Happy New Year!

I would like to wish all of you out there a Happy New Year!  I don't have any new paintings to show just yet but that's more a function of my laziness about taking pictures than not having produced any work.  I have a new Buffalo River painting as well as a couple of portraits which I'll eventually get around to posting on my other blog, The Art of John D. Wooldridge.  That's a very good thing since it's been a few months since I've had anything to post over there!

2011 was a pretty good year for me.  I won several awards and was accepted into all but 2 shows I entered.  Sales were better than I've ever experienced also.  I didn't do as much heavy lifting on the Painting Arkansas project as I had hoped but I did complete 15 new counties this past year.  I was hoping to be halfway done by the end of this year.  I got close but not quite there.  Around the middle of last year, I made a pact with myself that I would paint nothing smaller than 9X12 in the studio.  The spirit of that commitment was to force myself to produce larger landscapes.  Even though the 2 portraits I did were 8X10, I'm not going to count those against my commitment since I really did intend it to apply to landscapes.  In fact, after that commitment, I did no landscapes smaller than 11X14!  I'm happy for the calender to shift though so I can do some more smaller work and try to get some substantial progress made against this project.  I have photographic reference material for 8 additional counties that need to be done before I ever have to get into the car for more travel!

I'm not much for publishing my goals because it seems as soon as I do I wind up not living up to them.  That's one reason I don't publish any WIPs of my work.  As soon as I take in-progress pictures, I find myself unable to close the deal and the piece gets set by the wayside!   However, in the interest of trying to get over that trend, I'm going to go ahead and establish some goals here.  I'm only going to include those things over which I feel I have enough control to enable them.

1.  Get a gallery
2.  Complete 10 show worthy plein air paintings
3.  Get into a show outside of Arkansas
4.  Complete at least 20 counties
5.  Publish a WIP!
6.  Post more often, even if what I write about seems very mundane to me
7.  Network more online
8.  Participate in a plein air competition

In addition, I plan to join the American Impressionist Society and also submit to join Oil Painters of America.  Membership in AIS is non-juried but OPA is.  I think I have the quality of work to get in, but I guess I'll find out if the jurors feel the same or not.