When I was growing up Life Magazine had an issue each year called The Year in Pictures. It was a collection of their best, most interesting, most relevant, most shocking, most political…you get the idea. It was the American perspective on the past year – in pictures. I don’t know if they still do it. I don’t even know if there is still an entity known as Life Magazine. As a concept though, this The Year in Pictures idea is a fabulous way for artists to look back and assess their progress over the previous year. LOOK at your pictures. It’s an opportunity to assess the growth, concept development, colour palettes and shapes that define a body of work. It’s a chance to recognize that you do indeed have a body of work.
Perhaps for some artists a collection of digital pictures is the core of their painting memories. Or perhaps the artist always begins with a smaller study before committing to a canvas so they have a pile of paintings that they consider to be less than, but are actually an important body of work in and of themselves. For many a pile of journals is what records idea development, colour palettes and doodles. Most likely, the artist, like me, has an archive of all of the above – digital pictures, studies in which concepts were developed, and a pile of journals filled with sketches and doodles.
For me my archive’s largest body is a cupboard filled with journals and studies and some small canvases that form a record of my learning process. While some may evoke a cringe when I look at them, all of these little goodies have a memory, an emotion attached – good or bad – that when looked at from a fresh perspective show me how I have developed as an artist. Shifts in my colour palette stand out. New brush marks are created and become a staple of my work. Attempts at a new style, new topic, new technique; they are all recorded here in my cupboard.
The rapid approach of 2025 has triggered me to take an opportunity to throw open the doors to my painting journey by looking back at 2024, the events and my body of work. I’ve gone through my archives, seen the changes that have taken hold while I develop my voice, and noticed the direction that my art is currently headed in. While I listen to Christmas songs on Spotify for likely the last time in 2024, here are my thoughts on my artistic development in 2024.
FIRST PROGRAM OF THE YEAR: I started 2024 with a fantastic 10-day program from Carrie Brummer at Artist Strong. Each day, for 10 days, she gave a prompt to be used to guide the work on your painting for that day. For me, I chose an abstract concept and spent 10 days building layers that in the end became a painting that is much loved in our home – Our Village. I had no idea where I was going with this painting. I just let my instincts guide me. I was free from reference photos. I used a new grouping of colours. I made shapes that I’m most attracted to in the world around me. I tried new techniques. Each day the painting would be covered with new shapes and colours as layers were built. It was all so freeing as there was no preconceived outcomes.
CONTINUAL STUDIES: The next big event of the year occurred as I was speculating on taking yet another course. At the time I was developing new colour stories while also working through Mitchell Albala’s book “The Landscape Painter’s Workbook”, which is a master class in painting – fabulous book!. Mr. D said something that would be pivotal in my painting journey. It went like this, “Blah, blah, blah, Jaclyn just stop taking classes and paint, blah, blah, blah.” The Blah, blah, blah by the way is all the other things he said to me that just went in one ear and out the other, such that what I took away from this conversation with my loving husband was that I needed to throw aside my teachers’ work and make my own. Mr. D, by the way, loves my painting, Our Village, so naturally my brain flipped to the idea that I needed to work in layers, I needed to throw aside reference photos, and I needed to work intuitively. That’s a big idea for a girl who’s been tethered to the ideas of her teachers for two years.
BIRTH OF A COLLECTION: Then on March 17th I had a synesthesia event triggered by the song A Million Dreams (Collabro version). I was mixing colours in my perpetual exploration of colour and suddenly I saw a combination of colours for my limited sliding scale palette. (You can read the story here.) This was the beginning of my collection, A Million Dreams, the first pieces becoming a submission to a group show – my first show ever and then my first sale ever! This was also the point at which I knew that there was a connection between the music I listened to and my paintings. Now I create only when listening to upbeat music.
FLOWERS, FLOWERS, FLOWERS: By the end of April, I was working in a very different way. The music drove the colours, the shapes, the FLOWERS. Specific songs triggered specific paintings. Certain sounds and key rhythms drove my brush strokes. I discovered that my brain didn’t want to paint landscapes. What was once my sole focus now became foreign to me. Every morning my brain wanted flowers. Flowers and more flowers. Just flowers. My teachings involved very few flowers though, which is perhaps why my flowers are developing still. Each new painting sees a subtle shift. When I look at my first favourite painting, Elle, which was created in May 2024 and compare her to my latest favourite, Glory, (created in December 2024) I can clearly see the similarities, but Glory has a bold confidence in the brush strokes that didn’t exist back in May. In both paintings though I can see the joy I felt while locked in those musical painting moments.
LET’S GET DIRTY: While my favourite painters all tend to use bright, intense, saturated colours, and the A Million Dreams collection uses a lot of saturated colours, personally I love painting with what I call dirty colours – desaturated colours. In October, 2024 a song came on my playlist – Flowers, by Miley Cyrus. Now Miley has this beautifully, dirty, raspy voice that immediately triggered a need to adjust my palette to a mix of dirty colours as the primaries.
Typically, I would used Iron Oxide, Prussian Blue and Van Dyke Red as my primaries, but by this time my sliding scale concept for mixing colours from a limited palette was the only way I wanted to mix colours, so I created my own custom dirty colours by adding raw umber to my favourite yellow, red and blue. What a beautiful palette this is. I get excited each time I need to mix a new tray of colours. The saturated colours are still available to me, but the bulk of the colours have at least a touch of my custom grey added to them. I tested the new palette with a set of 5 paintings that I consider to be studies. They are pretty paintings with colours that I love, however when late November saw my music shift to contemporary Christmas music, I created a shift in my sliding scale and painted Glory. She’s spectacular with her blooms boldly pushing off the canvas. She hasn’t been properly photographed yet, but once she is I’ll tell her story.
LITTLES: In November I started the habit of creating what I call Littles while also painting larger paintings. They are 4, 5, and 6 inch squares. Some ¾” thick, others 1.5”. Once my studio is completely renovated, there will be a wall with a collection of my flowers. All shapes, all sizes, all colours. These little beauties are a great opportunity for me to learn to understand the abstracted marks that I make that create blooms as you move back away from the canvas.
THE PLAN FOR 2025: I know there are pivotal points that I haven’t touched on but you can only natter away for so long, so let’s look at 2025. So what’s coming? Who knows for sure? Definitely a print release that I’m working on with Mr. D. Also a surface pattern collection, which will be based on my new collection Glorious. This is where I will develop patterns that entwine my paintings with digital treatments. There are also potential directions that are dependent on outside factors. Collaboration opportunities. There are two juried shows coming up this winter. And I’ve applied for an Artist Residency. That’s all so far. But when I look at it all, all I can think is that “Man plans, God laughs.” (Especially when he finds out that we’re finally renovating my studio.)
True Story!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope that your 2025 is a creative and joyous 12 months!