Making 2014 Amazing!

I've been busy this month planning for an amazing year in my art business in 2014.  My first step was to create a Manifeso or statement of intentions for 2014.  Of course, it had to be "artsy".  I had a great photo of my watercolor palette that had the coolest design of my fav colors, so I cropped that out for my background and spent several days thinking of what my over-arching intentions for 2014 would be.  I found this great idea for a manifesto at Megan Auman's Designing an MBA blog.  Here's my manifesto for 2014:

In keeping with the first point in my manifesto, I decided to create a business plan for 2014.  I read tons of blogs and newsletters from artists and art business gurus for business planning ideas.  I came across the most wonderful Business Planner via Andreea Ayers.  It's the 2014 Workbook and Planner by Leonie Dawson for the incredible low price of $9.95!  It's downloadable as a PDF file that you can type all your own info into and save/print.  I just finished my plan this week and have started working on mapping out all my activities on the calendar that is also included as a separate PDF file.  Just click on the humongous link below to get your planner and see all the other great products Leonie offers. (Hint:  don't click on the "P" in the middle or it will pin it to Pinterest.  You can do that too, but to get to Leonie's site, click elsewhere in the picture.)

Another of my top intentions this year is to use my precious time wisely.  I've become more and more of a time waster in my advancing years (:-D) and find I fritter away waaay too much time on Facebook and other online sites and watch too much TV.  Sound familiar?  So my intention this year is to be much more aware of my time and capitalize on it by creating art vs wasting it.

I'm a huge procrastinator and tend to put off doing hard things by checking email, Facebook, etc rather than just getting busy and getting the hard things done and out of the way.  So that's on my list of intentions this year too.  Plus I stay up too late and then don't get an early start, and mornings are my most productive times - not on my manifesto but it gets lumped into time waster/procrastinator.

Lastly, I've already begun my intention to spend more time in nature.  I started painting with two plein air groups in our area this fall and it's been such a joy being outside in the fresh air while the weather in Florida is so wonderful!  There's nothing like nature right in front of you for true light and color.  When I get home and print out the photo of the scene I'd been working on, it is so not the same. I now see what I've been missing by only painting from photographs all these years!

I hope you have a wonderful, productive, and artsy New Year and be sure to "Buy Local & Handmade" this year as often as possible.  Artists livelihoods depend on it. :-D