Looking Forward to the New Decade

Resolutions have never worked for me. Instead, passion and goals are a much better motivator and reason for doing.

I don’t know about you but something about a decade change feels like it should be a big year. The last ten years I’ve been an artist, fabric designer, magazine editor, and back again fabric designer/author/quilt pattern designer. I achieved all those goals through continued education and passion. I’ve created an impressive amount of work during the past decade and this blog is visual proof of all that hard work.

Soul Searching

I’ve been struggling with whether or not to host some sort of quilting sew along or follow something I’ve been aching to do for a few years now—reconnect with painting. I know all of you would love a sew along and Maureen Cracknell and I have been kicking the tires on ideas but between our schedules and fabric collections it’s been very hard to nail anything down! The amount of advance work and prep is more than either of us can give right now. That doesn’t mean it’s an absolute “no” it just means I have nothing to announce at this time. Pursuing other aspects of Surface Design and being an artist means I need to put myself into my work 100% and follow my passion. This feels like the year to make that happen.

Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit Brooklyn Museum 2017

What I Need Right Now

One of the presents to myself at the end of last year was to buy the Georgia O’Keeffe Living Modern book from Amazon. I’ll have an affiliate link at the bottom of this blog post.

I was very fortunate to see the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in 2017. The book and exhibit are more than an exhibit of O’Keeffe’s paintings—it’s about her intentional life style to reflect her art in every aspect of her life. Her clothing, home decor, minimal life style, and everything she touched supported her aesthetics. The exhibit placed her beautifully constructed and designed clothing amongst her paintings and photographic portraits. She was what we would call today a social media/branding genius. From her carefully curated outfits of black and white for studied portraits of her, of her with her art, and at home her Instagram feed (if she had one today) would be so polished and cohesive without even trying. I can only aspire to have such laser focus!

Now, I’m not saying I’m going to go off the deep end and becoming a minimalist or making all my garments but I would like to be more deliberate in my choices and find my painting voice again.

I’ve dabbled in many mediums and currently am in love with gouache because of it’s poster-like qualities and how it was used by textile/surface designers of the past. If you follow my Instagram @sharonhollanddesigns feed you may have seen my series of book covers. This is just something for funnies on the side—my real love is oil painting landscapes.

I love old books and especially the poster-like illustrated ones. The Old Santa Fé Trail is a book I own that’s a first edition, signed by the author in 1897. I saw a later edition online that had a green cover and liked that better than my copy so I took some liberties for decor purposes and went this a more colorful coloration.

I’m currently working toward having some of these book cover art offered as prints whether is will be from my website or from a print on demand service—it’s one of my goals for this year.

I had given my sister an original book cover painting for Christmas and had framed it before sending it off. I envision a reading nook or home library with my framed art and totally need to make a piece for this sunny corner in my office!

Mathew Boudreaux of @misterdomestic on Instagram is hosting an Auction for Australia that began Wednesday January 8 and will run until the following week. I will be adding a select number of prints to the auction so be watching his @mrdauctionhouse handle for my listings.

Continued Learning

The key to achieving goals is to never stop pushing yourself and never stop learning. Every new experience can build off old skills and open your mind to new possibilities—that’s why I love SkillShare.

Whenever I want to learn something or improve upon what I already knew—especially with technology that moves so fast—I can find it on SkillShare. If you’ve debated about trying SkillShare in the past this may be the year, the decade to give it a go! I am a SkillShare Ambassador and with it have the pleasure to give you a referral link for a Premium Free Trial of SkillShare. The Premium Free Trial gets you into every and any SkillShare course you’ve been wanting to see for two free months. You can learn a lot in two months but just think what you could do in a year!?!?

Right before the holidays I had a few extra moments and sat down with my iPad and Dylan Mierzwinski course on Illustration Practice: Lettering & Florals with Adobe Fresco. The wreath illustration above is what I made after watching her course and learned how to use a program I’d not tried before and loved it!

