social Science of Lying and Deception by Timothy R. Levine. It’s been sitting on my shelf for a while so I figured I would try to read it instead of scrolling endlessly on my phone.
Outputs
I started going on walks in the morning! This has been something that I’ve been telling myself to do but had a really hard time starting. I’ve gone on a walk in the morning for the past three days and I think it’s been helping me feel more motivated and organized. I think I just needed more sunlight to feel better. I hope to continue this and it becomes part of my routine.
I think that’s all for now. I’m excited for Thanksgiving and the first holiday fair. I am trying to limit my expectations for the fair and frame it as primarily a learning experience. I’ll try to share what I learn in my next blog post.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
More holiday fair preparation and 2023 planning
It has been getting quite busy in the studio preparing for the holiday season. I think I hit a point last week where I felt ahead of schedule, which made me feel less motivated to do the things I had planned on working on. To help me with my motivation, I decided to plan out 2023 at a high level and then more granularly plan out the first quarter of 2023 to help me prioritize the work that I should do in the last few months of 2022. I’m still adjusting to a work environment where all of my work is independent and most of the time I don’t have someone else who I have to deliver my work to. I know that I function well with projects and external deadlines, so I went through the process of providing my own long-term deadlines. I am hoping that having a longer term vision and plan will help motivate me day to day because I know that if I don’t work on what I had set out to do at the daily and weekly level, the long term goals will fall through. That being said, I think that I can add a new section here on “what’s on the horizon” to help provide some context and scope of what I hope to do in the coming months.
What I’m working on
Yesterday I picked up my prints of the “Thought Collection” and the Seashells of Northern California from Berkeley, which is partially why this blog post is coming a day late. I’m working on signing all of the backs of “Thought Collection” prints and the front of the Seashells of Northern California prints. I had meant to sign the front of the Seashell of Northern California painting, but I had only remembered to do that after I dropped the painting off, so it’s a lesson learned.
I’ve now moved onto painting the seashells for the next “botanical” illustration of Northern California tidal pool creatures. I’ve been using watercolor painting as a break from oil painting.
I finished painting six 4x4” mini oil paintings of ocean waves, which follow the similar theme set by the Thought Collection. I have three more paintings to finish, which will have used all of the 4x4” canvases I have. I don’t plan on painting this small again anytime in the near future. I hope to have all nine of these paintings finished, signed, and varnished by Thanksgiving so I can bring them to my first holiday fair.
I painted a 12x16” sunrise over the ocean painting, which I thought would be part of the next collection of paintings I would do. I keep going back and forth on which collection I want to work on next.
What’s on the horizon
A month of weekend (and weekend adjacent) holiday fairs!
I’ve had this idea of painting a sunrise a day for over a year and I’ve been working on the motivation and sleep schedule to make me successful in this endeavor. I’m hoping to start this next week and I’m hoping that writing that here will keep me accountable!
I want to finish another collection of paintings by the middle of February next year. One collection idea that I have is sunrises/sunsets over the ocean. Another collection idea is a series of landscapes of the California coast along Highway 1. I’ve even collected the nine reference photos I want to use from the photos I’ve taken from my trips to the coast over the past year +. Right now, in my daily planner, I’ve set aside time to paint and I plan on being slightly unstructured by allowing myself to paint for whichever collection I feel like painting. This may change once I make a decision or find that it’s not a helpful method.
Something I also want to work on is learning how to use Adobe Lightroom. I want to create better pictures of my paintings for my website and general marketing, which will require me to learn how to use photo-editing software. I’m going to use the photos I took on my trip to Joshua Tree and practice photos to learn, so if anyone has recommendations on tutorials or online classes, let me know!
Inputs
I’m still listening to “No Stupid Questions” hosted by Stephen J. Dubner and Angela Duckworth and I listened to the episodes “How Can You Improve Your Mental Endurance” and “Can You Learn to Love Hard Work”. To be honest, I don’t really remember any sticking points. My main takeaway was that I want to read more psychology papers again.
Outputs
I went on a very nice hike in Muir Woods National Monument with some friends this weekend and really enjoyed the cool weather of fall. Again, I’m reminded that I should take more walks during the day and I can’t rely on a long weekend hike soon because I will have my holiday fairs to attend.
Holiday fair preparation & collection release
Preparation for this upcoming holiday fair season is well underway. I’m also releasing the six ocean waves paintings, which I’ve called “The Thought Collection”, on my website for sale this Friday. I feel pretty ahead of schedule in terms of getting ready for the holiday season and I’m looking forward to the first holiday fair on Friday, November 25th in Santa Cruz.
What I’m working on
I think my booth setup is complete. For 10’x10’ spaces I have three tables, which I will be placing my pegboard displays on to display prints and cards. I finished building out the pegboards and shelves, but I forgot to take a picture.
I reviewed and approved of the photographs and prints of the “Thought Collection”, so prints are being made of those six paintings in two sizes, 12”x16” and 5”x7”, and those will be available at the holiday fairs and on my website.
Since I approved of the photographs of the “Thought Collection” paintings, I was able to take the original paintings home. I titled and signed each of the paintings and installed wire hanging on the back, so they are ready to hang. I also picked up the custom boxes I had made for them for shipping, so I have everything I need to ship them once my collection is released on Friday. The six paintings will be going live on my website on November 11th at 3pm PT. If you’re interested in a piece, definitely leave a comment or send me an email!
I started sketching out the tidal pool creatures for the new “botanical” watercolor painting that I’m working on. This one is a little bit more difficult for me because I haven’t sketched many crabs or sea anemones before, but the challenge is fun.
