I love art. I go to shows. I calendar exhibits. I’m even a member of the MFAH - Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

But beyond flow-charts and a silly, sketchy rabbit (or maybe it’s a monkey?) I learned to draw some 100 years ago, I am not very artistically inclined.

In my Year of Learning focusing on learning piano and exploring the theoretical side of music, including composition, has netted me a great increase in music appreciation. Genres I hadn’t quite been able to consume before (classical, jazz) have opened themselves to.

I hope the same will happen with art - that I’ll get a good deal of understanding and thus appreciation of the work involved in creating a piece of art.

Goals

At home I have a fairly large empty wall. I hope this year I’ll be advancing enough to where I can put some of my artwork on that wall.

I had this vision of adding a canvas or frame or something equivalent for each month of the year, but in researching more that seems overly ambitious. As such, I’ll settle for three.

Most of the time will be spent learning to sketch, as it is fundamental to understanding the more advanced versions of visual art. I’d like to explore color as well, so perhaps I’ll dedicate a month towards watercolors and another towards working with acrylic paints.

I will learn origami for at least one month. I’ve always been fascinated with the art and I even have a book of Star Wars-related Origami.

I will dedicate at least a month to the exploration of kinetic art.

Finally, towards the end of the year, as a sort of culmination and a test of understanding, I’d like to build something that’s at the intersection of two areas close to my heart — music and software: a program that “paints” music.

I leave that vague, because in all honesty I have no idea how any of that is supposed to manifest itself.

Through it all, I will be studying the theoretical aspects of it: general art theory, art history, color theory, composition, symbolism, medium and techniques.

Keep

From previous year I’m keeping video games, needless to say at a considerably reduced rate (probably 5-8 hours per week).

I would also like to stay involved in gaming projects, such as Slack bots or the wonderful community around Ishtar Commander, however, without setting a target or a cap on the amount of time spent on them.

Changes

I’d like to get better at time-managing my hobbies.

As such, I intend to use Mondays to reflect upon the achievements of the past week — preferably in a visible form such as a blog post, as well as plan the week ahead in detail. Either of these should take no more than 30 minutes each, so perhaps I will be counting this hour towards the 10 or so I intend to spend weekly on accomplishing the goals of the year.

Furthermore, at least in the vast beginning, seeing how the resources required to support this Year of Visual Arts are frequently reduced to a #2 pencil and one of more pieces of paper, I intend to practice daily, at least 30 minutes but preferably close to 60.

I expect all these changes would yield, if not a better, at least more consistent results than the previous years have.