Happy New Year my little festive fireworks!
I hope every one had a wonderful festive period! The newsletter looks a little different now I as I’ve made the move to Substack. This is so we can have more of an archive of old newsletters if you ever wish to go back and read them. I’m going to work through and convert some of the old newsletters to here as well if you ever missed out on them. Also Substack allows more of a community chat feature so we can talk about books and art and all things nice.
I feel a little guilt at the lack of newsletters in recent months. I’m not normally one for “new year, new me” sentiments (unless it involves new stationary), but I am going to try my very best to be more consistent and get back on track with sending one newsletter a month! I hope this new platform will make it easier for me to send you updates more regularly.
Let’s catch up on the last few months. The newsletters sort of fell off as I was renovating my new tattoo & art studio and I never picked it back up again. The studio is looking great and I’ve been having the best time tattooing and working out of it. Here’s some recent tattoos I’ve done that I’m very proud of!
Follow my tattoo account here!
This was my first full year being self-employed which is absolutely crazy. It has its ups and downs but I am so grateful to be able to do what I love as a living. All the good things definitely out way the crippling self-doubt and constant worry that its all going to disappear overnight.
Here’s some of my favourite illustrations I made this year! I’m sad I didn’t get to the end of peachtober but some of my favourite work was made in the first week or so. I’ll try again next year.
I try not to put too much pressure on any kind of new years resolutions but I have made a few loose goals for 2023.
Commit more time to working on children’s books and portfolio illustrations.
Spend more time making art traditionally and in my sketchbook.
Explore more graphic novel/comic style narrative.
Learn to knit/crotchet.
Work on author illustrator projects.
Make some animations/a short film project.
Make some more YouTube videos (this has been a goal for years lmao).
I somehow managed to read 40 books in 2022 which is my best ever reading year. My top 5 books of the year were.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanahara
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
A Psalm For the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers
These last two are only short and definitely need to be read together!
Also this year I very much enjoyed:
Stardew Valley and Pokemon Violet on switch.
I recently watched Glass Onion which I also loved.
In terms of art stuff I have loved my Huion tablet and my odd orange sketchbooks!
Thank you for coming with on my little art journey in 2023 and I can’t wait to see what 2023 brings.
Oh you sound so lovely and I adore your illustration style. 😍 Loved the fab books list, I loved A Little Life too, have just bought A Thousand Splendid Suns. ☺️