From Studio Notes on March 9, 2025
I am so happy to finally have the privilege of finding the balance between studio work and desk work. I started this week expecting to be able to spend a whole day down in the studio. I was so excited.
Unfortunately, that did not quite turn out the way I was hoping. I think it was a bit like trying to go for a long run to jump back in, when you haven’t gone for a run in months. It didn’t work out so well. While I still had fun, I just had a hard time knowing where to start.
So, for now, I’ve decided to take it easy starting studio work once more. I’m going back to my tried-and-true routine. I get up early to drink coffee and read as the sun rises. Then I head to my desk and get those admin tasks done right away. I find it harder to focus on these tasks, and my focus is best in the morning, so it’s most efficient to do these right away.
However, I think I’m learning that although my focus is best in the morning, that doesn’t necessarily mean my creativity goes along with that. I actually find it very easy to paint in the afternoon, when I don’t need as much discipline or focus. My studio (as I talk about below) is a lot harder to get distracted in than on my desk at my computer. Also, in the afternoon the sun streams into my studio, and it’s a lot warmer, so it is a lot more comfortable to open my studio door.
As always, I will continue to experiment with my schedule to find the one that flows the best and has the least amount of friction. I am so happy to have this studio space and time to paint once more!
From Studio Notes on February 9, 2025
As I’ve come home to snow on the ground, below freezing temperatures all day and night, some beautiful sunshine, and my two cats, I find a deep comfort in routine and motivation to work on my business. It’s back to the real world: here are my main priorities for the remainder of February.
First things first, I amgoing to set up an outdoor booth and take pictures of it. This way, I can apply to the many outdoor art festivals this spring and summer. I have nearly everything I need, now I just need to set it all up. It’s a bit scary, as you need to be conscientious of how weather and being outdoors will affect the booth. However, for now, I just need to set it all up in order to apply, and I can figure out all the logistics later.
I am planning to release a big shop launch on March 1st! I am so excited to release some new prints and cards that I’ve only sold in-person. I still have a lot of details to iron out, but stay tuned for more information! It will be my debut online for my collection SEAK (standing for Southeast Alaska), as well as my three most recent paintings of the trees and waves.
I am so ready to have a studio space again. I need to finish deep-cleaning the floors (as it used to be a garage, there is a lot of dirt buildup), paint the walls white, and of course move all my supplies in. I would like to finish this ASAP so I can get back into painting. I really miss it.
I am also finishing up the design of a new section for my website for these Studio Notes! I want to have a backlog of all of them, and also allow for a reader to browse through different topics. I want to have that as a resource and also another way to show what I am doing creatively, right there on my website!
I am not sure when I will finish this up, but definitely before the end of the month. I will let you all know when that happens.
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From Studio Notes on January 27, 2025
2024 was the first year I worked on my art and developing it into a business full-time. And I am so proud of what I accomplished.
I sold my first prints and cards on my website, opening on April 1st of 2024. While I closed my online shop in July, and haven’t opened it since, I am working on the next stage and can’t wait to see what that brings. And while the traffic on my online shop was a bit slow, the sales I made enabled me to work towards my next big endeavor: art markets.
I showed my work at three art markets in October through December, and the sales from those made up over half of my income for my business in 2024. Not only that, but seeing people in person, and watching them interact and connect with my art, was extremely fulfilling. Moving forward, I would love to prioritize art markets and in-person interactions with my audience.
What could I have done better? My biggest struggle was consistency on social media. I have come to the realization that I just don’t like Instagram. I’m not a big fan of it for my personal life, and growing an audience on that platform as an artist is exhausting and not fun. Moving forward, I will use it as a kind of easily-accessible portfolio, to help people in-person connect and remember who I am. But I really want to push my email lists and Studio Notes into priority with reaching my audience.
I am so proud of all the paintings I have finished this year. I really found my flow and creative freedom, experimenting and delving into details and landscapes. Looking back, I tried to find my favorite painting from 2024. Not only for the final outcome, but for the whole process and what it meant to me. I could not narrow it down to one, however. So these are my two favorites.
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This Land’s Heartbreak. This painting is so close to my heart. It is inspired by Tracy Arm Fjord in Southeast Alaska, and more specifically a poem I wrote inspired by this fjord a couple years ago. I started out by writing the poem on the canvas, and painting thin layers of acrylics over it, dripping and glazing, transparency slowly building up, until I switched to oils and started on the details. Every time I worked on this painting, I was in the flow state. This is what I want my paintings to feel like: authentically me with a messy, beautiful creative process, and I love how it makes me feel.
In the Flow. In case you couldn’t tell, a main focus for me last year was to find the flow state, to go with the flow, to be in the flow. Flow was my word of the year. And this title, In the Flow, is the best way to describe this painting. I used a grainy, zoomed-in reference photo I took years ago in Ocean Shores, and I put it through my creative process, and in the end I have this painting I am absolutely in love with. If I had to show what creativity looks and feels like to me, it would be this painting. I only used acrylics, soft body, and I just had a blast layering and layering and adding details through yet more layers. I am so proud of this painting, not only the outcome of the finished piece, but my whole mindset and creative process throughout creating it.
