self-led, at home
I always struggle a little during August. Partly because I don’t cope well in the heat (yes, especially the heat of a stuffy and humid English summer) and partly because lots of people are away and busy and normality is suspended. It’s like a very long Christmas week, minus the food and cosy vibes. When I was home-educating, we would avoid popular places during the school holidays meaning it was really rather a flat month all round.
Last year my son arrived here in April and left mid-August, but this year I have no such distraction. I have done staycations before which have worked well, but I feel I could do with a break from the necessary but never-ending feeling of needing to do more, an inevitable consequence of building one’s own business. For that I need more than a weekend, more than a week even. So, with this in mind, I am planning a residency for myself for the month of August, and taking the opportunity to have a break and a proper decompress.
The birdwatching logbooks have done really well so far this year, and I have gained 15 new retail stockists since the start of 2025. I also have lots of plans to be a bit more inventive and innovative with my marketing to increase their general reach in the public consciousness. I so enjoy working with them, and am really proud of my achievements as I come up on my 4th business anniversary. August is always a quiet month for new leads though so I think it will be a good time to step back and recharge.
I want to have a specific aim over the course of the month, so I’m working out what would be helpful and fun to do.
residency ideas
I found this article online, and thought these paragraphs were quite pertinent:
I think for me, something I would like to do is work at a different scale and within a different time. I normally work quite quickly, and on A4-ish sized paper and sketchbooks. I would like to slow down, but realistically I don’t dislike my somewhat scrappy and gestural work, but it would be fun to have more scope to work on one piece for longer, and create more comprehensive artwork. This would be easier if I started with a larger surface area, and I have two pads of A1 cartridge paper which I bought ages ago, so I am proposing to set one up on an easel and give myself more space to draw.
I will only be able to use drawing media rather than paint as the paper is fairly lightweight at 130gsm, but I have lots of pencils, charcoal, and graphite which I don’t normally get to play with. It will be good to let go of my – admittedly self-imposed – restrictions of working primarily on nature subjects using pencil and gouache. I know I veer off but it’s not for a sustained period, and I am interested to see how I respond to a new challenge.
Have you ever been on a retreat or residency? Any tips on how to get the best from it? I will be doing some more research and formulating more ideas so let me know what you think.
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