white-roseFinishedToday’s artwork is an 11 x 22 inch mixed-media piece on cardboard, with dimensional embellishments. I worked on it for two days last week, showing progress shots to the patrons of my Patreon page, where there’s also a publicly-accessible fast-motion video with captions on how it was created. That video was subsidized by my lovely patrons.

I finished this piece on Friday, and sold it on Saturday, for the “give me my materials cost, and get it out of my house” price, because this one needs a home where it will be loved, rather than getting shoved into the flat art drawer, where it would doubtless have all its dimensional work rubbed off.

All of this is part of the overall plan for 2015. It starts with a weekly schedule, because this last year, I pretty much worked on whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, got very little done, and made almost no money to speak of. That can’t really go on for another year, so I decided that I need deadlines, and a plan, and that these should reflect where I want to go, rather than where I’ve been before. The schedule looks something like this:

  • Week 1 – Kits by mail. One each month.
  • Week 2 – How-to video for Patreon, with an associated article for Go Make Something.
  • Week 3 – Make art for personal growth. If it’s any good, list it for sale at Saatchi Art. If it’s interesting, film it, and turn it into a captioned fast-motion video for Patreon.
  • Week 4 & 5 – Online class development.

That’s pretty wide open. I’m leaving myself way more time than I need for all of those things, so that maybe I can work in stuff like blogging here, or cleaning up my garden.

I started on the plan schedule this month, because as of December 1st, I was free of the A Year of Altered Books lessons, and suddenly had a wide-open calendar. So, I put together a kit. Then I made some postcards, and did a video on how I made them, and wrote an article on handmade postcard basics. Then I made this piece, and a video on how it went together. It’s the 3rd week of December, and I’m already up to week 4 on the schedule.

Deadlines. They really do it for me.

So, a lot of 2015’s action will be focused on Patreon, where people are paying me a buck or two or five or ten for each video I create. You should probably head over there and sign up to be a patron if you want access to videos and progress photos, and the ability to ask me questions about my process.

You’re gonna be over there anyway, watching a video. Why not throw a buck onto the pile, and get access to all the patron-only stuff?