I am finally getting some of my most recent art up and available in my online store. This has been a process, and another learning curve, but it’s finally getting done. My store is still a bit of a mess as far as categories and things. Everything is just all there all at once. After Christmas I will be getting that a bit more organized so that the shop front will be broken down into categories. This should help navigation so you don’t have to scroll through pages of products to find what you’re looking for.

Just a side note, I have very much appreciated ChatGPT for assistance with my website. I have always asked my daughter for help, not that she’s done it, but she has some great ideas. She started steering me toward AI for help, and I have always resisted. But over the past few months I have started to ask it for help, and it is amazingly helpful. It breaks down the process into easy to follow steps so that I can follow along. This has sped up the process quite extensively as in the past I’ve had to rely on WordPress articles and help menus that I haven’t found very helpful.

I have also been working on getting the flyers finished, along with the space scheduled for another in-person watercolor workshop. This will be another 6 week course for beginning watercolor artists. I had a lot of fun teaching the last one, and I learned so much just in the teaching process. Hopefully I am refining my methods so that each class just gets better and better. I am grateful for the participants honest suggestions and comments to help me get better as well. If you’re local here in Willow, you can sign up for the class here.

When I started painting with watercolors, my first, and still my favorite, subject matter was flowers. I really enjoy painting flowers. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been painting them the longest, but I find flowers the most relaxing and I can get lost in the process much quicker and for longer when I paint flowers. And so, I have also decided to do an in-person class on just flowers in April.

This class will be just 2 days, a total of about 6 hours. I love teaching about watercolor in general, but I think teaching about my biggest passion in watercolor will be exciting, and I am really looking forward to that class. I don’t have all the details worked out on that one yet, so more information will come probably the end of February.

Every year I start a thing where I want to film watercolor tutorials. This past new year I wanted to add them to my YouTube channel every few weeks. If you’ve followed my YouTube channel, you know that hasn’t happened. I have not forgotten. Throughout this year my daughter has been discussing with me ways I could add them here to my website to offer to people. I wasn’t sure about that, and then at one of my markets, another person asked if I had tutorials and then we discussed adding them to my website, the exact same way my daughter had suggested. I know, I need to listen to her better, but I will hopefully, fingers crossed, be working on that in the near future, probably another new year goal!

There is always so much to do, and always not enough time to do it in, but I’m glad I can keep plugging away at it all. I am excited for Christmas coming, not prepared totally for that either, but one way or the other, it’s coming. I hope you all have time to finish up your preparations and hope you have a fantastic holiday season!