Over the last few weeks of 2024, I thought about goals for 2025. Goals for blogging, drawing, and publishing, as well as a few other things.
I’ll also report on last year’s goals.
Goals for 2025
Personal Goals
As I write this post, the only thing I can think of for a 2025 goal is to continue walking laps indoors six days a week. For most of 2024, I walked 40 minutes a day. Some days I walked more. Most Sundays, I didn’t walk at all. I don’t know how far I walked or how many steps I took, but I can tell you I walked laps a total of 208 hours and 34 minutes. Outdoor walking totaled 91.3 miles.
I began walking laps for 60 minutes in January. I’m not sure I’ll maintain that pace, but it’s a good start.
One of last year’s goals was maintaining my weight between 130 and 134 pounds (I like even numbers.) I was able to do that through the grace of God. I plan to continue the maintenance program in 2025.
Art Goals for 2025
Finishing Unfinished Works
The biggest drawing goal for 2025 is also my biggest drawing goal in 2024. What is it? Finishing unfinished pieces.
I ended 2024 with one old unfinished piece, and eight new unfinished pieces. The good news is that three of the unfinished pieces are different versions of the same image. I’m not sure all of them are worthy of being finished.
Two of them were started in 2023, so they were part of my “unfinished artwork goal” for 2024. They were “Path to the Blue Mountains”, finished in February, and “Pasture Patriarch”, finished in July.
At least one unfinished piece from 2023 remains unfinished, and that’s “House Lion”. I looked at it a few times in 2024, but looking doesn’t equal drawing. So it moves ahead to my goal list for 2025, along with the eight pieces started in 2024, but not finished.
Finished Works
I’m pleased as punch to report that I finished a total of nine new drawings 4″ x 6″ or larger in 2024. That’s almost one a month, which used to be my painting goal when I was doing oils.
The first piece finished in 2024 was “Path to the Blue Mountains” above. After that, the following pieces were completed in order, beginning with the only finished client portrait for the year.
The other pieces were all practice for classes, experiments or for fun.
I also finished 63 ACEOs, thanks almost entirely to the new ACEO group I launched in the summer of 2024.
Join the ACEO Group here.
General Art-Related Goals
Another art goal for 2024 was to begin a large landscape in colored pencil. The closest I got to that was mounting a full sheet of Pastelmat to a drawing board. I even displayed that blank piece of paper on a display grid, hoping to provoke myself to getting something started. The provocation did not work!
I was thinking about removing this goal for 2025, but have to admit that I found some pretty dramatic cloud images late in 2024 that have me thinking about a big cloudscape in 2025. That prospect is more exciting than doing a more traditional landscape.
In 2024, I set a goal of drawing at least 5 hours every week. I’m happy to report that that was probably the best goal I set for the year. There were a few weeks when I didn’t make five hours a week, and a couple of weeks I didn’t even make one or two hours. But overall, it was very successful, and I had the required number of hours for the year by late November. How cool is that? I ended the year with a total of over 278 hours. The goal for the year was 262 hours.
Publishing
I’ve set publishing goals in the past, but have never shared them publicly. I don’t know why, so this year, I’m adding them to my list.
First is the magazine. My goal for 2025 is to publish 12 more issues of CP Magic. This is going to be fairly easy (I think), because it’s also an established habit. The year is nearly fully scheduled, too, so that’s a bonus.
Second, I want to get back into publishing tutorials. I published nothing new in 2024 and that’s a shame. I’m not setting a number goal for this because a lot of it depends on me making the time to make art that I can write about. But I would like to publish as least four new tutorials this year.
The good news is that after finishing the last workshop for Ann Kullberg and writing a full-length tutorial for that, I started working on the first full-length tutorial for 2025. As I write this post, it’s almost finished and ready for the proofreaders.
Spiritual Goals
My key verse for 2025 is Matthew 11:28-30.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
I will also continue memorization goals for 2025, not only because it puts the Word of God into my mind and memory. It also helps keep my brain active.
That’s always why I enjoy crossword puzzles and jigsaw puzzles. The brain work is good for my creativity!
So What’s My Big Goal for 2025?
I think this year, I want to take deliberate time to evaluate my drawing methods. As I mentioned in a newsletter in November, it came to my attention that I rarely do two drawings the same way. Even if I use the same method, I don’t seem to do things the same way every time.
The fact is that even if I do the same project twice, my methods vary.
While I don’t want to standardize the process to the point of automation, I do want to establish some sort of order to the process. If nothing else, that would help me in teaching my methods to other artists.
But I also happen to think it would make me more efficient. Since time is so important, even a little bit of efficiency would be a good thing.
My Goals for 2025 The Bottom Line
Some of my goals for 2025 are going to be challenging. But then setting easy goals doesn’t accomplish very much.
I also tend to put urgent things ahead of important things, which is a classic way to fail at keeping goals.
Maintain my weight at between 130 and 134 pounds
But I’m going to try this year, and I’m making myself accountable to all of you through the monthly studio news reports. Ready, set…
Go!
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