Looking Back at 2008

Sketch of Abraham Lincoln
Put here because "do a graphite portrait" was the last December goal I had left to accomplish. Clearly, not a great likeness, but I wanted a baseline so that next year I can see if I've improved in my portraiture skills.

I've begun looking back at 2008. I highly recommend this sort of exercise, it really does inspire you to take on the new year. This post looks at my goals list and at some statistics. Thanks for indulging me in this...posting to this blog keeps me accountable like nothing else.

Alyson Stanfield has a great list of questions to get you started. I found it very encouraging and helpful.

Goals
I had an elaborate plan for 2008. That got superseded quite early in the year, but I also had outlined my basic goals. So, I'm going to look at the general goals and see how I did. Some of the goals shifted a bit, but in general, I hit the mark. Surprisingly enough, I managed all 3 of the "challenges" I set myself.

Here is the original "general goal" post for 2008.

Research: As planned, I looked at composition, Japanese art (ukiyo-e), color, and Degas. I read one small book on Turner. I didn't do any research on Rembrandt.

Technique:

• Anatomy: I did do some head anatomy and a fair amount of sketching from life. It wasn't the rigorous study I had planned.
• Perspective: I didn't do much work on perspective at all. I began reading a book, but lost interest.
• Mendelowitz: I had big plans to finish this classic drawing textbook. I lost steam early on. But I did do a huge amount of drawing and lots of study on Ernest Watson and Ted Kautzky and the "broadstroke" technique that they made famous.

Just for Me:

• 50 Starts: I planned to start 50 paintings from life. I didn't do that exactly. I did do lots of sketching from life and I did start several projects.
  

Challenges:

• art competition: I entered a "friendly" competition. Vivien Blackburn did a paintbrush competition. Although I don't think that she declared a winner in the end, the more important part for me was that I did really have to push myself to enter. I was very intimidated by the level of the entries. As well, I am really impressed by Vivien's work, so I was nervous to send her anything.
• website: I not only expanded my website, but I created a new one.
• business: I actually began selling my artwork this year.
  

Stats
Sketches: I did 135 sketches that I bothered to photograph and post. (There were more that didn't make the cut.)
Starts: I started 61 pieces. Not all of those were finished, but they were all begun and given their own folder with at least sketches.
Page Loads: I had over 20,000 page loads this year on Rose's Art Lines.
Feedburner Subscriptions: I think I had around 20 subscribers this time last year. Now I regularly have around 80.
Quarterly Numbers: My quarterly numbers of pageloads, returning visitors, and unique visitors all rose.

Now, if you haven't gone over your year, please do. You may be very surprised at what you accomplished. I certainly was. I knew that I had totally failed the original plan and even the revised plan to some degree, but actually I did accomplish alot, it was just different than I expected it to be.

Next week...top 5 lists of 2008!