 Well, hi there, it's Sandy Alnok here with a real-time scribble sketch for you, and I'm going to be sharing some thoughts on the year 2020, all the good stuff that happened. While I do this sketch, the sketch is using some non-waterproof ink on just a regular old cheapy sketchbook with a glass dip pen that was, I believe, gifted to me anonymously. It came in a package into my P.O. box, but it's a yellow pen, and even though it had no note, I'm just going to assume it was gift, because gifts are often yellow in my world, since that's my favorite color. Well, 2020 was quite the year, wasn't it? It wasn't all bad, so I'm going to talk about a bunch of the good things that happened and a little bit of the crazy along the way. January, I was optimistic. I was going to conquer the year, it was going to be really awesome, and I was planning on travel and teaching and just full of spreadsheets, and by February, the pandemic was starting. I was in on it early, since I live in Washington, and we had the big outbreak at a nursing home, and I started doing research, and I saw what was happening in other countries and how fast it was spreading, and I canceled all that travel, because I could see that this was going to be potentially really bad, and I wanted to wait and see what happened in the United States, and by mid-March, we were in full-on shutdowns. It was pretty bleak by then, and my birthday happens to be at the end of March, and I just have to raise a little complaint here that I did not get a Zoom birthday party, like everybody else did, because we didn't have Zoom in our bloodstream yet at that point. So I'm hoping in 2021, if you're one of my friends, you want to throw a surprise Zoom party for me, that would be awesome, because I think I deserve it after throwing parties for all of you guys, so there's that. Well come April, I was super glad I already had an online business going before 2020 had started, because everybody else who had brick and mortars was trying to figure out how to keep things going, and they were trying to transform themselves into online businesses, and trying to do that normally would be hard, trying to do that in the midst of a pandemic when you're panicked about trying to keep your employees paid, trying to keep something going, has just got to be insane. I could not feel more blessed that I was already established before all this started, and all of that then was followed by a summer of protests, into a fall of protests, into an election, and then more protests, it's just like been the year of everybody being angry, being mad at each other over everything. So I'm hoping 2021 will be the year of everybody calming back down, that would be really good, can we just calm down, it would be really nice. Now let's go from the macro picture to the micro picture like me, let's make this all about me for a while. How did 2020 go for me, personally, my art, my business, what were some of the good things that happened? Well, one of which is that I learned I could shop every three weeks and be just fine. I didn't need to do the weekly grocery shopping or the every couple days running to the store for one thing, because they have this stuff called paper, and you can write down a list of things you need, and then wait until you have a full list and then go to the store. Yeah, okay, so I learned that lesson during a pandemic, I should have learned it as an adult, but I'm just slow. So there you go. I learned that I missed my Toastmasters friends more than I expected. I meet with them every Tuesday night, and suddenly when I couldn't see them anymore, I got all excited. I've got a Zoom account and I started demanding that they meet online and have been driving it all year long, keeping them going, because I miss these folks. We get along, we know each other really well, and we've been through a lot together and I don't want to lose contact, so that's been a good thing. If you're somebody who is still looking for work, I know a lot of people are still unemployed, if you're hoping that 2021, when we start opening up that you're going to go get a great job, I want you to get that great job, I would recommend right now, go join a Toastmasters club, and you can join one online, they're probably all still virtual at this point, but you need to learn how to talk to grownups again. You've been talking to your kids, and to your cat, and to your dog, for what, nine months now, but it'll be maybe a year by the time you start looking for a job, you might want to learn how to communicate again, so go to a Toastmasters club and talk to adults, they can help you, and you can learn how to present yourself well on video, because you might be doing some video interviews, this would be really good for you, so go to Toastmasters.org, put your address information in and they'll tell you what clubs are near you, so that once they're no longer meeting online, you could meet in person with them as well. So that would be a really good thing to prepare you to go out and get that new job of your dreams. Another good thing I learned is that I could see more of my family, because we started, I guess maybe a month after the pandemic started, after the lockdowns, we started meeting every two weeks on Zoom, and that changed eventually into monthly, but I have seen more of my family in 2020 than I normally do in a year when we could just get on a plane and go see each other, so that's been