Here we are again…
I’m going to set off 2 weeks from now and step into uncertainty. I have rough ideas about where I should be in the second half or March, probably in April, where would I want to be in the end of May and then the second half of September and early October.
If I go with these ideas, it seems like I’m not really sitting still again this year.

It’s still all too vague and doesn’t really include a clear plan about how on earth will I be making money, but just gotta keep going.
The good thing is, that lately there seem to be more and more opportunities arising. I didn’t manage to land a gig yet, but friends link me things they come across and I get connected to people who are looking for illustrations. Then some of these people actually contact me, which means my work seems to be ‘good enough’. Quoting a price is hard, but in the past few weeks I’ve been gaining some experience in that. No jobs so far, but I’m waiting to hear back on a couple of things. Hope one of them works out. It’d be good to kick in this freelancing thing.

I’m also veeeery slowly building a body of work that I hope to turn into something.
Last year before I was setting off I thought I’d make an exhibition when I come home from the works I did on the road.
I didn’t do that… Not yet anyway, but looking back on many of the travel sketches, I believe that to be fine. I made a fair amount of bad sketches…
There is a pile of works that I’m happy with or proud of, but I didn’t have the power, nor did I think it would be a good investment to organize an exhibition. Maybe a little bit later… I’m going to gather myself together. The thought that appeared in my head is that I’d probably organize something like that once I have a small space of my own, although I have no idea how does that has anything to do with this… I’m going to think about it further…

For now it’s prepwork for the first jump. This weekend I’m supposed to wrap up the portfolio I want to get printed for the Bologna Children’s book fair. I aim to send it off to be printed on Monday. We’ll see how that goes. Most of the material is done, but there’s quite some adjusting to be done and I want to finish a couple of more little paintings as well. We shall see. I’m not going to beat myself up if I push it back a day, but I want to get done with it as soon as possible, so I can move on with other things.

I have to put some of my stuff back in boxes, buy a couple of things for the road, tidy up my laptop, finish a painting for someone, meet quite a few people.
Just keep going.. one step after the other. You’ll get there, wherever that is.