I thought I might share some ideas for new year's resolutions that
you might want to consider that unlike those health and fitness goals
and those weight loss goals that we all know you're going to stick
with for about a month or two, maybe three, and then just get sick
of and be ready to quit. Or maybe you're just gonna slip on them
and you're not gonna think about it. You might actually want to
keep this year.
I'm not telling you not to pursue your weight loss, health or fitness
goals if that is something you want. I'm just telling you what I
see, which is a lot of people make those resolutions and never stick to them.
So some great ideas for creative new year's resolutions might be things like:
- you're going to draw one picture a day or per month or per week. The same
could also, of course, apply to painting and crafting. It might just
look different. A certain interval of time and a number of these
items you're going to do.
- Another great one would be saying, I'm going to spend 15 or 20 minutes
drawing, painting, crafting per day/per week/per month.
- Another great idea that I think would be a wonderful one, if you have been wanting
to get more creative, would be this is the year you're going to learn how to do a
new creative activity that might be drawing, something to do with painting. It
might just be a new technique, something you've never tried before. It might
be just simply taking it to the next level in some way, shape or form.
- Maybe this is the year you're going to take that art class that you have been
thinking about for years and you have been putting off.
- If you're already creating it might be to just simply say, I'm already creating X
number of pictures. I'm going to create x plus one.
At one point I actually did this one. I was already saying two pictures a week
minimum, and that was just the minimum. It was not the maximum by any means. I
was not creating just two pictures a week a lot of the time, but I was not
consistently creating more than that either. But I went from two to consistently
drawing at least three each week consistently, and I very much stuck with that for
not just that year, but for many, many years to come.
- And then there's the ever so classic, this year I'm going to organize my art supplies.
I'm gonna just tell you a little fun fact about that. If you are one of these people
who can't seem to get or keep your art supplies organized, there's a couple of
things you're probably doing wrong.
1. You might not be using the correct organizing style.
For me, this changed my life massively when I learned about it, first in
my early 20s, learning I was a visual organizer, and then in my early 30s,
learning about macro versus micro organizing, as I heard people who are
professional organizers will call it. I like to call it more or less i
nvolved organizing. Referring to how much do you have to engage
your brain and your hands in order to put something away? That
would be how you determine the level of involvement. So I'm probably
what would be considered a low involvement organizer, if you use that
scale, meaning I don't have a whole lot of hand involvement
before I will go from putting things away to putting things down
wherever, and putting something away rather than just moving on
to the next thing is just not a thought that any amount of practice
can make natual in my brain (though I have been burned out hard by
trying to make it one before).
You might be the exact opposite, where you don't want to have a whole
lot of brain involvement in finding things, but you're okay with the fact
that the price you pay for that is that you're going to have a massive
amount of brain involvement in putting them away, and your okay with
high levels of hand or physical involvement both putting things away and getting them out later.
So this might be the year that you're going to learn whether or not you really,
really actually want to see your stuff all the time, but you've only ever been
putting it away because everyone around who tells you you're not allowed not
to. Or you really actually do want it hidden and out of sight and out of
mind. And how involved you really need that organizing system to be, all
so, you can get those craft supplies put away and actually keep them put away.
2. The other thing you might be doing wrong is you're putting things where you
feel like or think that they should go, not where you're actually using them.
So if you're that person who is going to forever be sitting in the comfy chair
or the sofa in the living room with that sketchbook and those colored pencils
and be doing your drawing there, and then you think you're going to go put that
away all in the craft room. Look, you might occasionally, but this is why they
continuously end up on the coffee table and under the sofa and sitting on the
sofa, And can you tell I've done this a few times?
At some point, the best solution for me was just simply to live with the fact
that maybe I needed a shelving unit or a cart in the living room, and that that
was where some of the art supplies were going to live. While I know people who
would freak out about this I have found that I am okay if they don't make it
to the craft area, as long as they make it to the craft shelf or the craft
cart. At some point I just had to admit that was where I was going to use
the sketchbook. So therefore that's where it and the colored pencils and large
number of other art supplies probably needed to live, it was just going to be easier.
Have I met people who would be up in arms if they knew this, absolutely, but
considering I would never welcome them into my house it does not have to
turn into that big an issue.
And then, for those of you who are already creative people, if you want to start your
new year off right, I would be negligent because of the spiritual nature of what I'm
about to say not to tell you if I did not ask you to please stop what you're doing
and definitely stop you're doing anything apart from Christ, talk to him and give
your life to him before you take this next step. And if you have any hesitation,
please remember you probably have a spiritual debt that makes whatever the national
debt it at its highest in history look cheap by comparison, in fact all the money
in the world cannot begin to pay it, and he is willing to pay all of it,
if you will say yes to him and follow him.
So with all of that being said, engage him. And once you've gotten saved, talk
to Him. Ask Him to help you with creating vision board and show you a little
bit about what is upcoming in your year, what will be available to you.
I've done this with him in different areas of my life for the last several years of my
life. I do this with my art related stuff. I do this with my walk with him. I do kind
of a general one. You can even do one for your love life, or your health and fitness
goals, career goals, and any other areas of your life that you want to dive deeper
into with him. Now will all come true actually, the way I prefer to look at what is
on that vision board is this is what God has made available to me in the new year,
though yes I have had some things I could not deny had come to fruition that I
did not think were possible when I drew that picture with him.
And it's really kind of interesting and fun to have a picture of what it is he has or will
make available to me inside that New Year, or at least what he would like to make available
to me inside of this new year.
And I've had stuff where, for those of you who don't know a whole lot about spiritual
warfare, that is something that has come and stopped a lot of things from happening over
the course of each year.
So getting back to kind of more the art related stuff, that's a really fun art project you
can do to start your new year off right.
New Year's is also a great time to just simply take inventory both of your art supplies in your life.
A really wonderful New Year's resolution that I would love to point you to if you have a lot of
art supplies, laying around, especially in light of the fact that the cost of putting food on the
table as of when I wrote this was bananas, and the cost of keeping a roof over your head had
gone through the roof in recent years.
You might want to consider a New Year's resolution like, I'm going to go through all of my art
supplies, and I'm going to decide which things I'm going to use before I buy any more.
Now, if you needed a different size canvas, or you need a different size paper, that's great, and
we understand. Everybody understands. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about I'm perfectly
happy with these 16 by 20 canvases that I liked using for acrylic pour painting, and I don't need
to buy any more until I've used every single one of these up, and maybe this year, part of that
new year's resolution is I'm going to actually paint on every single one of these. And I don't
mean one stroke and I'm done. I mean an actual picture. You can paint over acrylic over and
over and over again, as long as you don't seal it.
So if I'm not happy to display that thing, it isn't finished.
Now, the canvas paper, or the acrylic paper, that might be a different story, because
you can wreck that at some point.
But as far as the canvases themselves go, guess what? It isn't done until I'm satisfied
that that Canvas is either completely wrecked because I didn't wreck it on purpose, but
stuff happened that I could not have foreseen. Or alternatively, I am satisfied that that
is going to be a good picture for display in my living room, or, better yet, in an art
show at some point.
�2012-present E. S. Pfahl. All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means - - graphic electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, information storage and retrieval systems - - without written permission of
E. S. Pfahl