Bonnie Christine Focus to Flourish on SkillShare

My memberships (and your free trial) gives me access to Bonnie Christine’s new Focus to Flourish SkillShare course. Here, Bonnie gives us helpful insight into how to use our time wisely as creatives, create good habits, set goals, and basically go from dreaming to doing. Bonnie has inspired me to do more with my skills and find that balance between work and life. She also has corses on surface pattern design and is a phenomenal teacher.

One of my very favorite fine artists to follow on SkillShare is Robert Joyner. His loose, expressive brush strokes, use of color, and technical skills help me to keep a fresh approach to my work. I’m basically going to go through every one of his course to get my oil painting mojo back!

Looking Forward

I do have a quilt in progress and will release a new pattern the end of this month or early February for sure. It’s called Prairie Flower and was the first quilt I made for my very first ever fabric collection with Paintbrush Studios (Fabri-Quilt). It seems fitting that this quilt started the last decade and brings in this new decade with a fresh remake.

Also, I’m working on a new fabric collection for fall of 2020 for Art Gallery Fabrics and over the next couple of month I’ll get that wrapped up. It’s very hard to work on that stuff behind the scenes and not be able to share for another half a year. Such is the life of a designer—I’m not complaining!

Wishing you all the best in 2020!

I am an Amazon Associate site and earn from qualifying purchases on the products I’ve linked below. The helpful products selected are the same or similar to materials used to make the project(s) in this blog post or related items I think you may enjoy.

A Creative Life

Believe me, I'm fully aware of how lucky I am! My sister always said I'm charmed and I think she is right.

My husband is a wonderful, kind, and giving man who not only makes me laugh everyday but has worked hard to provide for the family which allowed me to be a stay-at-home mom when our kids where growing up. He's always accommodated me in my pursuit of arts and crafts and supported all my dreams along with putting up with crazy photoshoots, sourcing excursions, and taking over the house as my workspace.

My recent time spent reconnecting with painting has me first, wanting to thank everyone for the out pouring of wonderful comments and support and second wanting to encourage you to pursue your dreams and goals as well.

You have to know by now that I'm a natural-born enabler, right? Well, I like to think of it more like a cheerleader for the arts whether it's for sewing/quilting, photography, crafting, or fine arts.

With kids back to school and summer drawing to a close, it's time to start thinking about following some of your dreams.

Even though I have a background in art from my college days long ago, I still wasn't up to date with modern technology. If I hadn't of taken the plunge and gone back to school at age 45 I may not being doing all the wonderfully amazing creative things I'm able to do today.

Luckily, there's now an easier way to learn at your own pace and right from home. It's called Skillshare. I'm a such a big fan of Skillshare that I'm now a Skillshare ambassador!

Skillshare is an amazing platform that lets you watch unlimited videos at your own pace the on every subject imaginable. Maybe you're interested in starting watercolors or learning how to draw? There's hundreds of phenomenal teachers from all over the globe are on Skillshare and ready to teach you what you want to learn.

Want to be a better photographer? Yup, they have all sorts of levels from beginning photography to advanced. The courses are not just art related either, you can learn about how to improve your Instagram feed, be a better business owner, gardener, start calligraphy, learn the newest technology (like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for example), and improve your lifestyle, health, and fitness.

Sometimes the hardest part is knowing where to start. When I wanted to start painting again I felt incredibly rusty but Skillshare helped me gain the confidence I needed to put pigment to paper again.

So, if you're intrigued or still on the fence about what Skillshare could do for you, here's a sweet incentive for you to give it a try for 2 free months! Use coupon code: igamb1169.

Yes, no obligations other than signup for your free 2 months and start learning something new--today!

Here's just a few of my favorite teachers on Skillshare:

There's no end to what you can accomplish and each Skillshare class is broken down into bite-size segments and class projects you can share with the class and get feedback from the teacher. You work at your own pace, access the classes at anytime, and rewatch as needed.

So, what do you say? You have nothing to loose and everything to gain!!!!

Happy learning from your creative cheerleader,

Sharon