What a decade it has been! My whole art career took place between 2010 and 2020. I’ve seen it grow, change and evolve to what it is now. Those 10 years, for the most part, also took place during my 20s. So I’ve seen myself grow and change a lot. I’ve made most of my best friends during that decade. I tried, I failed. I wanted to give up, I got very low, but I’m happy I didn’t. Hopefully, I became a better person over those years. More patient, more compassionate, more able to celebrate other’s success.

If I would have asked my 2010 self where I saw myself in 2020 I would be so far from where I am right now. I was dreaming of working for a big animation studio in LA. Become a concept artist for Disney or Pixar. Pretty far from tattooing and freelancing! I think my past self would be happy with where I got. And mostly, would be happy to see that my life is slowly getting more stability and that I can take more time for myself.

I wish myself to keep evolving in the next 10 years. Keep trying new things, living new experiences and pushing myself to do better. That’s why I love the new year. It’s a great time to look back at your year, or decade in this case, and check with yourself; check what you did good, what made you feel good, what wasn’t so great, what needs to be worked on and what needs to be left behind. I don’t like the term resolution, it strangely give me anxiety. But I love the idea of giving myself things to work on, small goals and aspirations for the next year. Just general points to keep working on!

Here are this year aspirations:

On a personal level I would like to:

-Hydrate more: I feel silly even writing that, but it’s true. I barely drink enough water, so that a small thing I want to work on!

-Be happy first: I’m at a place in my career where I can say yes to projects that make me happy and no to others. I want to keep going toward what makes me happy. Even if sometimes it means a little bit less money.

-Meditation/Sport/Me time: I’m very anxious, so sometimes freelancing isn’t the easiest for me. Being active and meditation helps me a lot. I want to keep a more regular schedule on those two in 2020 as well as taking more “me time”, taking a nice bath, going a long walk or whatever will make me deconnect from my anxious thoughts!

-Less TV: This year, I realized that I started watching way more TV. So this year I want to cut down a little bit and read more or listen to more new music instead.

-Keep a journal/blog: Good thing that this website has a blog entry, cause I want to do way more of these! I’m also doing monthly blog post on my Patreon if you are interested.

-Nurture my relationships: I want to take more time for friends and chosen family. By doing a crazy recap on the last decade (that you can read on patreon) I realized that my work often got in the way of my relationships and I want to change that for the future.

On a profession level I want to:

-Tattoo bigger projects: I want to explore bigger projects in 2020! Bigger, more ambitious and colourful projects!

-Explore new merch: I want to try new products, maybe apparels? To be determine!

-Be more creative: I want to explore more with different mediums! Make more original art!

-Doing art for fun: The downside of being a freelance artist is that you end up always thinking of new products to sell or creating art for a new projects. So much that I barely drawing for fun anymore. I want to find this joy of sketching for fun back. Or trying a new technic just for the fun of it, not to make a product out of it.

Hopefully I can slowly change some bad habits and move on to better ones in 2020!

Take care of yourselves!