Onward and Upward

Today's the day I add the folder "Paintings 2013" to my computer hard-drive! It's a small thing but every year I find it inspiring to start with a clean, tidy folder. Who knows what projects might end up there. Commissions, gallery shows, new cards, prints, and other fun goodies for my shop are to name a few that will appear. But completing a book that has been in the works for quite a while is my number one goal for this year.

The children's book project is a collaboration between my husband and I. Here is a look at some of the concept art I've done recently, getting a feel for some of the characters Matt has created.

This was very last painting of 2012 that I started and finished yesterday. (I totally bombed a painting earlier that day and there was NO WAY I was going to start the New Year with a crappy painting). So I hunkered down and decided that I was just going to start fresh and not do what made the last painting so bad. It seemed to work because this is one of my all time favorites, and really set the the tone for my work to come this year. Look for this painting in an upcoming show this February!

Looking back on 2012, here are a few stats:
-Completed over 140 paintings
-Participated in 20 shows (one solo, one duo)
-Went to PAX Prime in Seattle and had a grand nerdy time
-Went to California for the first time (finally!)
-Got out camping twice (horrible heat + abnormally huge amount of ticks put a damper on our camping quests).
-Bought a green bike
-Really got into Xenoblade Chronicles video game but still haven't finished it yet.

Cleaned up my studio, so I thought I better take a photo while the tidiness lasted. Every year a few more paintings are added to my collection. In case your wondering I paint in front of my computer. One of these days I'm going to get a real drafting table with the tilt-able surface, but for now this works just fine (other than lots of paint splatters on my computer screen).

Lastly I leave you with a cat photo, because every year I become a little more "cat lady".