late again…

BLOGANUARY 2025 DAY 5

I like these blogging months as even though I have had all day to write something, I quite enjoy the process of writing down my thoughts as the evening draws to a close.

I normally try and take Sunday “off” but to be honest, I have had a lot of time recently where I’ve not really felt a great deal of pressure to do things and I am somewhat itching to have the chance to feel properly productive again.

This year I am devoting myself wholly to my logbooks. As I explained in a previous post, I’m not teaching at the moment, and I’m happy for it to stay that way, unless I’m asked to run some sort of workshop or class for a specific event. I don’t have my own network of ready punters, nor do I have any clout in a particular discipline to encourage people to attend anything I might offer so it becomes really quite a slog to get those all-important bums on seat, however appealing I think an art session might sound. There is also the constant competition from the various online tuition platforms that offer 6 week courses in something like “How to Sketch Birds for £19.99 £0.00″ etc etc which are great but make it tricky to sell in-person events.

I’ve also decided that I won’t be doing any art fairs, as they are a big commitment and again, I am not well-known enough as an artist to justify anything other than local events, and they of course don’t have the footfall or demographic to be particularly cost-effective.

So, I am pleased to have allowed myself the freedom to focus on my pride and joy, the birdwatching logbooks, and any associated design projects. It’s taken me a while to come to these conclusions but it feels marvellously quiet and streamlined in my head, and I’m looking forward to playing with designs and coming up with marketing ideas for my booklets. I have already made some variations on the POS cards for the stands, and I’m thinking of making a poster or something so bookshops can promote the logbooks during Springwatch week, or during the summer holidays. I need to tidy up my website too, and there’s the pleasantly mundane task of PNG-ing all the illustrations, as well as painting new ones, and then there are the bespoke logbook projects. I am going to make some truncated versions of titles, so a cover, a few inside pages, and contents: this can them be sent to prospective clients and give them an immediate visual to get the idea. I have found that setting up a spreadsheet is the best way to incentivise me to get emails out to stockists and organisations as I can then see my progress, and make little charts of all the metrics.

Meanwhile, for recreation, I have my own drawing and painting, the urban sketching group, and I would really like to learn more about the language of collage. I was given a gorgeous and comprehensive book on collage for Christmas and I am working my way through it: it’s absolutely fascinating. I also follow a number of collage artists on Behance so I am hoping to be able to understand their work a little better.

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I realised I had an under-utilised page in my sketchbook, below, but I think it’s finished now so I will be filming a sketchbook tour for the second half of my Leuchtturm for Bloganuary during this week.