Where The Wild Things Are

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Hi friends! Long time no write; I'm chalking it up to the fact that I'm in intense book research & writing mode. I cannot wait to share more about it next year, but in the meantime here's artwork I can share right now.

I just painted this piece, That Very Night A Forest Grew, for the Maurice Sendak & Shel Silverstein tribute show Small Adventures curated by Supahcute at Leanna Lin's Wonderland Gallery in Los Angeles. It's still available for purchase here. You can see & buy the rest of the pieces by a coterie of amazing artists in this show here.

With that, Happy September!

Happy 20th Anniversary, Clueless!

Happy 20th Anniversary, Clueless! I had to make this painting to celebrate one of the greatest movies of all time. This film taught me so much about life – like don't bother going out at night in the Valley, don't wear suede shoes to a party, and the value of an Alaïa.

Also, thanks for teaching me the best insult ever: "You're a virgin who can't drive."

Wonderland Art for Animals Show

Happy Saturday, folks! Here's a new piece I painted, entitled I Brought You These Because I Love You, for the Wonderland Art for Animals benefit show at Leanna Lin's Wonderland in Eagle Rock, California. Curated by Supahcute & Leanna Lin, the show opens tonight at 6pm and you can get tons of amazing original art for $100 & under! All net proceeds benefit the North Central L.A. Animal Shelter.

There's nothing I love more than helping pups!

Floral Series & Some Life Updates

Happy July!

I'm excited to share that I've finished another #30for30 days project, where I stick to a subject and make a daily(ish) painting for 30 days, and then sell them on Instagram for a super special low rate of $30. It's a fun way for me to share my work, and reward all of you for supporting my paintings!

For the month of June, I decided to take on florals so that I could expand my portfolio of flower and botanical paintings. It nicely coincided with my growing hobby of turning my house into an indoor jungle. More about that later. For the florals, check out my tag #30for30florals on Instagram to see the rest; or see a selection of my favorites in my portfolio.

I'm going to take a little break from doing a 30 day series in July as I focus on big, exciting freelance projects (can't wait to share those) and working a ton on my book!

Now that we're halfway through the year, I took a little time to reevaluate my January goals/resolutions. I'm happy to see that I've made good progress on checking off half of my resolutions list. Now I'm focusing on health – both physical and mental health. It's been a change for me to really focus on defining work/life balance for myself. But in order to have a sustainable, healthy life, I have to start making changes before I turn into an anxious, gollum-y creature hunched over my Cintiq as a permanent state of being.

Ryan and I signed up to go to the gym and work out with a personal trainer 3x a week, and we've already been 4 times in the past week. That's more than any form of exercise I've stuck to in the last...oh, 9 years.  I'm also trying to make some changes in my diet, and that part is especially challenging now that I work by myself in my studio. I'm tackling a little change at a time, from drinking 80oz of water daily (I just fill up my tumblr 4x a day), to meal prep for lunch for the week, and now adding in working out!

I'll update ya on how it's going as the summer progresses. Any health tips or thoughts appreciated!

P.S. I started writing more about mental health balance as well, and then the post started getting so long I decided to split it into a second post. Look out for that on Monday, and have a great long holiday weekend!
 

Meet The Artist

There's been an art hashtag (#MeetTheArtist) circling around social media in the past couple months so I thought I'd finally join in about a month too late. It was fun to work on this in between client projects, but hard to pick just two of my animals, Oliver and Bettie, to illustrate here. Don't worry, our kitty Penny will be in Ryan's. 

Also, narrowing down my likes and dislikes into short, sweet lists was tough. This stands, at least for this week!

The Grass is Greenest Where You Water It

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At the beginning of this year, I was having a bit of an existential crisis. I had quit my in-house design job to focus full time on my freelance career at the end of October. I went on a magical adventure to Paris the week right after, then came back and jumped into show season (with DesignerCon, CTNX, and Renegade Craft Fair all within four weeks), got hired onto an exciting freelance project that committed me into the new year, and then the dust settled in January.

The dust settling was welcome, and I've been fortunate that the freelance jobs have been steadily coming; but the unstructured, amorphous shape of my future was stunning. Stunning in a catatonic way – it was the first time in my entire life that I haven't been scheduled to the gills. I left my job for a myriad of reasons, but the most outstanding one being that my freelance work was growing to a point where it could sustain my life, and my schedule of doing both was growing to a point that was going to kill me.

So back to January. I was having lunch with my friend Eileen, and we were both at the beginning of starting something new. We were both kind of scared, really excited, and already exhausted at the ideas of our individual businesses. I shared a quote I had read somewhere (still can't hunt down a real origin, so let me know if you know): the grass is greenest where you water it. From that moment, it was my mantra for 2015.

It's been paying off in ways I can't wait to share, but I also lettered this piece throughout the last couple months – in the moments I found it hardest to believe in this quote. But it always turned me back around, helped me focus on the right things instead of dwelling on the negative. Hopefully it can do the same for you. You can find the print in my shop if you'd like to make it part of your life.

Printable for The Crafted Life x Orchard Supply Hardware

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Hi and happy May! So much exciting stuff has been going on behind the scenes here, which I can't wait to share soon.

One of the wonderful projects I've gotten to work on lately is this printable for The Crafted Life's Crafter's Essential Guide to the Hardware Store in partnership with Orchard Supply Hardware! I met the lovely and sweet Rachel of The Crafted Life at Craftcation this past March, and we became fast friends with our shared love of color, glitter, and real biz talk. It's always such a joy to get to work with friends who have the same vision and totally get it, you know?

Hop on over to her super cute blog and you can download this print for your very own (or find it at the grand opening of the Orchard Supply Hardware in Portland)!

 

Good Vibes Only!

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Lately I've been working on a lot of different types of projects – fun client projects, exciting collaborations, and then some larger, more ambitious personal work that I'm taking on to really level up my work. I'm not very patient, so sometimes the struggle feels extra hard and I'm really tough on myself. 

While working on both of these challenging personal pieces tonight, I suddenly got a spark of an idea for this piece. It just came together so easily and naturally. Sometimes the universe really delivers – both a break and a message. I need to be more cautious about the vibes I let flow into my work space and my head space, and let it be good vibes only. The negativity and anxiety can just keep on rolling.

If you're needing this same reminder, you can make this print your own in my shop!

Music is such a Beautiful Art

Happy April! It's hard to believe we're already halfway through the month; so really, happy tax day!

I wanted to pop in and share this lettering commission I just finished, because it was such a pleasure to work on. My client and I were both thrilled with the results, and isn't that the best kind of work synergy? Such a sweet sentiment too; it reminds me of the thrill of discovering music that made your heart glow – a feeling that seems harder and harder to recapture as I get older. I've got to change that by discovering more new music soon!