February '08 milestone review of goals and commitments

February milestone review of goals and commitments

Sophomore slump.

This wasn't a terribly great month for progress for me. I struggled with some artist's block, painted a lot of bad paintings (which haven't seen the light of day here), and generally sort of waded through the month. On the plus side, I did come out of the block/sucky painter portion of the month for a strong finish in the last week.

In my second month as a full time painter, I have been feeling out the boundaries of what is working well, and what isn't. I have a much better idea of what makes a painting session 'successful'-- for me at least, even if not for the end result.

Last review, Frank Gardner asked if the small works kept me from painting larger stuff. Answer so far? Yes, the smaller works do make painting bigger pieces harder to manage.
On the flip side though, they still serve as the best mechanism I've found to date for building artistic stamina. In what has been a hard month (creatively), the small works have served as a baseline of accomplishment: I posted 29 new paintings in February. In the middle of a bout of artist's block.


On to the recap. The original goals/commitments/resolutions post is here.

Resolutions
—I am making good progress on painting every day for at least an hour, and meeting with family and friends at least once every week.
—I finished David Copperfield!

For me, artist's block is a little like a bout of depression. And I don't know about you, but when I'm depressed, I sure don't feel much like walking... which means that the walking 2 miles a week goal pretty much went belly up in February. I am hoping the advent of Spring brings a resurgence...

As with last month, other resolutions are in varying stages of progress, and two months is still too small a sample size to determine if they're on track or not.

Goals
—3 shows of 5 down, and I have 3 more scheduled!
—I am roughly on target for meeting my 1/3 of yearly spend goal.
—No progress on additional gallery venues, but I have been pretty lucky with a few non traditional show opportunities that have popped up.

Commitments
Again, as per the precis, my commitments have taken a hit this last month...

—I have posted a new painting for sale everyday, and have been drawing in my sketchbook regularly.

—I have had little success with painting larger canvasses (I did paint 2 16 X 20s the last week of Feb, I now have 4 total)

—Organized learning and development has been suffering. I have been growing, but I need to make better preparations in this arena.

—I have not completed any of the 50 +2 hour drawings. (Bear in mind though, when I go on a drawing kick, these will come in bunches)

—Nor have I applied to any juried shows. Still looking and figuring out which shows I will apply to.


Moving forward
I did see some improvement in a few areas, despite the bout of block. That being said, I really want March to represent a better accounting, and I have some serious ground to make up this month...

And for those who read to the bottom of this post, here's one of the 16 X 20 canvases I worked on this month. This is probably about 95% finished...