snowmen, sand people, zombies, and penguins for the new year

I'm not really a resolutions person. Sometimes when I start a new year, I look to the past to see what I've done, instead of thinking about what I need to do. Not just the last year, but other years as well. Sometimes this helps me to decide what I want to do in the future, especially when it comes to art.

In 2011, my blog post for the New Year featured zombie snowmen! Since I'm currently reading a zombie book, I thought about posting the zombie snowmen here again:

I painted this in December, 2010, and it turns out, I painted some other snowmen that year too. If you're not into zombies, maybe you'll like the one watching a penguin skate:

Or, maybe snow is too cold for you. If so, I have a solution. These snowmen aren't technically snowmen at all. They're sand people! And at least one of them is a sand woman.

It's a crop from a larger sand people painting I did as a blog header for WaWe (a watercolor site which no longer exists):

Then again, maybe you're not into snowmen at all and really prefer the penguin. In that case, how about a painting of a penguin and bear making snow angels from 2008?

All this reflecting and looking at art has made me realize that I really miss painting. It's been a while. It's also clear that I used to make more time for fun art (not for a project or book, but just because I wanted to make art).

Despite the fact that I'm not a resolutions kind of person, I do like to make goals (all year, not just in January). One of my goals for this year is to make more art for fun, and some of that art will be made with paint!

Do you make resolutions or goals to start the year?

Whether you make resolutions, or goals, or just wing it, I wish you a wonderful year full of amazing things (and no zombies)!