Starting in summer 2025, I used this sketchbook to play with watercolor and ink, focusing especially on storytelling and portraits of everyday life.

For my third sketchbook combining artistic studies with old journal entries, I created monochrome paintings alongside my writing, inspired by monochrome studies I've done in art class and finished quickly for an energetic, sketch-like feel. 

Last year, I worked on a series of paintings called "Fear/Love" that explores conflicting emotions in parenthood and plays with darkness and light. I was inspired to create these paintings after trying to explain what motherhood is like to my childfree friends. No matter what I said, it felt inadequate. No words could describe the depth of emotion, or how the worst experiences could also be laced with wonder and happiness.

At the end of last year, I began working more with palette knives to cultivate a faster, looser approach to painting. I was inspired by Charles W. Hawthorne, an artist and teacher who insisted that his students begin with palette knives, not brushes, so they'd focus on the overall energy, form, and color of a subject rather than getting bogged down with minor details.

For this book illustrated with watercolor, gouache, and ink, I focused on creating messy art that challenged my perfectionist tendencies. I aimed for “playful” instead of "good" and let paint drip and seep onto other pages. I wanted to see how I'd handle more chaos and how it'd change me.

My nine-year-old daughter Madeleine and I created this painting of Kalanchoe flowers together, our first time collaborating on an art piece. The process was fun for both of us and an interesting experiment in blending two distinct styles into one artwork.

Finishing this heavy book about color and light was such an accomplishment, I decided to write this blog to highlight useful things I learned for fear I'd forget them otherwise.

Stowed away in a little box, I have a set of 20+ journals from the beginning of my marriage, starting in June 2011. I'm slowly recreating them with illustrations and curation, giving them a second life and giving me endless inspiration for creating art with gouache, a type of paint I wanted to try out.