Happy New Year!
I’ve been getting my ducks lined up for the new year ahead – what about you?
What’s on your creative agenda for 2026?
With no chores hanging over me, I loved having time to sketch at our Airbnb every morning over Christmas week. This is Tom Leonard, Scottish Poet, painted from a photo I took at the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland, of a bronze bust by Alex Main (love what Main has to say in this short YouTube video)
Now that December’s festivities and accompanying chores are in the rearview, I’m pretty excited to get back into the studio. Sketchbook time and logging ideas/notes in my studio journal is a given, but otherwise last month’s change of scene (Christmas in Berkeley) and a holiday project for our new grand baby, were a good reset. Taking a breather – whether chosen or imposed – can be a very productive way to keep the creative juices flowing. Or maybe it’s just that absence from the studio makes the heart long to get back to it…or something like that.
The best way to learn about values is to minimize them
And suddenly it’s January — a month that I find tends to be relatively spacious and under-scheduled compared to the other eleven — or does it just seem that way because December is always overflowing? Either way, the weeks of January give us a chance to act on the new year’s sense of possibility. And that in itself is a gift.
A section of our yard, in greener days
My guidepost for the next month (and hopefully beyond) will be one of James Clear’s ideas from his most recent 3-2-1 Thursday Newletter:
“To learn, wander. To achieve, focus.”
I’m planning to put both approaches into action. I am following Peggy Kroll Roberts on Patreon and just enrolled in Lena Rivo’s course “Color Mastery”, which will give me a chance to dive deeply into gouache, as well as, I hope, new ways to think about incorporating stitching.
It was rainy and gray almost every day we were away which, frankly, I don’t mind. It helps other colors sing
Time to get to work!
And best of luck to you as you jump into 2026.