2014 Blog Highlights,Struggles and Lessons Learned

Every year, I like going back through my blog to find the things that really worked for me. It helps me figure out what to do more of. This year, I also noticed several things with which I struggled and this has given me some clues about what I to change. Here, in no particular order, are my 2014 blog highlights, struggles and lessons learned.
Highlights:
1. Frugal Still Life Photography Class. Cheryl McCain offered this class (see my review here), and it opened a whole new world of photography for me. Looking back over my photographs for the year, I realized how much I like the photographs I took for this class, such as the one up top. In fact, I liked it so much that I just signed up for Kim Klassen's still life class called Be Still -52.

2.  Organizing my craft room, re-doing the bathrooms and purging the house like crazy (an outgrowth of my 2014 OLW and Do What You Love's New Year's Revolution). My one little word for 2014 was illuminate, which means to lighten and clarify. I used that as the impetus to down load the free class "New Year's Revolution." The worksheets helped me realize how much I wanted to have a clean, well-decorated, presentable house; one where I would be happy to entertain. And I accomplished about 90% of that goal this year.

3. Summer of Color Houses - Sponsored by Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle. Every summer, for six weeks, she posts a color palette a week and invites people to create something in that color palette. This year, I chose little houses and loved the project! Confession time: I only did five of them, but I plan to finish the 6th one soon!

4. The Art of Practising Gratitude Tag Booklet. Bernice hosted this wonderful, free month-long meditation on gratitude which also featured lots of techniques. I chose to make tags and really enjoyed the experience.

5. Zoom In < Zoom  Out. Helena hosted this wonderful weekly meme, and I participated most weeks. You can see all my zizo's at this link. It was a good reminder to see the world through a camera lens.

6. Good Fences Link-Up hosted by the Run*A*Round Ranch Report and One Photo, Twenty Words hosted by Abi of Creating Paper Dreams. I enjoyed these photography memes very much, even if I didn't participate every week. You can see all my fence posts here.
Challenges:
1. Facebook ate my photos. In an attempt to short-cut the tedium of uploading photos to my blog, I often upload photos to Facebook first and then copy and paste the URL to my blog (especially if I'm using iphone photos). Unfortunately, these links don't last. So, when I go back to look at blog posts with those photos, all I see is a broken link. Argggh!!! So frustrating!

2.  Studying Under the Masters Class - I signed up for this class last January, and I've worked through a few of the exercises. The class is well constructed and can help develop fine art skills in drawing and painting. The challenging part is that these exercises (like the Georgia O'Keeffe shell above) were difficult and not that fun for me. I did enjoy creating the Matisse inspired still life though. I think that I have learned that representational drawing and fine art painting don't really excite me. I like photography and mixed media art better. It's a good lesson to have learned and will help guide my art work in 2015.

3. The Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt. I love hosting this event. I love coming up with the list and seeing the results. I love taking the photographs .  .  .  but, it is a bit exhausting. I think the lag in my blogging over the last half of the year is directly related to the rigors of hosting the hunt. I still plan to host the hunt next summer, but I need to find a way to do it that works better for me. All suggestions welcomed.