Review of 2022 and plans for a creative 2023

I always like to do a creative review of my year. It's great to celebrate everything I've done and I loved gathering projects from around my studio to take this photo.

Check out my Instagram or FB artist page to see photos of all the projects and play I've had this year since I do give some of my creations away. What follows are my favourites in a bit more detail.

At the end of last year I was admiring the small monthly Daily Creative Practice journals I was seeing around (especially Willa's collected from 2021 HERE) and decided to make my own version.I did manage to create a book a month for the whole year. By October I was flagging creatively with doing the same format every month so joined Megan Whisner Quinlan's class Journal into your Art- it was fun to take a different approach to my November and December journals and I'm so happy I completed the year.

I love that each journal is a reflection of my month last year - the techniques from classes I was doing, the amount of creative time I had, the seasons and important events. You can see all my posts about the individual journals by clicking here. 

I decided to cover a box to house them and happily I was gifted the perfect size for a secret santa gift. Just shows you shouldn't plan too far ahead. I just cut the top flaps off, ran masking tape over the 2 raw upper edges and then went looking through my papers. As soon as I saw a leftover strip from my snippet rolls I knew that would be perfect. I added a few more centimetres of stitching and love how that looks glued to the sides.

I put a scrap of underpaper on the bottom so I could keep the details of this project (including my personalised stamp)

The inside measurements of the box is 12.5cm (a whisker deeper than the width of journals) x 13 cm across the front. The finished journals stand 18cm high.

I've done other journal projects in the past that last a whole year but I'm going to take a rest from that in the 2023. I've been really interested in Wendy Solganik's blog series about Finding your Artistic style. There have been some things that have really resonated there, the most recent being Tamara Jones : When you are taking a class and you think, “Wow, I could make a 100 of those.”  Listen to that voice!  You just found YOUR style!  Something that is part of you!  When you take many classes and keep hearing that voice with multiple different types of art, they are ALL your style. 

I felt like this with many of the book projects I made this year - this one is truly an example of my style : 

And this

And this 

And this is just the base but I adored this class and want to spend time on filling it in my holidays.

One of the things about Instagram that I love is that if I look at my page, I can see my style on display with the common colours and things I love to return to making over and over - books, including stitch and found words, paua colours, fabric and paper together, stencils. 

In my last project for 2022 which I shared here I was limited to not include as many layers and texture, but it's still a book form and it's still my colours and words. 

As I start 2023 I am continuing with Fodder School 2 but not signing up for anything else at present so I am free to try anything that feels inspiring to me as the year unfolds. The only exception is that I keep thinking it would be great to have a small stitching project to take to my Monday night quilt group (since you may have noticed I didn't do any quilting last year!). I did start a stitched roll in 2020 but it was too much for me alongside everything else that happened to me that year. I have recently seen Roxy's Journal of Stitchery for 2023 which is a themed large snippet roll called "Down the garden path". I have the base photoraphed here next to a mixed media roll I completed in 2018.

The project begins on the first Wednesday of January and there will be a new video each Wednesday from Rachel and Sarah with new prompts being announced every 2 weeks until June.  

See the project intro and gathering supplies videos on YouTube here. I'll share if this becomes a project that I love. 

You may have come across the Word of the Year concept. You can find yours with Susannah Conway's guidance free here (password delight) or through Ali Edwards who has developed a year-long course. My word since 2017 has been SHINE and I change the focus slightly each year as I use it as an acronym. 

As I continue to Shine in 2023, I am supplementing my definitions for my words of Self-care, Home, Intentional, Notice and Ease with the word Sustainable. So far it's led me to ask : Will I be able to keep up this weekly or monthly challenge or do I want more freedom? Do I need to buy that thing or do I already have something already in my cupboard that I can use or alter? I want to continue to find value in what I already have.

I'll keep sharing my main projects on this blog, and probably an end-of-month review, but please check out my Instagram or FB artist page for more regular updates of my projects in progress. What are your creative plans for 2023? I wish you creative joy and discovery in the year ahead.

Fodder School with Sarah Gardner

It's no secret that I adore Fodder School and last month's lessons were with Sarah Gardner. She is a fabulously inspiring teacher. Check out her tag book tutorial in her Stencil girl post. 

See her post about this month's fodder school lessons HERE. 

I talked about this podcast in a previous post. 

