Here I am, as promised, to check in at the end of my first Art Weekend. For those of you new to the story, last week I committed to dedicating the majority of my time over the past four days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today) to working on art and Fairy Tree Studios-related things. I made myself lists, broken down by day, with the main tasks I wanted to accomplish (plus some “bonus tasks”). I cleared off my desk, took a day off from my “real job,” and queued up Little Women on audiobook through Hoopla — from there, I was ready to go.
So how did I do? Well, here’s a breakdown:
DAY 1
Started working: 10am
Tasks completed: 11/15
DAY 2
Started working: 1pm¹
Tasks completed: 11/15
DAY 3
Started working: 11am
Tasks completed: 5/10²
DAY 4
Started working: 11am
Tasks completed: 5/15 thus far (though this post counts as #6, and I completed a Day 3 task as well). (I’ll update this with a new total if I manage to accomplish more tonight.)
In these four days, I completed 33 of 55 tasks, and worked a total of approximately 32 hours. Among the things I did do:
- Added content to this blog and my website (including posting a few new and recently completed pieces, plus some upcoming posts)
- did approx. eight new drawings and sketches
- scanned in several of these for future digital work
- completed one painting and made progress on another
- added a post and a story to Instagram
- gathered material for and started a vision board
- planned out several upcoming projects
- completed a lesson/project in an online creative class that I’m taking
With the work that I did accomplish, I feel like I have more of a direction for Fairy Tree Studios, and a clear set of upcoming tasks and projects. I also learned some things about how to plan out future event like this — tasks always take longer than I think they will (though I’d rather have too many listed than too few) and in some cases I need to break them down into more specific sub-tasks.
Therefore, overall, I’m calling it a success.
Also, yes, I did finish listening to Little Women, in case anyone was wondering.
¹For Saturday, I made prior plans for a visit to a new place I want to get involved with called Her Creative Collective, which specializes in wellness and creativity-related activities, as well as to have brunch with a friend. In all seriousness, I think of the visit to HCC as a networking opportunity, and probably should have listed it as one of my tasks for the day.
²I did take a couple-hour break on Sunday for lunch and a walk with Jake, because even I don’t have the discipline to sit inside all day when it’s 60º and sunny in February. But the bigger issue was that some of the tasks on this list were things like “finish this painting” and “do this whole other painting,” each of which would take hours on its own.
Fairy Tree Studios 