2015 has come to an end. It is time for the obligatory review of the year. It’s been a great year of growth, development, learning and challenge, dance, joy and new friends, oh there was also some drawing in there!
January and February 2015 were some of the hardest months I had to ever go through. I had just moved to Copenhagen, I was alone, had no friends, no job or studies to go to and on top of it all 2 weeks after moving in my new home, I discovered I was living with hostile and aggressive person, who was constantly causing drama, tension and anxiety. I never knew before what it was to be scared and uneasy in your own home. My only outlet was doodling, painting, drawing and taking long walks. One can’t tell by the happy colours and joyful themes, but it was a dark, dark time. The memory still makes me shiver, but I’m grateful I had my painting to keep me company and to keep me sane. Looking back I’m proud of myself for managing as well as I did all by myself, though I hope I would never need to do it again!
In March I finally managed to move out of hell. It was a fairly quiet and uneventful month of rediscovering the beauty of peace, comfort and home. I was in the mood for spring flowers painting and that’s what I did with most of my free time, while trying to kickstart my social life. In April I signed up for a course on freelancing, started meeting people and slowly building my life in the new city. It was time full of hope and new possibilities! And I kept drawing spring flowers…
Much of what I remember from May was cool fresh mornings, cycling to my freelance course and getting high on lilac aroma. It was a busy and inspiring time. In May I also discovered watercolour journaling and fell in love with the idea. I put together a small watercolour kit to always carry with me, so I can sketch and paint any time any place. I have yet to learn not to be bothered by passers-by though.
In June I started my Botanical garden period. On warm days I’d go hang out in the park and sketch this and that. I’ve finally started dancing again and meeting more and more nice and fun people.
In July I decided to reward myself for my hard work during the first half of the year by getting a Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook. It took some time before I actually dared to make a mark in it. Unfortunately it was quite a disappointment. The glorified Moleskine paper turned out to be quite awful to paint watercolour on. It just soaks all the water, doesn’t allow for much wet in wet and generally doesn’t behave as a watercolour paper should. I later discovered Moleskine had recently changed their watercolour paper apparently for worse. I’m still struggling to finish the sketchbook, so I can get something else instead.
August was relatively warm (for Danish standards), laid- back, with quite a lot of dancing and hanging out in parks… which makes me dream of summer and heat! I was trying to paint more from life and less from photos, but I still feel uncomfortable painting in a public place and pretending the people around do not bother me.
In most of September I was visiting my parents back in Bulgaria, going on trips in the mountains and trying to summarize those trips in a watercolour journal form. I’m ashamed to admit I still have unfinished pages, but I still intend to finish them! Painting a quick study of a landscape is just so much more memorable and interesting than snapping a picture of it. Most of my pictures I’ll probably never look at again, while I enjoy going through sketches every now and again. Even when I discover the many flaws in them, they still keep much more memories than a photo does.
October was certainly my busiest and most productive month of the year. I had started an internship at Knapnok Games, got surrounded by fun and interesting people and on top of it was doing my best to keep up with Inktober, drawing with ink every day. I also got to travel and dance! It was probably the best month in years and I should remember it when planning ahead.
November continued to be fun and busy, but my discipline for drawing in my free time went down. The only illustrations I found from this period were some outfit of the day digital sketches for some summer outfits… There’s that longing for summer again!
In December I tried to bring back the drawing every day with a Christmas calendar and it went well for the first 10 – 12 days, but then my social life started getting in the way of my drawing… oh well, at least I had a good reason not to finish what I started, so I think I’d forgive myself this time. Shhhh!
Despite the terrible start 2015 was a great year of learning and exploring that Promised Land called Out-of-the-comfort-zone. There were quite a lot of challenges personal and artistic/ professional, some already paid off quite satisfying, others still require some patience and work, but I like the direction it is heading and can’t wait to see what’s next.
Before I wrote this post I had the feeling I didn’t create much this year, but I’m surprised to discover I’ve actually created more than I do in an average year. What is different is that I mostly used traditional media, which I was always quite afraid of, because of the lack of Ctrl+Z. I’m much less afraid now and hope the trend continues, although I hope I get back to digital painting too. I have also worked on some logos, web sites and simpler illustrations digitally, but decided not to include these in this post as it was only focused on my free time, just-for-fun activities.
Every year I repeat to myself one New Year’s Resolution: “Draw more”. I think it is safe to say I kept it in 2015. Oh, so nice to feel the satisfaction!
The resolution for 2016: “Draw even more!”.
