2019 Round Up & What’s Ahead for 2020…

2019 round up.

I think it’s always good to sit down and take a few minutes to reflect on the past year, (in fact decade) and decide what has worked and what hasn’t.

It enables me to recognise how far I’ve come, how to adjust the things that I want to change, and what’s not working.

So as I sit and reflect here are some of the achievements and highlights that 2019 brought.

• Website improvements, which included online shopping functionality.  
• Studio Workshops, I welcomed so many people into my studio, we’ve had some amazingly creative times, inspired each other, laughed, drank countless cups of tea, and glasses of prosecco! 
• Beta round of online courses.
• Studio open sessions every month, where people dropped in, bought art and supplies, drank coffee, and got inspired about encaustic.
• Huge reorganisation and de-clutter at the studio, which resort resulted in headspace for lots of new work.
• I experimented and perfected how to create my 3D sculptural ornamental bowls, they have been really well received.
• Public painting challenge where I painted a picture with an iron, on stage, against the clock in under four minutes!
• I joined three inspirational online course groups; art mentors, mindset coaching, and content creation, which have helped me immensely.  Nobody does it all alone, it’s madness to try to, seek out support and get help!
• First proper online course launch.  Teaching people how to paint with wax, feedback of how much it helped people was great!   I learnt so much too!  Will definitely do it again. 
• Awarded The Binnie Birstein Scholarship to the 14th Encaustic Conference in May 2020.  A dream of mine that I’ve had for years!
• Interviewed on Radio Dacorum, which was super fun.
• People opened my art on Christmas Day, and to see pictures of it, in situ, just makes my heart sing!
• I’m sure there are more, but this has been a pretty good highlight reel for now…

As I reflect on the past decade, it’s shocking to realise, I wasn’t even painting in 2010!   

I was a frazzled stay at home Mum, with two boys, running my husbands company office, doing C.I.S. tax returns, and all sorts of other grey paperwork jobs!

I joined an art group in January 2011, and haven’t looked back since!   See what changes can happen in a decade!

So, as I turned to my plans for 2020, and reflect on what’s been working, and what hasn’t, I’ve decided to focus on fewer things this year.

• I intend to create more art, and exhibit in a few carefully selected outlets locally, and promote online.
• I will be bringing more workshops online, to enable me to help more people.  I will be doing this through my online courses, and monthly accountability video calls.  There are also plans for a new encaustic wax book!
• I will run two art retreat weeks… One in May for beginners.  One in June for encaustic artists, wanting to expand their practice.
• The Encaustic Conference.   I cannot tell you how excited I am about this one!!
• Visit more Museums, more places that inspire me, more self care and time to cook up new ideas.  It’s in these moments that the flashes of inspiration come.

So, I invite you, if you haven’t already, to take a few minutes to reflect and decide, did you hit your creative goals in 2019 and over the past decade?

What are your plans moving forward for 2020?  What will you start, and what will you stop?

If I can help you in anyway with wax inspiration, have a tour around my website, check out my YouTube Channel, go through my Free Online Course, come and join us and try out a monthly Zoom video call, lets get that inspiration, and wax flowing!