I’m sitting at my desk, running through my blogs and really thinking hard about what I want to accomplish and how sharing through my blog will be a positive thing both for me and readers. I first started justgraphic.com in sharing designs in general as I was just learning. Soon this blog turned it into pattern designs specifically as I started to put my work into Spoonflower for printing onto fabric. I think the prices are reasonable there when it comes to custom printing fabric, but it does add up over time and so I’ve really been trying to focus and figure out what makes sense for me.
For 2011 my general goal is to focus. It doesn’t mean to do less, just to do more efficiently and be laser sharp as to why I’m doing something. Optimizing sounds a bit too officially business-like, but simply said it’s just about trying to get all that I want to do into my life schedule in a balanced way…so I don’t have to “miss out” or lament about the lack of time – we all have 24 hours in a day and we must decide how to spend it. I know that I love to design and every time something is created into a pattern – even if super simple – it still seems amazing to me. Ultimately, I wanted to practice designing patterns, so that one day I could translate my designs into collections and be a licensed artist.
That is the big goal – to be a licensed artist. To get my work out there, so it’s not just a hobby or neat thing to share…it’s something that can help me sustain a living as well. I have been so inspired by the many success stories out there and I feel that licensing is definitely a great fit for my personality, work style and needs. I’ve been inspired by the print & pattern blog, Hollie Conger, Tara Reed and Kate Harper to name a few. All a part of the inspiration, excitement and driving force that pushed me to start this blog, to design patterns and try them out in the market of digital stamps, digital scrapbooking, Zazzle products, Society6…
Of course, things started slow and that is really just dipping your toes into many different areas. I need to focus and dive right in, right? So for this blog I want to hold myself accountable and post a pattern a week. That should be a doable goal and focused enough. If things shoot off from that one pattern, that would be a great, but I have to get this focused element into my life schedule. Thanks all who have visited this blog and encouraged me a long with my work… I hope to have an exciting 2011 and work towards my ultimate goal of being a licensed artist – designing my patterns and creating my whimsical world of characters… ciao ciao and happy 2011!