Saturday, January 2, 2010

2010 Goals

Around Thanksgiving my sister started talking about doing a Project 365 during 2010. She wanted to take a picture a day, every day for the entire year. Being the supportive sister that I am, I tried to talk her out of it. Committing to EVERY day - that's just insane. I suggested a project 52 instead (one photo a week for the year) or a project 30 (one photo every day for a month). Nope. She wanted the full 365.

At Christmas she said she was still thinking about it. I just shook my head.

When I saw her a few days after Christmas she told me that if I would do it with her, she would do it. WHAT?! No way!! I couldn't commit to a painting a day! It would take too much time. And I already had goals in mind for this year. Goals like...
  • complete 3 new charcoals for my tap series,
  • complete 3 new watercolors for my "Locally Grown" series and
  • try a couple of tap pieces in watercolor.
I need these larger pieces to complete my goal of entering a couple of juried shows. I don't have time for a Project 365. End of discussion.

But she had planted a seed. And it started to take root. So a half an hour before we walked out the door on New Year's Eve, I sent her an email. I said if she was still interested in the photo project, I'd sign on with her. But since I haven't totally lost my mind and I don't want to give up on my other goals, I committed to complete a sketch a day, every day for the entire year.

Truthfully, I'm scared silly. I don't know if I can achieve this goal. It feels like a huge stretch for me. But stretching is good for me, right? If I don't stretch, how will I ever test my limits?

So below you see the first of my 365 sketches - a holiday noise maker. As a result of this project, you will probably see me posting more sketches to my blog this year than I have in the past. And while I promise to be honest about my progress on this project, I am not committing to posting every day or even every sketch. That would be stretching just a little too far I think.


Pitt sepia brush pen in Moleskine cahier pocket sketch book
copyright 2010 Stacy L. Rowan

7 comments:

Jennifer Rose said...

good for both of you! 365s can be a lot of fun (I ran out of ideas for mine but I'm thinking of doing another one)

sketching everyday will help a lot (at least thats what my teachers tell me lol)

Eric said...
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Rose Welty said...

Stacy I think it's doable. Especially if on the days that you are working on the other projects your daily sketch is just a warm up. I think it is very brave of you. I'm sure it will benefit you greatly. I wish I had that sort of stickability.

It is going to be a great year for you! Can't wait!

M J Muir said...

I know you are up to this. I am thinking maybe you could do a series of ten at a time and then upload them as each day goes by. (In order to cover emergencies and life events that always interfere with drawing time) Just a thought.
And last night I watche Julie & Julia..have you seen it yet? Because of the story line, it might inspire you for the project? OR perhaps it has already?
In any case at the end of this new year you will have a huge body of drawings and I can't wait to see what you do with this.
Happy New Year Stacy!

Stacy said...

Thanks Jennifer! I hope that I see my sketching improve over the year both in speed and accuracy. But I admit I am a little worried about running out of subjects to interest me, especially on the days that I don't have time to go out and sketch.

Rose, I haven't decided yet if it is brave or crazy. I'll let you know. :)

MJ, I haven't seen Julie & Julia yet. I'll have to rent it sometime. I do plan to do a couple of extra sketches to keep in reserve in case I don't get a sketch done one day, but I'm really going to try to stick to the everyday approach. Otherwise I might be tempted to sit down and knock out all 365 in one shot, which would change the essence of the project a bit.

Thanks for your support ladies! I really appreciate it and think I'm going to need it as this project goes on.

Julie Dunion said...

Hi Stacy, I came across your link in Making a Mark. I'm incredibly impressed that you are going to take on this challenge. I hope you get a lot out of all that sketching practice. Great blog you have here, I'll be following your progress in google reader :-)

Stacy said...

Julie, thank you for visiting and for your encouragement! I too am hoping to learn a lot from this daily sketching practice. Tomorrow starts the real test because the vacation days are over.