Goodbye 2024 and HELLO 2025! What a year!
First, I wanted to express my sincere gratitude for all the love and support given to Modern Meliora this past year. 2024 was a transformative year for me personally and for my business. My business had some highs and lows but overall, I grew so much this year in business.
Here are some highlights from this year:
1) January-February // 30 Days No Buy Challenge - Art Supplies
The beginning of this year I embarked on a 30 days journey of not buying art supplies and instead finding joy in the ones I have. This was a difficult challenge for me as I love trying out new mediums and art supplies but at some point I felt more like a consumer than a producer. This shift in mindset led me to create this challenge for myself and document my experience creating art with all the supplies I have in my collection. I started out compiling all the art supplies I have in a list then each day randomly drawing a number and using that supply to create a whole new art piece.
During this time I discovered some cool uses to the supplies that I have like creating a painting with my fountain ink and using markers as watercolors to paint. This challenge was a great reminder that I have enough and arguably too much. Even though I love looking at art supplies and sometimes dream about what it would be like to use them, I try to focus on the potential for creating new artwork with my old supplies.
Check out this video compilation of my experience!
2) March // Vietnam Trip
One of my most memorable travel experiences from this year was my trip to Vietnam, my homeland. In case you didn't know, I was born in Southern Vietnam and immigrated to the United States with my family when I was 4 years old. I haven't been back to Vietnam ever since and after 20+ years this was my first opportunity to return to my roots. This experience was not only transformative, it was also healing. It healed a part of me that always yearned for my cultural heritage and seeing what life would be like if my family never left Vietnam. I got to visit family members that I've never met and family members who last saw me at 4 years old, not an adult woman. This trip also inspired one of my best paintings yet, Koi Fish. Everywhere I traveled to in Vietnam I saw many koi ponds and the most beautiful fish swimming in it.
Here are some photos from my trip and a video recapping the art I created inspired by Vietnam:
3) April // Cherry Blossoms in Seattle
When we came back from our Vietnam trip we were greeted by blooming cherry blossoms in Seattle. My parents were able to visit us in Seattle before making their way back to California so we had to take them to the University of Washington area to experience cherry blossoms. This experience inspired my painting "Seattle Blossoms", one of my favorites and best-selling prints I have!
4) May // U-District Street Fair & Tent Vandalism
I vended at one of the largest events in Seattle in May and it was one of my best events of the year in terms of sales! It was a two-day event and although the rain was unforgiving on the first day, the sun showed up for the second day. Everything went according to plan until someone threw a wrench in it overnight. We showed up on the second day to discover our tent had been vandalized with graffiti. Most of my back tent wall was marked by red spray paint. I was a little disheartened to see that my tent and several others in my area were tagged. However, I bottled up my feelings and had one of my best sales day. After the event I came up with an idea, probably one of my best ideas of 2024 honestly, and went straight to work. I reclaimed my tent wall by painting over the graffiti and creating a tent mural. It was incredibly ambitious as I've never painted on a canvas of that caliber but I did it anyway. I turned a sour lemon into sweet lemonade. This is still one of my most memorable moments of 2024. It taught me a lot about my own creative problem-solving. That's just how my artist brain operates I guess.
Read more about my U-District market recap here:
Read more about my tent vandalism story here:
5) June // The Start of My Pickleball Journey
I picked up my first pickleball paddle over the summer and played with my church group all summer. It was addicting...playing pickleball. I have played most sports that were pickleball adjacent like ping pong, badminton, and tennis but I didn't get into pickleball until my parents convinced me to play after they had learned it and gifted me and my husband a set of paddles for our wedding anniversary. I played pickleball every week, even practicing by myself against a wall on weeekdays. Since it was summer in the PNW the sun would set around 9:30 PM, which was INCREDIBLE, because we would play until it got dark. My pickleball skills grew tenfold this summer and I discovered how fun the game is. Of course being the artist that I am I wanted to personalize my paddle and make it my own. My pickleball friends convinced me not to decorate my paddle even with stickers because it might affect my game play. I thought about it for a while and found some blank paddle covers that would be the perfect canvas for painting. It offered a personalized touch without permanently altering my paddle. I used heavy body acrylic to paint on the cover using a palette knife (this is something I'm fairly new at) but I thought it turned out really cool! What do you think?
