A New Year has begun in earnest.  I am feeling more optimistic than ever and am slowly, but surely, getting back on track in the studio.

I have created a new system for organizing hundreds, if not thousands, of original tissue sketches and photocopies for my books.  Last month I got all the Gossie& Friends sketches organized into the new sturdy binders.  Tonight I got all Old Bear and Little Cub sketches organized.  The new system makes it so much easier for me to track with all the drawings I’ve done of each and every character as well as scenes, furnishings, and accessories.

My goal is to finish painting the drawings for A Bed for Little Cub by the end of January.   Then I will plunge right into doing the finished art for Ruby & Roofus and Pearl—the last three goslings to be introduced in the Gossie & Friends series of books.   I got all the layouts and dummies finished for these two books last month.  Now all I have to do is the finished artwork.

2015 was a lively, roller coaster ride of a year for me.  So many great things are happening with my books and characters.  Molly’s tragic and untimely drowning threw me into one of the deepest depressions I’ve suffered in many years.   I don’t think I will ever quite fully recover from what happened last March.

Meanwhile, John and I had a wonderfully quiet and peaceful Winter Solstice, Christmas, and New Year’s.  Now I am ready to lock myself away in the studio and be more productive than ever.  I have a lot of lost time to make up for and missed deadlines to take care of.

Here are my New Year’s Resolutions:

One final note:  As disappointed as I am to have learned that George R.R. Martin missed two more deadlines for the sixth book in his Game of Thrones series his confession gave me heart that I am not the only writer (and illustrator) who seems to work slower and make more mistakes when the pressure of a deadline looms.