New Year Resolutions – Developing Your 2020 Vision

If you are like me, the time from Thanksgiving this year has been even more of a blur than usual because of the shortest possible time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  However, now that Christmas has past, schedules calm down and there is time to reflect on where we have been and where we want to go.

The failed New Year’s resolution is a cultural icon.  We all automatically make the same resolutions every year, and by February they have gone by the wayside, if we even think of them again after we make them.  

The concept behind New Year’s resolutions makes sense.  We are starting a New Year, with a clean slate.  It’s the perfect time to set goals and make plans for what we want to accomplish during the year.  However, too often, we make the wrong resolutions, ones that aren’t tied to our own priorities, or we are not realistic or we don’t put a structure in place to guarantee success.  It might be also that you haven’t realistically identified and addressed the obstacles to your success.  If obstacles aren’t addressed, they stop our progress.  You might also have not created the infrastructure or support to follow through and ensure success.

However, if you approach the resolution process realistically, with resolutions that are tied to YOUR priorities, that are yours and not someone else’s, and if you identify and address obstacles to achievement and develop processes to support their achievement, in 2020, you will succeed in keeping your resolutions and making progress toward your goals.

Why Have Goals?

Having our own goals and priorities is critical to our own success and mental health.  Otherwise, we end up saying yes to things, that are someone else’s priorities, not our own.  Our time is limited.  Every time we say yes to someone else’s priorities, we are saying no to our own.  We end up doing a lot of things we don’t want to do – we lose our right to live life by our own priorities.  We end up resenting the people who made the requests.

The key to get out of this cycle is to have our own priorities clear in our minds at all times.  This blog will discuss how to determine our priorities and set goals that can been turned into resolutions, and then creating a support system that will help in achieving these priorities. 

What Are Your Priorities?

Your resolution need to be tied to your priorities – for example, identifying and nurturing the people, causes, and spiritual connections that have meaning for you,  or achieving personal or professional goals.

A good way to start is to determine what is important to you in each aspect of your life:

·      Personal/ Self

·      Family

·      Friends

·      Community

·      Career

Not all aspects of our life will be equally important to us at any point in time.  However, you would want to look at each aspect of your life to see if you are neglecting an aspect of your life, and whether you will want to reassess your focus.  

What are your goals?  What do you want to achieve? Short term?  Mid term?  Creating and really understanding our individual goals takes time.  Consider your wants, desires, aspirations and concerns.  What is important to you? 

You might want to distill your priorities into a single overarching focus.  Start with a list of interests that are motivating you and try to summarize them into a single phrase that captures their essence.

 Test your goals.  Envision what achieving this goal would mean to your life.  This can help you see how important this goal is to you.  If you are inspired and energized by the vision of you achieving this goal, then great!  If you can’t envision this being important to you, then its time to look at something else.  Also look at the goal from the other side -- What are the consequences of your not following through on the resolutions?

Be realistic.  If you are like me, you get enthusiastic and come up with too many priorities.  Then, when I can’t work on or make progress on all of them, because I just don’t have the time, I get frustrated, and disillusioned.  Consider all the goals you have set against the time you have available to work on them, and prioritize.  Other goals which are not for immediate focus can still be in the background, on a long term vision board, etc., to be readdressed periodically and moved to the forefront in the future.

Creating a Structure for Success

 Sometimes we have set priorities and goals that are right for us, but we haven’t created an environment that will help us succeed.  We need to look at both obstacles that might be impeding our goals and how having a support system can help us succeed.  

What are the obstacles in our paths that stop us from keeping on our resolutions?  Consider your goals and think of what obstacles might hinder your attaining the goal.  Some obstacles are internal to us, and others are external.  

·      Internal obstacles may include time, as already discussed.  Others might include experience, confidence, 

·      External obstacles may include resources, decisions that are not ours to make, help needed from others, etc.

Look at each of your priorities and think about what obstacles could exist.  What can you do to address the obstacle?  

 Reviewing your goals and potential obstacles will help you create an infrastructure to help you achieve your objectives.  Having a personal support system in place can help you be successful.  Your support system might include friends and family that know and support your goals and will help you with resources, introductions, encouragement, etc.  

Review Your Goals Periodically

Most of us create New Year’s resolutions and promptly forget about them – never reviewing them.  It’s important to set a predetermined time – say once a month– to revisit and revise your goals and plan based on what you have learned.

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Having our own goals top of mind keeps us focused on what is important to us, and enhances the probability that we will achieve our New Year’s resolutions.