6) July // Creating Custom, Matching Hats
One of my favorite offerings is custom painted hats for people who want a more unique and personalized touch to their outfits. This summer I was approached by a client who wanted to gift custom hats to his wife and daughter as his daughter loved wearing her mom's hats. I loved this idea, mainly because I just love the idea of mommy-daughter matching outfits and this would be an opportunity to create something truly unique for them. I got right to work coming up with a design that would appeal to his daughter's love of Hawaiian flowers and bugs. What a cool project! Definitely one of my favorite custom artwork that I created in 2024.
7) August // My First Plein-Air Artist Trip
One of the highlights from 2024 was my first art trip to Mt. Baker in Washington. It was a quick art retreat with my friend Jodi (@jomiekoart) who is my first artist friend in Seattle. We rented an airbnb in Deming, WA and spent a whole day hiking the Chain Loop Trail in Mt. Baker, stopping periodically to sit down and paint the beautiful scenery around us. It was such a fun trip, exploring the outdoors and capturing its profound beauty. The best part was waking up at 4 AM to experience the sunrise overlooking Mt. Shaksun and trying to capture that on paper. I'm excited to go on more plein-air painting trips in 2025!
You can read more about my Mt. Baker trip here:
8) September // My Birthday Party
September is my birthday month and this year I got to host a birthday celebration with my friends in collaboration with a local gift shop. It was small, intimate, and everything I could ask for. My friends showed up for me, we played Truc-Quan Bingo, ate food, and I did a private pop-up for them with a special birthday discount. It was a wonderful day and I'm so blessed to have such friends in Seattle.
9) October-November// Mixed Media Sketchbook
In the later half of the year I worked mostly in mixed media. I bought a new sketchbook for myself to try from the Stillman & Birn brand and I fell in love with mixed media illustrations. I would use watercolor for my first layer and then add details with my neocolor 2 crayons from Caran D'ache or colored pencils from Prismacolor. My mixed media style evolved and I created a lot of artwork in my sketchbook. This was such an experimental period in my 2024 artist journey and I'm proud that I tried new things with my art.
Here are some sketchbook spreads I did during this time:
You can read more about the art supplies I use for my mixed media art here:
10) November// My First Art Installation
A local hotspot in my town ran a contest for artists to submit their installation ideas for display in a storefront. The theme was "Winter in Washington". I've never done a large installation before but I had a great concept so I threw my hat in. Never did I think that my proposal would get accepted and I would create my first art installation! My idea was to create an interactive display that would highlight Washington's iconic landmarks and people passing by could engage with the art by taking a picture of them within the display. I wanted the base to be a mirror shaped like a snowglobe because to me, snowglobes capture a scene in time. Similarly, taking a photo captured a moment in time. My project was called "Snowglobe Magic Mirror" and it was displayed throughout the holiday season at The Landing in Renton, WA!
Read more about my art installation in my previous blog here:
11) December // Vending at Pike Place Market
One of the many awesome reasons I love being an artist is connecting with people and seeing where my artwork would end up. I had an incredible opportunity to vend at THE Pike Place Market in Seattle this December. I still can't believe I did that! Over 2 years ago I came to Seattle for the first time before making our big move out here from California. My husband and I visited Pike and I was absolutely enamored by all the fresh flowers, seafood, and local artisans that were selling their creations. Now I get to say that I'm part of that vibrant market scene after a week of selling my art there. I got to meet so many people from travelers passing by to local Seattlelites making their weekly market runs. It was so fun talking to people from all over and seeing how my art impacted them. I can't wait to come back to Pike Place in 2025!
Read more about my Pike Place experience here:
If you've made it this far in my blog I just want to say THANK YOU for reading my 2024 recap. Funny enough, 2024 was also the year I started writing these blog entries as a way to capture my thoughts and experiences in my artist journey. I never thought of myself as much of a writer but this blog is my way of documenting my journey and letting you into my life as an artist.
I hope 2024 was a great year for you too and I'm looking forward to all the things 2025 will bring!
Until next time, stay colorful.
Truc-Quan
Comments