a really awesome thing. I also learned that I could live a lot of my life in pajama pants. At the time, I go out to get the mail and then I come back in the studio and it's really all, I can do that in pajama pants, so I have bought a lot more of those in 2020. Some good things about my artwork, let's talk about that. I have continued making videos, I make still all year long, I've been doing three videos a week until December, which is sabbatical month, and that's its own category, but three videos a week and new classes all the time to stretch my students and help people to get better at their art and try new things, which is great. I have found, unfortunately, that YouTube still stinks. They apparently have stopped sending email notifications. I thought my thing just broke or lost its connection or something, but in 2020, I started getting emails from more people saying, hey, I used to get notifications by email that you had a video up and I'm not getting it from YouTube anymore. Well, now you have to sign up for phone notifications, apparently. I can't figure out how to get the email ones to start up again. So that might be part of why nobody's watching my videos anymore. I don't say nobody. There's a few thousand of you out there. God bless you all. But I used to get many, many, many times the number of views and it's really just bottomed out. It's quite sad. And it's not very motivational for making videos. So sign up for phone notifications and you can do what I do, which is every evening. As I settle down from the day, I check my subscriptions tab on YouTube and I just go through and watch whatever videos that I want to from my favorite creators. My Instagram, though, is still a happy story. It's still good news there, still growing in that account. I'm doing twice to three times a week videos there and they're just short videos. They're real easy to make. There's no voiceover or anything, no product linking or anything. It's just making something fun and sometimes it's cards. Sometimes it's other things and I'm getting crazy numbers of views. There's just nuts way more than I ever get on YouTube. So they're easier to do as well. And that is a super helpful thing. Another piece of good news from 2020 is I finally invested in some needed equipment. I have been saving for years to get a new camera. I knew that it was going to be needed very soon and it was finally time. So I got a new camera, I got a new mic, I got a new mixing board. And that has that combination of equipment has allowed me to do more live videos. So I did a live YouTube here earlier this month. I've done some live Facebooks and I've done some live crowdcasts for my patrons. And that's been super fun to be able to do more content for them because my patrons are my inner circle. They're my heart. They're the people who support me and I wanted to give them more for their faithfulness in helping me out and supporting my work. So that's been fantastic. And then more good news. See 2020 has good news in it. My new fine art site launched this year. I have been wanting to do this for, I can't even tell you how many years. I used to have a page on my blog with just a whole bunch of pictures in it. And that was it. There was no room for anything. There was it was just a mess. But it was the only place I had to post all my paintings and drawings and things that were not cards. And it didn't impress anybody. I didn't think that I was serious about my fine art. So developing a whole new site for that totally made a difference. In the time that that has been live, I have sold over three dozen pieces, which has been crazy wonderful. It has really helped me get through this year, the extra income from that, which has been super fantastic. I was not expecting that site to generate any income. I put some stuff in a store just to see. And I'm delighted that people wanted to invest in my art. So that's been fantastic. Also, I have gotten some commissions through that website that I wasn't expecting that either. I'm not a big fan of commissions, though. It's not my favorite thing to do because it's painting someone else's passion, not painting my passion. I'd rather teach you to paint so you could paint your passion. But I'm I'm grateful for it because it got me through the year. Anything helps at this point. So now let's talk about classes and some successes that I've had in that area. OK, well, this person may not be a full success. Alcoholics, I think I picked the wrong year to choose to get into alcoholics. In January before the pandemic started, I bought a couple bottles of isopropyl alcohol for like $1.37 each at my local CVS. And then the pandemic hit and you couldn't find any alcohol anywhere like it was gone. You can now get a bottle of it for like $9 on Amazon, but like it's $1.37. How can it be so expensive? But yeah, it's a class that will wait for you until after the pandemic dies down. And then alcohol, the isopropyl alcohol comes down to a reasonable price. So there you go. Another class that I launched this year that was wildly popular was Copic Wildflowers, and that was Copic Wildflowers one. So guess what? Very soon Copic Wildflowers two is coming your way. So stay tuned for that one. Another style that I developed this year because I was trying to find something where more people could feel successful making scenes on cards is the storybook style. And I have several classes under that