Happy New Year everyone!

I didn’t have much time off for the Christmas holidays but I’m definitely ready to get back to normal. I’ve single-handedly eaten my way through nearly two bags of my sister-in-law’s famous peanut butter balls while binge-watching the entire series of Friends on Netflix (again). I can tolerate the Christmas tree for about two weeks but it will be thrown to the curb later this morning. I’ve definitely had enough bonding time with the tree but I know it’s not totally gone – I’ll be finding needles until June I’m sure. And even though I always start December loving all the holiday treats I’ve been living in stretch pants for a little too long now. There’s nothing I love more this time of year than throwing out all of the leftover excess and moving on – literally and figuratively.   

I love the spirit of New Year. I love the idea of starting over. I love packing up everything after Christmas, and getting back to a routine. My goals for 2019 involve all of the usual: Eat better, exercise more, be a nicer person. But I’m also hoping 2019 will be a year of big change, especially artistically.

Here’s what I’m thinking:

Paint more.

I would really like to focus on my personal artwork in 2019. I have a mental list of paintings that need to be completed. I started painting for the first time in a million years in January 2018 and since then I have just felt so much pent up creative energy, ideas, and a desire to make something. It hasn’t really let up, and if anything, the more I paint the more I want to paint. I’ve seen so much growth in the past year and I’m crossing my fingers this continues into 2019. Just like exercise and training, I need to make space for creating everyday. I do believe that the most growth happens when I’m drawing and painting a lot so I’m really excited to produce a lot of finished work this year. Do I have a theme? Yes, I can see one emerging, and I’ll talk about that more in an upcoming post as my ideas around it sort of crystallize. This unifying theme for my painting is something I’d really like to use to work towards…

My first art show.

I would really like to mount my own art exhibition in 2019. I would like to rent a space and send out invites and create a program and display my work for the public and serve champagne in chic champagne flutes and buy a new dress for the occasion (of course!). Not a lot to say about this yet except that I think it’s really important to work towards publicly displaying my art and I need to make that happen. I’m aiming for September/October of 2019.

And last but certainly not least…

Grow my blog!

I want to spend as much time as I can on evachristensenart.com. I have been loving all of the work I do for my little website and I would love to be able to grow it as much as possible and reach as many people as I possibly can with my work. I wish this could be a job! I love writing and planning posts and telling the story behind each painting that I do and exploring how that makes me feel – and then hearing how it makes other people feel. I see this site as a mix of art diary, art teaching, and personal art gallery. I love, love, love getting feedback from my readers, and having conversations. That has been such a great, unanticipated bonus of starting my site – getting to know the online artistic community and discovering other artists and their work. Blogging has been such a valuable way to feel connected with other artists who I can identify with! I work alone but I love to know that my art has touched others, and to be able to speak with other artists and also be inspired by them. I absolutely loved Judith’s post to mark her milestone of 1,000 followers!! – She drew a pile of rocks like a trail-marker to mark the occasion, which I thought was so simple and so clever. It got me thinking about my own blog goals and I really hope that I too will be able to mark some milestone(s) in the year(s) ahead.

I would love feedback from any art bloggers reading! In the meantime, I’ll keep posting regularly and we will see where it goes!

And those are my 2019 goals. I am hoping 2019 will be a year of big change. Mostly I want to be happy, and I want my family and my fur babies to be happy, and I also want to see where I can take my art. Looking forward to revisiting this post 365 days from now 🙂

Thanks for reading everyone! Any goals you’d care to share?