💎 2025 : review of my third year as a full-time artist

Gem #80 I failed all my 2025 goals

Bonjour my little demon,

Whether you just joined or have been here from the beginning, thank you so much for reading 🖤.

Spent the past few weeks reviewing 2025 (facing yourself is never easy).

---

Announcement

SHAPE THE GEMS

I’m shaping this newsletter for 2026, and I want to make sure it brings you real value.

So tell me: What do you want to get here this year? What kind of content would help you most on your journey?

👉 Just reply to this email or leave a comment — I read every word.

---

TODAY’S GEM

Bonjour my little demon,

Let’s start with a painful truth.

I failed all my 2025 goals.

• I was supposed to launch my course five times. I only managed three.

• I planned to create three new oil paintings. I made zero.

• I spent the entire summer stuck in a deep art block. I couldn’t draw.

• I launched a Patreon in October… then closed it two months later.

These weren’t random goals. I believed in them. I worked hard for them.

But no matter how much I planned, reality kept dragging me somewhere else…

---

1- Rollercoasters

At the beginning of the year, I thought I had everything under control.

My portrait course was growing fast… almost too fast.

I was overwhelmed by the reviews, feedback, student requests…

And it became clear: if I wanted to keep the quality high, I had to pause.

So I did.

I closed enrollment. I stepped back.

And that pause gave birth to something I didn’t plan for: more student challenges, deeper community connection, and the space to quietly rework the course from the inside out.

Then summer came. And with it, the art block.

I had big plans to paint. Explore oils again but I couldn’t even hold a pencil. It was one of the scariest moments of my life: how can you run an art business… when you can’t make art?

So I did the only thing I could: I stopped running.

And I started documenting.

I shared the block, the doubts, the experiments, the failed portraits.

That’s how the Patreon was born.

Not as a product.

But as a refuge, a space to be raw, to create without pressure, to connect with other artists who knew exactly what that silence felt like.

And it changed everything: It didn’t fix me overnight. But it helped me move. I found my rhythm again. I found my voice. And for the first time in years, I felt confident in my skills, but in my vision.

Meanwhile, something else was brewing in the background.

I didn’t paint this year, but I drew. Endlessly.

New characters, new spirits, new stories.

And through graphite, I found a language that felt more honest, more immediate, more mine.

To my surprise, you felt it too:

My content exploded. Millions of views. Hundreds of thousands of new followers.

By the end of the year, we crossed 700,000 souls across platforms.

And in the middle of all that, another unexpected chapter: Staedtler reached out.

A brand I had loved and used for years.

For the first time in years, I said yes to a partnership.

Because this one wasn’t about money.

It was about alignment. Respect. Trust.

And it felt like the start of something new.

---

2- The lesson I learned

Of course, not everything worked.

The Patreon? I shut it down after two months.

It wasn’t the right format — not yet.

But it gave me something precious: clarity.

So no, 2025 didn’t go as planned.

But maybe that’s the best thing that could’ve happened.

Because now, I’m entering 2026 with a clearer head, a stronger vision…

And one big project I’m pouring my whole heart into:

A full remake of my portrait course, Reality to Fantasy.

New portraits. New pedagogy. New structure. New exercises.

Everything I’ve learned over the past six years, finally shaped into the course I wish I had when I started.

---

3- What do you need?

2026 is shaping up to be a grand artistic adventure and I’m taking you with me.

This year, I’ll be sharing more art, more behind-the-scenes, more insight...

So before I tell you everything i planned for you this year in the next Portrait Gem : tell me what you need. What would help you most this year? What kind of gems do you want to find in your inbox?
👉 Just reply to this email or leave a comment. I read every word.

Voilà, that’s all for me.
Je t’embrasse,
Léa.

---

---