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From Studio Notes on January 27, 2025
My main word/phrase for this year, in both my life and my creative work, is “slow down”. I want to slow down, embrace the season I am in, live in the moment. Slow down and work on the details, take time and make sure I’m taking a creative work as far as I can. Whatever I’m doing, whether it be painting, writing emails, or prepping inventory, I want to be 100% focused on what is in front of me. I also, at the same time, want to embrace imperfections, knowing that that is what makes an artwork (and life) compelling and meaningful.
I want to build a daily creative practice. To do so, I acquired the Hobonichi Techo, a6 size. This journal includes daily pages, and so far I have been consistent with filling a page each day. It can be anything, from a quick landscape sketch, to a doodle, to scribbling down colors. Whatever I am feeling in that moment. I have been having so much fun with this so far, and cannot wait to see the long-term impacts this habit has on my work.
Another goal I have is to schedule and embrace different seasons in my life. For example, I just moved. So right now, the season that I’m in is unpacking and settling in, designing my spaces, and cultivating routines. My large-scale paintings have been put on hold, and that is what is perfect for me right now. However, once I set up my new studio space and the time is right, I will start a new season of working large-scale again. And in the meantime, I have my daily creative practice to tide me over. And then, when market season starts ramping up in the spring and summer, I will switch to a more business-focused season. I’m pulling these concepts from one of my favorite books I read last year, titled Slow Productivity. I cannot recommend it enough.
On the business end of my goals, I focus a bit more on numbers. Now, these are still more of a direction to work toward. The actual number itself does not matter as much, as long as I am progressing in the right direction.
So, what are these numbers? I want to participate in 6 in-person art markets throughout this year. Starting (hopefully) in May, going throughout December. I will mainly focus on Spokane markets, but I also don’t want to limit myself to only local markets, so who knows?
I want to launch 4 online shop drops, coinciding with the seasons. This is a bit ambitious, but I am really excited to put focus and energy into this side of my business again. I love printing and packing orders, and can’t wait to do so again.
Start selling my art in at least one physical store. This was one of my goals last year, and while I reached out to a few, none panned out in the end. I am going to try again this year, and if I get my art into at least one store that will be a win for me.
A big goal of mine that is scary and daunting this year is to start scaling my products. This means offering larger prints, framed prints, and also framing my originals I’m showing at art markets. These are all scary in that they are expensive, and definitely a financial risk that might not pay off. However, if I want my art to be taken seriously and professionally as my business grows, I need to start prioritizing these objectives.
And I think that’s about it in terms of my 2025 creative goals! I am so thrilled to see what this next year holds in store for me, my art, and Colt Island Works.
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From Studio Notes on June 23, 2024
After three weeks traveling through Scandinavia, coming home and back to normalcy, it’s safe to say that there was an adjustment period. First of all, I was exhausted and getting over the 9-hour time difference, and secondly, I was struggling to get back into work amidst not being able to stop thinking of our travels.
I finally took a couple days, the first to completely declutter and clean my spaces, and the second to declutter and clear my headspace. I wrote out everything I needed to do in the next month, and divided the projects into tasks and assigned them to specific days. Needless to say, it was very much needed. After that, I was ready to dive back into my work!
I’ve decided that in order to hold myself accountable, both in terms of working every week day and putting enough hours in, but also that I don’t work too late or on the weekends, I’ve started clocking in and clocking out, aiming for 40 hours a week. I’m already over 40 hours this week, but it’ll be less than 50, so I’m calling that a success.
I start out in the mornings at my desk in my library, working on any admin or brainstorming tasks. This looks like anything from making changes to my website, editing and digitizing my artwork to prep for prints, making posts for Instagram, or even now writing out these studio notes!
After I get the tasks done I’d set for the day in my library, I take a couple-mile walk with my dog and listen to an art podcast (more on that below in the media section!) This always gets me excited and in the mood to get into my studio. Once we’re back, I eat lunch, make a coffee to go, and head down to my studio!
Every day looks different in my studio. Some days I’m spending hours on one really detailed section of a single painting, and others I’m throwing acrylic paint around and switching between six different canvases. But my typical studio session looks something like warming up and getting fluid with acrylic paints on more intuitive, abstract works. I’ll gradually make my way to smaller, more detailed movements, usually with oils. That’s usually where I settle and can spend hours on a single painting without noticing the time passing.
When I feel my creativity slow a bit and get a little tired, I clean up my studio, leave it how I want to find it the next day, and head up! I finish the day off with a little snack, back at my desk, and get any ideas/thoughts out onto paper, make some reflections, and think about what I want to do tomorrow.
As always, I’m adjusting constantly, but this routine is really working for me right now. I have many, many different projects going on at once, and balancing both the brainstorming, administration side of things with the creative, painting side every day is key!
