May you flourish in 2025!

 

With the year just ended, it's time once more to look up at the projects and accomplishments of 2024. 

Let's start with my artistic endeavors. The year was split, in a sense, into three different periods, not equal in length. The first four months, I thought about my art constantly, as I was getting ready for a solo exhibit at Måløv Bibliotek. This involved putting finishing touches on selected artwork, varnishing, framing, adding hooks to the pictures, deciding which of the smaller ones (pastels and watercolors) were going to the exhibit as well, and preparing the material to promote the show. All the tasks that form part of the artist’s life, apart from the fun business of painting pictures. The exhibition went well, and this blog will be updated soon with (more) pictures from there. 

Then followed a fallow period (following the close of the exhibition I wasn't in any hurry to start painting again). It was broken for a few days in the summer, when I made very quick greeting cards from watercolor paper, always the same motif of birches against a two-tone watercolor background, and at the end of August, when we travelled to Italy and I amused myself making quick sketches of passersby as we sat at an outdoor table having lunch; either that, or I made more detailed sketches from my photos. These pleasurable endeavors had to be put aside as the fall term got underway. But as soon as the holiday vacation began, I started painting flowers. The intention was to vary my greeting card repertoire, but when I actually ordered 100 blank cards, eschewing the watercolor paper for the much more professional look of matching cards and envelopes, I knew I was in the grip of a familiar madness. Here are some of those greeting cards I made over the break.

Happy New Year! May you flourish in 2025!