This Week In the Studio

A Recap of the Week in Art-Making, Time Management, Finances, and 2022 Goals

Hello and welcome to this week’s little peek into my studio at the start of a New Year!

I look forward to the art-making adventures to come as I reflect on this week and prepare for the next week, month, and year ahead. And I thank YOU for choosing to follow me along the way either here in my artist notes where I will occasionally summarize my progress on various projects OR as one of my Patreon subscribers where I will post regular updates throughout each week specifically focused on my 2022 Swatch Project (with additional updates along the way).

Though I started off the week a bit slowly after thoroughly enjoying some time off with my family, I’m happy to once again be shifting back into a more regular work routine - surprisingly, logging 21 hours of work (see my breakdown below) during a week where I spent 14 hours driving people to home and airport after spending the holidays together. It was a nice way to ease into new goals with plenty of time to contemplate my projects while on the road!

I hope by sharing my studio practices I will inspire you to foster your own creativity while glimpsing a bit of the reality of my professional life as I work to reach my personal art goals. By keeping myself accountable to the process, the purpose, and to each of you, I look forward to a beautiful year together in art.

This week in the Studio

Swatch Project Update

Swatch Project Week 1 (left 3 images) and Week 2 (right 3 images)

Yesterday I shared the end of week two of creating exploratory swatches on Patreon. The first two weeks were built on the same basic concept - finding interesting ways to combine fiber and painted canvas (samples above), with this week focused on adding crocheted pieces. Next week I hope to bring these new skills together along with a materials test of adhesives as I prepare more specifically to address the needs of my painting in progress “Uncharted Territory”. Should be fun!

Starting (and re-starting) a few Daily Habits

To start the year I am determined to find time for these activities on a daily basis, even if it’s just 5 minutes to keep me artistically motivated and support positive activities for my mental and physical health. By marking which activities I want to complete every day versus which I will attempt daily, I hope to meet my goals all year long. I often get over-eager at the beginning of the year, however, and recognize I may need to adjust along the way to keep these goals within parameters I can manage successfully. For now, though, I will remain optimistic!

Daily Digital Art

Last winter I started playing with digital drawing. As the year progressed, however, I became distracted with other projects. For 2022 I plan to re-start this practice by working on one piece all year long! Each day I will add marks to the progressing image, keeping a record of the results of each day. Pictured above are the results of the first 6 days of the year. I’m looking forward to seeing where this piece will end up in December after 365 days of drawing (fingers crossed)!

Almost Daily Swatch Making

I will add my swatch-making project to my daily habit list too, even though it’s semi-daily because it’s the one project I most want to keep going all year. To hopefully ensure success, I’ve created space to allow time to rest from the project and catch up on my goals, if necessary. My goal is 30 weeks of swatch projects in 2022. I’m planning on creating and sharing 3 weeks/month over the next year, excluding March and August.

Daily Writing & Poetry

Likewise, with my writing, I want to establish a daily habit. The last 2 years have definitely found me writing much more frequently in many different forms. My only goal is to write at least one phrase or sentence every day and then hopefully use the material to create a monthly poem.

Attempt a Daily Mandolin / Ukulele Practice

OK - now for my non-work daily goals. I have tried several times over the years to create a daily habit of ukulele practice (especially since I’ve abandoned the flute and tube for now while I’m still uncomfortable playing in a band setting these days). I have one classical song I’ve tried to learn to fingerpick several times and can still slowly play through it, but I’m hoping this is the year I will keep the habit as close to daily as possible and learn that song (and more!). I will be happy even if I just run through a scale for the daily work, keeping my fingers on those strings more regularly. I haven’t tried Mandolin before, but I have one that used to belong to my father (who never played, so I’m not sure why he had it), and I would love to learn to play and will try to alternate with the ukulele here and there.

Attempt a Daily Walk / Hike / Run

Another personal goal - taking time to get outside every day! I was pretty close to achieving this goal in 2021, but this year I’m going to try harder to track my miles and make sure it happens daily. I know my mental and physical health will thank me!

Studio Time Management Plan

For 2022 I have a lot of goals, both daily and long-term. In order to support my efforts and keep myself focused, I will be using a time management app to track how I spend my studio hours. It will allow me to both share here as an educational tool about artist studio practices as well as to help me better manage my own time by focusing on the tasks most important to me, staying on a task longer, and finding those tasks I am able to outsource.

Here’s a brief look at my first short (21 hour) week of the year. I expect 3-6 hours of art-making time per day, so just under 10 hours this short week felt pretty successful. We’ll see what future weeks look like…

Bookkeeping

It’s that time of year where I start closing out my books from last year and commit to keeping up with accounting tasks on a more regular basis in the new year. While not a terribly exciting task, I know many followers are curious about how I make a living as an artist. Here’s a glimpse of my numbers for the first week of January to provide a little insight. I’ll continue giving glimpses throughout the year.

Income: $760 (monthly payment from 3rd party printer, Society6)

Expense: $74 (1 annual and 1 monthly software/app renewal)

Not much happening in the first week of the year, but the transactions have been logged and categorized in my Quickbooks account, keeping my books up to date (yay!)

I suppose you could say for the 21 hours I worked I earned about $32/hour, but if you work freelance, you know that’s not exactly how it works. I am lucky, in that I receive monthly payments from some licensing accounts and quarterly payments from others. However, the amount is generally out of my control and varies greatly. The “hourly pay” is not a helpful calculation to me either in determining what I actually earn or in determining what to charge for my art (where I’m looking at market value, not hours logged). Needless to say, my earnings will fluctuate wildly from week to week over the year. I’ll plan to showcase the ups and downs in these little weekly “studio peeks” to hopefully give you a sense of one artist’s life.

And that’s my week in a nutshell - a little making, sharing, and bookkeeping to prepare for the year ahead. I hope you had a good start to your year and have found all kinds of inspirations to keep you motivated to meet your 2022 goals!

Cheers,

Jennifer