Thoughts on Painting

February 29th is a great day to establish some long term (four year) goals. It's perfect because if you are a tad disorganized, like me, it's always possible to look back and find the last leap year, and figure out how long you have to reach these long term goals. With the five year planning I don't always remember which year was year one! And to me a four year plan sounds slightly less daunting than a five year plan. Here are some of my four year goals:

To expand my gallery representation to the West Coast or Arizona. Not because I want to ship my paintings across the country necessarily, but I travel to California a lot to visit all of my family and the tax write off would be wonderful! And being an East Coast transplant I tend to create West Coast themed paintings when I am home sick that there is not huge demand for in Bucks County. It just makes business sense.

To continue to develop other styles of painting, specifically landscape. I have already signed up for a week long course with Michael Godfrey (my favorite living landscape painter) for this summer. I plan on taking at least one week long course every year for the next four years to help achieve this goal. I think Stapleton Kearns "Snow Camp" is going to be next year. It looks like a great time and I've heard great things about it!

Spend a month in Europe painting. This has been on the list quite a while and has been put at the bottom consistently. I will not celebrate the next leap year without having done this. Period.

Paint 50 paintings each year - with 12 (one each month) being intense, intricate pieces. I do not like to rush paintings but at the same time I am a slow, methodical painter when doing still lifes. This helps me to not necessarily rush the pieces that take a long time but to incorporate some looser, quick paintings which are a lot of fun for me and teach me a lot in the process.

Read (to the end) one book about art per month. I have art magazines and books everywhere but seem to just pick and choose from them, rather than sitting and reading from beginning to end. When I force myself to do this I learn so much more.

Run a 1/2 marathon.  You wouldn't think this is a painting related goal but it is. I spend so many hours in the studio that some days I look like a pretzel walking out of there. I feel better when I work out, and I when I feel better I paint better. There is a direct correlation.

So, those are a few of my Leap Year goals. I would love to hear some of your Leap Year goals.

Happy Painting!

Christine