2019 Review

So this is a little bit late! But it's important to look back at what you've accomplished from time to time to see your progress, but also to help you to decide where to go next.

At the start of 2019 I did not have a regular art or design habit.  I decided to enter the Spoonflower design challenge every week as a means to help me get into the habit, but also as a way to improve my design skills.  After all practice makes perfect.  I managed to enter all but 9 of the 47 challenges, so I'm happy that I achieved my goal.  

I had one excellent result, where I placed 45th out of 760 entries with my "Dancing Blossom" design.  This also spurred me on to create my first and (so far) only collection. 

Some results were pretty good, some were pretty bad - generally I was fairly middle of the table.  (I created a spreadsheet to track my progress!).  The one thing that I consistently struggled with was time!  I almost always found myself starting the actual design process a few hours before the submission deadline and subsequently rushing to complete it.  That also left me no time for revisions, which very often showed.  

These were my top 10 designs (according to my placement in the Spoonflower design challenges):

1. Dancing Blossom - Yellow (Limited Palette Challenge)
2. A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies (Kaleidoscope Challenge)
3. Let Me Play Among The Stars - (Playmats Challenge)
4. Lacy Neutral (Neutral Retreat Challenge)
5. Be Kind (Affirmations Challenge)
6. Diamania (Pysanky Challenge)
7. Spanish Trig (Cheater Quilt Challenge)
8. All The 20s (2020 Tea Towel Calendar Challenge)
9. Victorian Picture Postcards (Retro Postcards Challenge)
10. Merboys (Boy Wonder Challenge)

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Many of the above designs are also available in my Redbubble and Society 6 shops.

So what's in store for 2020?  Well, many of the designs that I created in 2019 used graphics that I had purchased (Diamania, Spanish Trig and Merboys being the exception in the above list).  So this year I want to improve my drawing skills and create more designs featuring my own original artwork.  I think that that will really help me to discover and hence develop my own unique style.