Gratitude for the past year of art making
My annual recap brought me a lot of perspective and joy today, plus a few new art making ideas.
Hello friends, I’m doing my yearly recap of my art making and art-related things from this year, mostly as a reminder to myself about just how much can and does change in one wee year. Much gratitude have I!
Read on for my latest article.
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Love, Kris
I find that counting my blessings for all of the new growth really does help.
I’ve been counting up my art making from the past year, and then it became the past 4 years.
The perspective I gain from doing this accounting for myself is helping give me the much needed inspiration and energy, not to mention validation, for taking the next steps in my art making space.
To give you some perspective, 2009 was the last year I painted a lot before giving up my art making practice for a while.
I had a good reason to set my art making space aside, and did this consciously. In 2010, I committed to building my psychic business full time (it worked), and gave up my art studio for more space to build classes and readings. In time, I had a radio show, two podcasts, a blog and newsletter and all of it. I regret nothing, it was the beginning of a whole new level of growth in another art form I’ve grown to love.
In 2009 I completed 105 paintings, but in 2010, only finished 2. I didn’t have a dedicated studio or even many art supplies from 2010-2020, and then the pandemic appeared, and it was time to start making art again. I’d been feeling it coming on for at least a year, this desire to make art again, but didn’t have the space for it.
As a psychic and psychic teacher in those years, I had a lot of students and clients and colleagues. I held classes and workshops at my Glendale CA home, taught at several other locations, and participated as a teacher in spiritual retreats. My psychic business had grown, but I knew I wanted to make changes.
I was feeling the need to start painting again. It felt like a hunger, something I needed for my own well being and nourishment. And dang it, I missed art supply stores!
I started painting again in 2020, and I’ll never forget how good it felt to pick up a paintbrush and play with color. So much fun!
My new paintings were made using a different technique than my pre-pandemic works: gouache and mixed media on paper. If you happen to own one of these gouache paintings, and a few folks do - they are very unique and special. I do hope you protected it under glass as I recommended, as gouache is a magical paint but also very sensitive to moisture.
By the end of 2021, I’d made 21 paintings I called complete, but have since discarded at least 3 of those. In 2022, only 10 paintings made the cut, but I did a lot of work all year on my technique, and added even more mixed media, with colored pencils, etc.
You do understand that this means that I now own a large collection of colored pencils, Watercolor pencils, and Derwent Inktense pencils? Like jars full of them. Win win. Maybe I’ll photograph them one day and include them in a newsletter.
By 2023, I was deeply back into working with acrylic paint again, which is my favorite. Just 28 paintings made the cut by year’s end, and I sold a lot more of them. I started using stencils in my texture building and mark making, and they have become a regular part of my painting practice.
I’m finding the rhythm and flow of art making in a new way for myself, and 2024 has been a year of lots of amazing new growth.
In 2024, I painted 55 completed paintings, and will very likely add another 5 to that number before year’s end. I consider a completed painting one that I feel confident to show and sell.
This doesn’t include the dozens and dozens of experiments, hand painted cards and collage papers and bookmarks. If I include every little small painting I made, that’s a lot of painting in a year. Yay me!
I’m grateful to have a painting partner, and now there’s 3 of us! We meet nearly every Friday and paint together. It’s super fun, inspirational, and helpful too - how nice to have two other artists to get feedback from. We discuss paint, color and glazing and mixed media, mark making, marketing, and more, all while painting, eating chocolate, drinking tea, and listening to music.
I’m grateful to the artists who helped me grow in 2024: especially Alice and Louise of Art Juice podcast, and Art Tribe, which is Louise’s membership program. I’m grateful to other generous teachers I’ve learned from, including Nicholas Wilton, Adele Sypesteyn, and so many others.
I’m having art on a daily basis now, in a studio space that works for me. Even when I can’t spend much time painting, having my supplies laid out where I can see them every day helps.
I’m also growing my psychic biz too - I now offer private classes, and continue to offer my reading and healing sessions. Visit my psychic website and look around. There’s a lot there to see. I also teach at the Art of the Seer Academy online, which is a wonderful community of psychics with a lot to offer.
A little history: From the beginning of my painting career, going way back to 1993, I had the presence of mind to keep track of every single painting I made in a year, give it a number, and write down all of its specs, including who it sold to and for how much. The only paintings listed are those I considered done, and would show, sell, or gift.
For example: 1993 has 5 paintings listed (2 sold, 3 given as gifts), 1994 has 3 (none sold, 2 gifted), 1995 has 10 (4 sold, 6 gifted or donated). By 1996 I was on a roll. I completed 39 paintings, (sold 29, gifted or donated 10).
Doing this gave me so much inspiration and perspective, just as naming every single painting does the same for me.
Thank you for reading my very long end of year art gushing today!
Have a wonderful holiday season, filled with much love and happy times. Thank you for being here, and please do share with anyone you know who would enjoy my work. Cheers to you!