By the way, one of my 2020 goals is to create teaching videos and post them on this blog. I have been posting some timelapsed videos of my demos on Facebook, but its time to step it up. Knowing my need for equipment, several of my students bought me a tripod, microphone and iphone mount for Christmas — so that barrier is gone! I’m committing to you — look for more blogging with videos in 2020. I’ll have to work out logistics, but I now have a plan. Good luck with your goals and your plan!

Always Reconsider Your Work: Is Your Composition Strong?

I recently entered a painting into a major competition.  After I entered the painting, I looked at it using the Value Viewer app.  I  realized that I didn’t have enough darks in the painting, and the composition wasn’t strong. The juror in that competition must have agreed, because the painting didn’t get accepted.   I was glad, because it gave the opportunity to create more value changes.

I had painted what was in my image, and had forgotten a key concept – the painting has to stand alone.  No one is going to have your image when they look at your painting. Just because your painting looks like your image doesn’t mean it’s a good painting.  The image may not have the value changes you want in the right part of the composition.   You must create an interesting composition and value changes are one of your tools.  Are your darkest darks against your lightest lights in or near your center of interest?  Or, do you have a dark against a light that is dragging the viewer’s eye to a secondary part of the painting?  Do you have enough darks, middle values and lights?  You control your composition.  You are making the decisions where the dark, middle and light values should go.  You need to move your viewer’s eye through the composition, and if the image you chose doesn’t have the compositional elements you need to accomplish this, you need to add them.  You can change the values, lose edges, make some more prominent, change the colors, etc.

Here is the image of my painting Trail Boss as originally painted, with the Value View scale of darks and lights.  As you can see, the head of the subject wasn’t connected to the bottom of the painting, and there wasn’t enough middle or dark areas.  The light value area was too big.

After I got the rejection, I reworked the values, particularly the shirt and pants on the left and the background to the left.  The result is a much better painting.

Value viewer is a great tool to use to check your values.  I use the app on my iphone.

The next time I entered the painting, the juror agreed – Alafia Trail Boss has been selected for the 2017 Watercolor West exhibit.

Simplify Your Composition with Values

The effective use of values can create the composition.  It can help you pull the viewer to your center of interest, and make sure that the viewer sees what is important to you.

Skulls

I am not necessarily religious about doing a values study before I paint.  Sometimes I can see the values in the image and have an idea before I start painting.  The act of drawing can help me understand and work out the issues in my painting related to values.  Values studies are particularly helpful to seeing how to connect the portrait to the background, and what edges to loose in the process.

In Skulls, I had been trying to focus on contrast and making sure my darks are really dark. I keep my camera with me at all times, constantly looking for images that might make good paintings. I saw this individual watching the musicians playing at a Sunday farmers’ market (bright sunny days typically give me images with good shadows) and only after reviewing the image in the studio did I notice the skulls on his jacket.  I particularly liked how I could compose the painting drawing the viewer’s attention around the man’s crossed arms.  I also wanted to connect him to the background, which I did usingIndanthrone Bluein his hat and the background.  Also, I like to use complementary colors in my paintings, and loved being able to use purples and Quinacridone Gold of his wrist.   I paint vertically because I want to see my entire painting while I am working.  When I paint flat, the image is distorted.  Also, with my loose style of painting, I get these wonderful drips by painting vertically.  

Jewelry Seller

Jewelry Seller Study was a study for a more finished painting, with an emphasis on values.  It turned out to be better than the finished painting.  This painting was all about the strong shadow across the woman’s face, connecting to the shadow down her neck and jacket.  The study also helped me see how to connect her to the background, enhancing the composition.

Drawing is the Framework For Your Painting

Many artists can’t wait to start painting.  However, the success of your painting will depend on the quality of your drawing.  Think of your drawing as a framework or scaffolding that you hang your colors on.  The scaffolding has to hold together or the entire thing will fall down.

Many times, I get half way through a painting and can’t figure out why something looks off – it doesn’t work.  I know I need to get out my pencil and start measuring.  Inevitability, something is off in my drawing.  I find it is so important throughout my painting process to continually check my drawing.

A good drawing provides a quality framework for any painting.  If you have a good drawing, you can start painting loosely, connecting colors and letting them blend on the paper, knowing that your dark and light marks will be effective, and that your colors laid down next to each other will blend beautifully.  

The Last Painting of Ana

The Last Painting of Ana was created at the end of a life drawing session, when I had 1 hour left on the pose.  After I got my drawing down, I could place colors next to each other, letting them mix on the page.  I had the assurance that I had a good framework.  The result is a very effective and loose painting that asks the viewer to use his/her eye to see the darks and lights and interpret the painting.