category. And those I tried to create things where you don't have to be really good at drawing to be able to create them. You can make a tree shaped like a lollipop that will be really cute, but you don't have to make it look like a tree. So if you're somebody who just is afraid to draw some of the scenes that I show in a lot of my classes, this might be something for you. I also did blueprints in a similar kind of way, not trying to make them super easy, but giving you a blueprint, giving you some guidelines to help you to be able to create a great indoor scene and apply dimension to it and a little bit of perspective. And so that's another thing that I think is going to be successful going forward as well. I also did a Bible journaling class teaching people how to paint watercolor animals. And that one I'm debating whether or not to recommend that if you want to paint them on cards, that you take that class, or should I refilm it so that it's on watercolor paper and address it that way and have them as two separate classes. I'm not really sure if you have thoughts on that. Please let me know if you've taken that class as a Bible journaler. Do you think that people need to have another class on watercolor paper? I don't really know yet. I have to think about that more. Some other classes that I created that are aimed at new audiences and trying to reach out a little broader beyond card making. And one is Copic art journaling. So those techniques are great for people who love to make art journals, but they're also great techniques that you can use for card making. So they cross both different directions. I also created some fine art watercolor classes. I'm starting these as foundations for the future because I want to do a lot more in more advanced watercolor. But I wanted to lay some groundwork in these fine art watercolor foundations classes have been great at that so far. And people who are taking them are loving them and I'm really pleased about that. And then my last surprise class, I was not expecting it to be super popular, but the ink sketching class within ink sketching techniques, not the scribble technique that you're watching, but learning how to cross hatch and things and how to draw an epic scene in an accordion sketchbook. People are loving that. And I'm really glad for that because I love pens and I love that you love pens. So yay. Well, now let's talk for a minute about the plan for 2021 because I've been trying to think about what to do in the coming year. And of course, I have more fun classes coming. I have a long list growing, one of which I'll give you a tidbit about as well. Slim line scenes have been all the rage. Everybody wants to make slimline cards. And I have been designing some really beautiful slimline scene cards, both horizontal and vertical. And it's going to be an epic class. It's going to be so much fun because it's kind of taking a magical turn to it. So think unicorns and fairies and stuff. It's in that kind of mental genre. So I'm really excited about that. I just need to finish designing all the scenes and then I can start filming, hopefully, in the next couple of weeks. Another thing that I'm doing in 2021, I've started doing a little bit of it so far on my blog, but I'm doing what I'm calling inspiration posts. And what I'm doing is going back through some of my older content and re-upping it. I'm going to re-up it by kind of similar content, whether it's similar products by groupings of seasonal content. So, you know, during the Christmas season, I'll bring all of the wintery type things to the floor so that you can get some inspiration from things that you may not get to see. They kind of disappear into the back history of YouTube, never to be seen again, but they're great techniques. And I'm going to try to add to them some of the more modern stamps. You can't get the old stamps anymore. They're not available, but some ideas for some new stuff that you might be able to use the same techniques with. And so each one of those is going to come out, I think, on Saturdays. I'm going to do a Saturday inspiration post each week, at least for the time being, until I run out of things to do it with. And I hope that's going to be helpful to you in sorting through some content and trying to find some great, older ideas that you can put a modern twist on, OK? The last part of my plan for 2021 is probably not the happiest part for those of you here on YouTube, because after quarter one, I'm going to see how quarter one goes, I may cut back to two videos a week instead of June 3. That might increase the views on the two videos that I do have, but it also is going to mean I'm not spinning my wheels as much, creating content that very few people are watching. And I can spend more time creating all these other things that people are watching. And I can put my energies towards things that are having success, instead of things that are just kind of disappearing into the Internet out there. So I will see how things go. If you want to help increase my views, then by all means, share my videos with your friends and tell them to come watch and to turn on notifications so you get to see everything. All right, I have reached the end of my notes. That is all I have to say. So fortunately, this drawing is done and I'm going to go now. I will see you again very soon. Card making videos start again on January 1st and I'll see you then. Take care. Bye guys.