I finished painting the remaining coasters I had and I just resined the last batch of coasters this morning. I have accepted that I don’t really enjoy any part of the process of making the coasters, so I think this will be the last time I make these for the foreseeable future.
I also painted 5”x5” alcohol ink paintings on yupo paper that I framed in square matted frames that I plan on selling at the holiday fairs. I think they turned out nicely and something I probably will continue to do in the future. Unlike the alcohol ink coasters, they’re much less time consuming and it feels like something new, so it’s more enjoyable.
Inputs
I started to listen to podcasts again and I’m catching up on episodes of “No Stupid Questions” hosted by Stephen J. Dubner and Angela Duckworth in no particular order. I just listened to the episode about Seasonal Affect Disorder and was reminded that I should probably go outside more and take more walks.
Outings
I went on a hike this past weekend, which was quite challenging, but I greatly enjoyed it. I think I had gotten used to hiking and walking around from visiting Joshua Tree and I felt like I needed to go on a hike, or at least a more strenuous walk, again.
I’ve been quite busy with getting ready for my collection release and holiday art fairs that I haven’t been thinking about going out and doing much. I also know that I’ll be out and busy every weekend starting November 25th until December 24th, so to avoid burnout, I’ve been preferring to stay at home and do lower energy activities. Something else that I’ve been thinking about, thanks to James Clear’s 3-2-1 Thursday newsletter, is productivity. Specifically, one of his ideas in the past newsletter was:
"Your net productivity is the balance of the productive and unproductive forces in your life.
A great deal of time and energy is spent thinking about how to increase effort, but there is a lot to be gained by reducing friction.
A car will travel faster not only if you press the accelerator, but also if you remove the speed bumps."
I felt like this quote came at a good time for me because I was feeling a lull in productivity during the later half of last week.I felt unmotivated to work on my coasters (which I generally feel unfulfilled by), but because I had made working on my coasters one of my projects for the week, I felt blocked to do anything else. I kept unsuccessfully thinking of ways to motivate myself to do more (i.e. increase effort), but this quote helped me reframe the problem solving thinking to how to reduce friction. So I did things like buy oil paint pens to speed up the painting process of the edges and batch as many coasters to resin at once by finding creative ways to cover them (I’m limited by how many coasters I can cover to protect them from dust while the resin sets). These are small things, but I think it’s useful to remind myself to find ways to make things easier and more enjoyable and sometimes to let go of things that are not enjoyable.
Beginning of November
I’m back home from my month of traveling and have been quite busy this past week. I have 24 days until my first market of the holiday season, and I’m been working on quite a few things to prepare.
What I’m working on
I’ve been preparing my booth set up for my markets. My pegboard displays are almost done and I’ll share a picture of them when they are finished. I’ve also ordered a canopy tent for my booth and some more tables.
I dropped the series of ocean paintings that I finished before leaving for Joshua Tree, which I have named “The Thought Collection” and the “botanical” watercolor painting of Northern California Seashells at a fine art photographer and printer to get prints made. Those should be ready in two weeks and I am really looking forward to seeing how they turn out.
I started planning out another “botanical” watercolor painting of Northern California tide pool creatures. I don’t think it’ll be done in time for this holiday season, but I had the motivation to make another one of these watercolor paintings.
Today I painted some alcohol ink paintings that I plan on selling them with a frame at the holiday markets. I also worked on some alcohol ink coaster sets because I have about 56 unpainted coasters that have been laying around. I’m trying to clear out my studio a bit so I have more space for new projects.
I updated some parts of my website. Specifically, I added an event page to list out all the holiday markets that I’ll be attending in the next two months. You can check that out here. I also added the large paintings I painted in 2021 to my portfolio, which you can find at the bottom of this page.
I determined my release schedule for “The Thought Collection” pieces. The six paintings will be going live on my website on November 11th at 3pm PT. If you’re interested in a piece, definitely leave a comment or send me an email!
Inputs
I haven’t had much time to read and haven’t been in the mood for podcasts. However, I am looking for book and podcast recommendations. I’m interested in both fiction and non-fiction for books and I’ve been thinking about listening to more entrepreneurial podcasts but haven’t really started looking. Leave me some recommendations if you have any!
Outputs
Since I’ve been busy with getting settled after traveling and preparing for the holiday season, I haven’t been out and about as much. I did pumpkins for Halloween with friends and I’ll share a photo of that.
That’s all for now. Some parts of my business are very organized and put together and other things are quite a bit messy. I’m hoping to have the majority of the preparation work for the holiday fairs done by the end of next week. I’ll let you know how it goes!
End of October
Today is my last full day in Joshua Tree and I was able to paint a decent amount on this trip while getting quite a few good hikes in.
What I’m working on
I finished the “botanical” watercolor painting of Northern California Seashells. I’m excited to share the finished product soon.
I’ve planned out all the shopping and things I need to prepare for my upcoming holiday markets. This includes:
Updating my website to include the series of oil paintings that I had been working on before my trave
Buying more tables and other odds and ends for my booth set up
Getting my paintings photographed and prints made of them
Figuring out a schedule to finish painting the mini oil paintings I started working on before I left for Joshua tree in time for the markets
Inputs
I’ve been doing a lot of leisure reading of fiction books during this trip. I think once I get back home, I’m going to revisit Start Finishing to make sure I’m setting realistic goals and not taking on too many projects so I don’t get burned out halfway through the holiday season.
Outputs
I went on a lot of hikes last week and I have one more before I head back home tomorrow
Since I’ve planned out the things I need to do to prepare for upcoming holiday markets, I’m looking forward to returning home and checking things off my checklist. The next two months will be quite busy and I’m hoping I learn a lot from my first holiday season!