Happy New Year 🌱 If I’m honest, procrastination showed up for me last year too. Not because I lost my passion, but because my attention was being pulled everywhere else. Everyone wants it. Everything steals it. And when it came time to focus on the work that mattered to me, the muscle wasn’t always there. Did that happen to you too? What changed things wasn’t forcing discipline. It was learning how to reclaim attention in very small, simple ways. Through that, I got more done last year than I had in a long time, not by rushing, but by building one thing on top of another. That’s the approach I’m carrying into this year. I shared a short video about this here 🎥 https://www.instagram.com/p/DS78bQvDM6M/ These hacks are simple by design, but don’t be fooled, they’re powerful. They’re low pressure, don’t require hours of effort, and are designed to work with your biology, not against it. Each repetition trains the body to want to return to the work with less friction. One of the biggest things I’m grateful for last year was teaching over 100 students in person 🎨 It taught me how to support people deeply and gently as they stay with their creative work. It also gave me stamina. And stamina eats procrastination for breakfast. That experience is a big reason this community exists. One of the most powerful things we’ll be continuing with is our Make It Together sessions here ✍️ These are what I CRAVED when I started working as an artist. Accountability. Company. Focused time to do the work. Bring your work. Use this space. Turn up and move things forward alongside others. You can check the calendar for the Zoom dates. Or we can start a new poll for new dates if that suits the majority. Just comment below. If you’re here and haven’t really engaged yet, consider this your invitation 💬 Even a small presence helps others step forward too. If you feel like it, reply below: one thing you’re grateful for from last year ✨ one thing you want to give attention to in 2026 🚀

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been coming back from a viral infection, and it forced a reset I didn’t plan. As my energy returned, I was reminded of something simple. Over the last year I’ve done a lot. Making work. Sending to open calls. Teaching in person and online. Writing a book. There are to do lists, systems, and structures that help keep all of that moving. But the things that actually help me regain focus and momentum, without which none of it would be possible, have not changed. 👀 What still works What works for me isn’t going faster or trying to be more efficient. It isn’t skimming or pushing through. It’s slowing down in the right places and looking properly. = Staying with things a little longer than feels comfortable. = Choosing less when things feel overwhelming. = Writing things down to expose what really matters. = Letting quiet noticing become raw material for creative work. ✍🏽 The hand as a way back I’m sharing the image here from a blind contour drawing I made recently. It’s a simple exercise where you draw your hand without looking at the page. I use exercises like this often, both in my own practice and when I teach. They’re well known in the art world, but I use them with a different emphasis. Not as a drawing exercise, but as a way of rebuilding attention. The hand becomes a way of noticing when the mind drifts, and gently bringing it back. You don’t force focus. You stay with something long enough for it to return. 🎨 How the work evolved That approach has followed me through everything I’ve made. It’s how I moved from realism into abstraction. One realist painting reached the second stage of the John Moores Painting Prize this year, and the abstract series that followed grew out of hundreds of small, low pressure iterations that we informed by my particular approachto seeing, from my bed to when I have been travelling. That work will be shown at the Royal Scottish Academy in January. Looking back, what stands out is that none of this came from chasing motivation. It came from staying connected to the practice, especially in between projects.