Hi friends!
Hope you’ve had a restful end of year and that your new year is off to a good start.
Reflecting on 2022, I’m proud of my artistic growth, but I feel like I stayed within my comfort zone when it came to pursuing my larger career goals.
My theme going into the new year is courage. It’s so tempting to hide away from the world, but I want to put myself out there more — do things that feel a little scary like querying agents, contacting art directors, and making video content.
My goals and intentions for the new year
1) Fill in portfolio gaps
With the hopes of landing more picture book projects and finding a literary agent this year, I want to work on filling "gaps" in my portfolio while also not feeling the need to wait until everything is "perfect." Specifically, I want to focus on creating more narrative scenes with complex backgrounds and more human character explorations.
2) Write picture books
Last year, I declared to myself that I wanted to pursue illustrating and writing picture books. I’ve started developing a story idea that I’m really excited about, and this year, I would like to put together at least one story manuscript. I want to push myself to keep practicing writing, despite feeling a lot of resistance and self-doubt.
3) Launch a paid subscription on my Substack
I’ve long been curious about launching a Patreon as a way for people to support my work. But since I started my Substack, I realized it could be possible to host both my free newsletter and paid content on the same platform — which makes it all a bit less overwhelming to start.
4) Start a Youtube channel
I’ve been mulling over creating a Youtube channel for years, but I’ve always let fear get in the way. I’m announcing this to you here as a way to keep myself accountable. I would like to start out by creating videos centered around documenting my process of creating illustrations for my picture book portfolio, which also ties into the first goal I mentioned — a win-win.
5) Community
One of the best things that came out of last year was joining a supportive community of picture book illustrators online. It brings me so much joy and fulfillment to be able to share this common interest and has made me feel less lonely as an artist pursuing my career goals. This year, I want to keep an emphasis on community. I’d love to make an effort to reach out to local artists in my area and have art-related meet-ups too.
6) Set boundaries around social media
I’m working on setting boundaries around how I use social media in order to make my experience more intentional and less all-consuming.
In 2022, I deleted all of my personal accounts and it has done wonders for my focus and mental health. As much as I’d like to get rid of social media completely, however, it’s still an important part of my business as an illustrator, particularly Instagram. It’s one of the primary ways people find my work. It can be a wonderful place to discover new art and make friends, but it can easily become a huge time suck. (Don’t we all know it?)
Overcoming perfectionism hurdles
I’ve made great strides over the past few years in managing my perfectionistic tendencies that get in the way of pursuing my goals, but it’s still something I struggle with regularly.
Here are some mindset shifts that have personally helped me a lot and which I often need reminding of:
Start before you’re ready.
The most common reason I find myself procrastinating is the fear that I’m not ready enough to meet the high expectations I’ve put on myself.
In reality, when I look back at anything I’ve accomplished in my journey thus far, it has always been the result of doing things I didn’t feel ready to do but figured out along the way. I’ve always found it helpful to create self-imposed deadlines, like an application deadline or an announcement to a group of people, in order to produce a sense of accountability outside of myself.
Break things down.
I have a tendency to overthink and overcomplicate things to the point where the task becomes too overwhelming to start. I’ve always found my goals to be more achievable when I break them down into smaller achievable actions that I can incrementally build on over time. I ask myself: what is the simplest action I can take right now?
Enjoy the process (it’s not just about the end result).
It’s easy to fixate on the final result and forget about the process. Things are rarely amazing on the first try. It often takes a lot of tinkering and persistence to get somewhere you’re happy. Enjoy the process, have fun, and embrace curiosity along the way — it’s usually the best part anyway!
Learning new skills takes time and practice.
That’s just the reality of it. You actually need to fail or make mistakes so you can improve on them the next time around.
In 2019, I bought a camera with the intention of making Youtube videos. I even filmed footage for a couple of videos but got discouraged by the quality (out of focus, poor lighting, hand covering my drawing) and I gave up. I learned a heck of a lot in those attempts, and now I want to keep pushing through more progress, even if it’s uncomfy.
New in the shop
This winter skating scene is now available as an art print in my INPRNT shop!
Between January 8th and 15th, get 20% off with this coupon code: IQ8MHP
Things I’ve been enjoying lately
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, which I listened to as an audiobook and resonated with a lot.
Stunning quilts by Thompson Street Studio — in love with their colour palettes and abstract shape designs.
The Lisa Congdon Sessions podcast — Lisa always hits on such relevant topics for artists, like Episode 7: Keep your eyes on your journey.
It’s entirely possible that my goals are too ambitious for 2023 (as they often are), but I know it’s okay if I don’t achieve them all. They are just there to give me direction and focus as I move through the year.
I’d love to hear from you! What are your goals or intentions for the new year?
Also, what kind of content do you like seeing in my monthly newsletter, and what would you like to see more of?
If there’s something you’ve wanted to do for a long time but have stopped yourself out of fear, I hope you can find the courage to start.
Talk soon,
Good luck with writing! I've been trying it the last few months, and it's harder than it seems! I really struggled with the perfectionism hurdles you mentioned, so you're already on a good path with those mindset shifts :)
So many nuggets of wisdom! Thank you for sharing! The “Start before you’re ready” particularly resonated.