How did 2023 go? And what’s in store for 2024?

January 2023 saw me with a broken fibula, putting stay to most of my art activity. However, I noticed an advertisement for a drawing course with Ian Roberts. Drawing is easy to do while sitting down, so I took that on and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here’s a link to a blog about the first part of the course. It led to two further components of Ian’s “Mastering Composition” course, which I also enjoyed.

Above are just a few of the many images I created during the course. It kept me busy all year!

I still managed to enter exhibitions. A total of 18 locally and 3 interstate. The plan was to branch out this year, so I dipped my toe into interstate waters.

There were three sales – “Switchback” and “Swell” (above) and “Mickey’s Beach” (below). All sold at local exhibitions. The sales covered overall entry costs, with some pocket money left over for art gear. It’s big business here folks!

“Mickeys Beach” was drawn in Mastering Composition course style at the Huon Art Exhibitions Group’s En Plein Air weekend. It was then exhibited in Cygnet at The Cygnet Gallery.

There was another interesting short course that I participated in – “5 Days to Jaw Dropping Art” with Jessica Serran. (It resulted in the painting below. Not sure it’s jaw dropping though!) We used some interesting concepts to boldly work on our piece. The course left me with some varied ways to look at things.

“Divergent” (below) is a painting that developed out of that process. I think it may, in time, lead to something new, but experimenting with that is on hold until the time is right …. or there are more hours in the day!

When Mastering Composition finished in early November, I followed up with Rick Crossland‘s En Plein Air workshop. Four Saturday mornings painting en plein air, one of which was too wet for paint outside. It was thoroughly enjoyable and helped launch me further into en plein air painting. Here are a couple of pieces that were painted at the workshop sessions.

It was a busy year with lots of learning. A large number of exercise paintings and drawings were the result. I won’t be exhibiting most of them since some aren’t from my own source material, and others just don’t meet my expectations.

Another highlight during the year was this little collagraph print being highly commended at one of The Art Society of Tasmania’s member exhibitions.

As for 2024, I have in mind to get stuck into consolidating 2023 learnings, improving my skills, and producing work to exhibit. I’ll be revisiting acrylic abstracts and trying some printmaking. Plus, of course, entering exhibitions whenever possible. (Though, a year without much exhibition-suitable art being produced might limit opportunities somewhat.)

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