8 Things I Do to Kick Off a New Year of Art

I’ve always loved the new year as an artist. It’s a blank slate (sometimes quite literally). Each year represents a new body of work. It’s fun to look at the past year and see how far I’ve come. Over the years, I’ve developed little rituals to wrap up the previous year and position myself to make my best art in the following year.

Today I’m talking about these rituals in hopes that one or several inspire you. Only good things can come out of doing these exercises. Your art will only be better for it, I promise.

1. Organize Last Year’s Work

Those of you who have been following along here for a while know that I’m pretty nerdy about my art filing system. I have black archival boxes for each year. These boxes used to be 9x12, and now they’re 11x17 because I started making larger work. I put each art piece (along with the sketches associated with it) in an archival sleeve. Then, I neatly place each sleeve in the box facing up. I have a google doc where I list everything that’s in each box (by order), in case I need to find something again. Trust me, this is a great habit! After 10 years of making art, I have no idea which box contains what. I’ve often had to refer back to past work, and this makes everything easy to find.

2. Critique Last Year’s Work

While I’m organizing my work, I look back at everything I made last year and decide what my favorite pieces are. I typically choose 10, but you could choose 5 or even 3 depending on how much art you make. This includes work in my boxes, but also sketchbook and client work. I usually scan my social media and website too so I can remember everything I made. Then, I list what I like about my chosen pieces. I commit to make more work like that in the future. It can help to keep a Pinterest board or folder of your favorites as well. You can even share on a blog like I typically do. You’d be surprised how many artists don’t stop to think about the kind of work they’ve been making versus the kind of work they want to be making. It’s one of the best things you can do for your personal style.

3. Purge & Freshen Up Studio

This is so necessary. By the end of the year, I have worn down pencils, icky brushes and dried paints to throw away. I have misprints cluttering my shelves and supplies out of order. Starting the new year with a clean studio just makes me happy. I love redecorating too. I like changing out the art on my walls and adding new plants and decor.

4. Do a Big Supplies Order

Anything I need to rebuy, I do in January. I usually do a large Dick Blick order of paper, paints, pencils, and brushes. I add new supplies I want to try to this order as well. Speaking of new supplies, I went all in on yellow Winsor & Newton gouache this month. You can check out my video here that I made on my favorite shades of yellow:

I always order shipping supplies and ink for my printers too, so I’m all set to run my print shop.

5. Set Big Goals

I’ve never start a new year without setting goals for my art. It’s okay if I don’t accomplish them all, but it’s helpful to have some kind of compass that tells me what I need to work on. This year my goals are:

• Publish my first children’s book

• Write and illustrate my second children’’s book

• Get my art in a major magazine

• Start posting regularly on Youtube

• Get back to monthly blog posts, art prints, and newsletters

Then, I use a monthly worksheet and a daily 3x3 task list to help me tackle these goals (by 3x3, I mean 3 personal and 3 professional things to accomplish per day).

6. Do a Digital & Financial Audit

After a year of cranking out work, files get messy and my desktop gets messy. I’m often subscribed to a bunch of services/platforms I’m no longer using. I make a point to get my digital space in order at the start of the new year. I assess what payments I’m making that I’ve forgotten about. To do this, I check my business credit card statements. This can be a good time to review your income statements as well to see what you spent money on last year. Is there anything you spent a lot of time on that just isn’t paying out? Maybe it’s time to redirect your energy this year.

7. Learn Something New

There’s nothing like kicking off the new year by letting my curiosity run wild. Since I have children’s books on the mind, I’ve been watching Youtube videos about them. I’ve also decided to start a little children’s book collection for inspiration. It’s fun to choose something you’re passionate about and commit to learning about it first thing. This is a great time to take a course too. I’m looking into courses on creating children’s books.

8. Choose a Word for the Year

I made a practice of this long ago and it’s served me well. The word usually applies to my art and personal life. This year, my word is discipline. With a one year old, a lot of things have fallen through the cracks this past year (as to be expected). This year, I want to work smarter not harder - being adamant about keeping a schedule and following through on the promises I’ve made to myself.