Rather than writing a summary of ‘my achievements’ and the highlights of my adventures during the year, I thought I would review the most popular blog posts during 2015. Sharing content that everyone finds useful or inspirational is what I am all about, so in a way this collection of blog posts is in fact my big achievement of the year  – thanks to you all, my readers!

They are all posts that involved a bit of time in planning and production – the ‘big posts’ for me as well – and in between them are lots and lots of everyday sketches, sharing the adventures of my life. Finding a sustainable balance between these two types of posts is one of my goals for 2016.

So here they are, not in any particular ranking:

Reviews of my sketching trips

Every time I go away on vacation I spend a lot of time sketching, and as a result, my trips become a season of great development for my art. Coming back home and scanning all my sketches is a big job, but my favourite part is the summary post I do, sharing the big ideas that are in my head on my return.

• First thoughts from my week in Tasmania
• Seven Reflections from my Melbourne Trip – April 2015
• Singapore Cambodia Trip 2015: Initial review of my big trip
• Norfolk Island Part 6: Wrap Up and final thoughts

Outlines and ideas behind my workshops and online classes

This year I finished my Foundations Course in Feb and then ran my second online class Edges in September. These posts are summaries of what I taught and learnt from putting these courses together!

• The Foundations have been laid! Part 1: Sharing the framework
• Edges and Looseness
• Teaching at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Singapore was a big highlight – and I was happy to share my handout from my workshop – with a crazy title!
  My Pointless Perspective workshop – with downloadable handout!

Thoughts about doing daily challenges

In May I participated in the annual Every Day in May challenge

I wrote Why Bother? Part 1: Pushing yourself for a challenge as response to the struggles I encountered.

Asking for your preference

I thought it would be fun to ask your opinion on these four versions and guess what the results would be.

• Castle Howard Comparisons: The Results!

Palette Decisions and anything related to my kit

As a general rule anything to do with my watercolour selections is very popular…

• I finally updated my Current Sketching Tools Page…
• and also shared my latest palette

And you might also be interested in the top posts from last year with a lot of important principles:

• My version of a basic palette
• My recommended minimal watercolour palette

Product Reviews

I intended to do more this year but of the product reviews which I did do, these were the most popular:

• Sketchbook Review: Pentalic Aqua Journal compared with Moleskine Watercolor Notebook
• Swords and Daggers
• First thoughts: W&N Water Colour Markers
• Super5 Inks! First impressions

The danger of sharing your work online

Not the happiest event to have to blog about:

•   My response to Stolen sketches on a wall in China

A random review….

The most commented on post of the year:

• Adult Coloring Books 1: An initial review

and more recently….

My big series on Fountain Pen Sketching

No surprise that these have been the most popular posts all year!

Index to all 7 parts.

My reflections of three years since quitting my day job

And my favourite post for the year which was kicking around in my head for a month… 

“Give it three years” and three other helpful quotes from my friends

Just for the record, I am still in the process of replying to everyone who left a comment on this post. I was really moved to tears as I read them all – thankyou!

And finally, a few teacups!

I couldn’t do a summary blog post without including a teacup could I? So here is yesterday’s post!

These might be the most popular in terms of the numbers, but I would love to know what was YOUR favourite post (or type of post).  

What you would like to see more of here in 2016?

Thanks again for being with me on this amazing journey this year. I plan to do one more post in 2015, but if you don’t get a catch to pop by tomorrow – Happy New Year!

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