Happy New Year!

Let me begin by wishing all of you out there a Happy New Year!  May 2013 be a blessed year for you and all of yours.

At the beginning of 2012, I made a list of goals in a post here.  I think I may have accomplished about half of those goals but half is better than none.  The most disappointing failure in the list of goals was not completing 20 counties for this project.  I only managed to complete 12 by my count.  I am barely over halfway done with this project after 2.5 years of work.  To be very honest, this project is starting to weigh heavy on me.  I enjoy traveling around and visiting new places in Arkansas but I would like very much to be able to focus more on places of special interest to me without the guilt of feeling like I'm shirking some responsibility.  However, that is sometimes the nature of projects like this one and I will soldier through. 

I guess I will try to start a tradition and make a new set of goals for 2013:

1.  Complete 20 counties!  I am currently at 42 out of 75.  I am planning a couple of plein air camping trips this year so that should help my cause.
2.  Get in a gallery outside of Arkansas.  I plan to visit Dallas fairly early this year and will see a few prospective galleries while there and gather as much reference material as possible.
3.  Get into 2 national shows.  I plan on actually using my Oil Painters of America membership this year by entering a contest or two.  I also plan on joining American Impressionist Society and entering some of their shows.
4.  Visit Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art!
5.  Participate in a plein air competition.  This was one I failed to get to last year.  There is a fairly competitive local competition that should be no issue at all for me to attend but last year I wound up having a conflict.  I'll make it there this year.

So, there you go.  My goals for 2013.  Some of those should be easy and some are not very much within my control but I'll work on them as best as possible.