A quarterly review of Goals 2009

I have always been an advocate of timely feedback and goal reviews, since it always helps to set things right sooner than later. Last year I was not really acting on the goals, I was doing a lot many other things and I just forgot about them. This year though, things are going good and I'd like to review and revise them now, that we are one quarter into the year.

Summer fields - Work in progress
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan




Here are my goals that I published in December 2008 - they were very very conservative, keeping last year in mind. I tried to play it very safe. I wanted to participate in all the VSDs, but I had to miss the February's. My other goal was to do 10 DSFDF challenges, and I am glad I have already done 4 so far this year. 10 looks rather easy now, so I will change that to 15.

I did not have a goal on a specific number of paintings that I should complete during the year. I have never had such a goal. But, I am extremely happy I have completed around 30 paintings so far (this is including my entries for VSD, DSFDF etc). This is more than the number of paintings I did in the last five years put together! Not to forget the dozen paintings that are in progress, what youe see in this post is also one of them. So I am giving it a shot to complete 100 paintings by end of the year, lets see how it goes. I know that I also had a goal that I should work on one painting at a time and take it to completion. That however has not been possible, and I just left it at that. Some people have a compulsion to multi task and it is best left alone :)

The biggest plus this quarter has been how much I have ventured out of my comfort zone. I always considered myself primarily a landscape artist, who occasionally did other subjects. I never ever thought I'd be doing still lifes for about 75% of my time, but thats what has been happening now. I am having a blast with all these still lifes, since they have been well received and I got some very positive feedback for them. I will be doing more still lifes, and I predict that will constitute a majority this year.

I have done figurative paintings in my winter series, something that I never really bothered to do before. I have also been working consciously on my figure/portrait drawing skills by carrying my sketchbook with me whenever possible. I try to sketch my daughter at home when she is busy with something. I don't post most of these to the blog, but I know I am at it anyway.

As promised, I have also started selling originals now, though not from my blog. I am offering original small paintings from my Etsy store. Most of all, I have been blogging regularly all my paintings and WIPs. It gives me great pleasure to share the WIPs with my readers, more than the completed paintings. And it also keeps me going when I don't feel like it once in a while. Also, though not very important, I have redesigned my blog completely and I like how it looks now. I hope you do too. I am in the process of updating the website, I am moving it to another service provider, and will post the details soon as I should be done anytime now.

I hope the rest of my year is as good as its been so far. We'll do this once again every quarter. How are you doing so far?