I decided I wanted to try out many of Sarah's techniques but not create so much fodder. I'm very happy with what happened. I swatched my acrylics including metallic paints and found that time very well spent. The binding rings contain each side of the colour wheel, neutrals and metallics. When I swatched the metallics I did it 3 times : one on white card for the appropriate colour ring, and again on white and black for the metallic ring

I used my gelli plate

Created layered papers with lots of stencils (my happy place)

and what Sarah calls Micro Fodder

The project made with the fodder was Artist Trading Cards. While that isn't my jam, making unique cards and handmade books is. I used her technique for one of the Journal 52 prompts  upsized to fit my journal page (4.5"x 7")

I loved Sarah's tag book above, and decided to create my own celebrating my word of the year {still going since 2017} SHINE. The words I chose included my acronym words Self-care, Home, Intentional, Notice, Ease, and a few extras that importantly underpin these : Presence, Gratitude, Joy 

These are the backs - I used a lovely gold star washi tape on many of the pages so that is an extra element of shine and so enjoyed adding some extra elements of collage fodder from previous lesson

And here's the book put together with fabric hinges and stitched edges

And a flip through

You can still join us in fodder school and there will be another Free Fodder Challenge for 2022 from July 5-13, AND a new season of fodder school after we finish this 12 months at the end of September 💜 

Shine

I'm so glad I have an art journal with pages ready to fill because yesterday (my New Year's Day in New Zealand) I got an email from Effy Wild which included a speed painting to inspire embracing your wildness. Here's the email with the link to the painting. After a nap (stayed up til midnight - not used to it!), and a swim (my weather app told me it felt like 29 degrees celsius), I jumped into my journal. I love how her face started off looking so kind.

One of the things that attracted me to Effy's version were gorgeous silver doodles in the black spaces. I am wanting to incorporate more of Klimt's style into my work this year, and this seemed the perfect place for that. I decided to use my new stencils.

As I added all that gold and iridescent turquoise, she evolved into a celebration of my word Shine. This has been my word since 2017. In 2022 I want to Shine, to continue being intentional, with an emphasis on releasing what no longer serves me so that I can live with ease. I explained it more fully last year if you are interested in exploring my acronym focus words in more detail : Self-care, Home, Intentional, Notice, Ease.

I had no idea that I would be in my art journal so quickly into the new year. Last time I used it was early September! It's been completely unexpected and a great way to start the year given my previous post where I acknowledged that my creative time is precious and I really want it to be time that is making me feel fulfilled and is heart led. Unplanned creative joy for the win 💜 

Free online class inspirations for December

I have finally finished another challenging school year and am officially on summer holidays. I can enjoy reading, swimming, catching up with friends, and more art time 💜  These offerings are available now and I've brought in a few extra things that I've shared before for my own use in one spot. Hope there's something to inspire you here. 

I recommend Susannah Conway's free annual workbooks. Unravel your year 2021 and Find your word 2022 can both be found HERE in her inspiration library. Password : delight. There's even a mindful colouring version of Unravel this year.

If you didn't get a chance to finish (or even start!) the free taster sessions for Life Book 2022 they are available for a limited 7 days replay but you have to sign up this weekend. 

Tam has also recently shared the Woman Unleashed Retreat

December 20-31. Each day you’ll get an email with the daily sessions. After retreat sessions air, you'll be able to watch sessions until Jan 9th. Below is Tam's lesson.

You can just pick and choose as many or as few sessions as you want. I usually have a couple of artists I love and explore. Let it be a treat not a pressure. 

Ivy Newport is also sharing her 12 Days of Creativity - favorite creative lessons from her Studioworks class library

I've shared this previously but sharing again cos I'm still tempted to try this - it doesn't have to be a Christmas project : Anne Brooke's #12pagesofchristmas on YouTube.

I'm currently participating in a December Daily-ish project and I think I'm going to use Kasia's December offering this year next month as #CareJanuary instead. 

It's presented as an approach to self-care through mindful art journaling. Based on previous classes by her, I think this will be easily translatable. Sign up HERE. 

If you want even more, click HERE for my full list of free online art classes. I'll be updating this again in January so if you know of any additions please let me know.

Wanderlust : Make a wish

Wanderlust Week 4 with Shay Michelle. As well as making wishes for the year ahead, our teacher encouraged us to play with many different textures. The watercolour and salt backgrounds along with modeling paste through a stencil are fun techniques which I was happy to revisit

I decided that texture for me always means adding fibre and stitch. I had already started this tag and it worked well with my colours this week

Fun to work on separate pages and after adding extra glitter and stitch, I was able to glue them into my journal.

My word of the year is SHINE - the glitter and star symbolise that for me without the need for extra words.