Now

Illustrating

As part of my current animation project, I worked on a poster design for the fictional boy band inspired by characters written by Sarah J Maas. The Bat Boys band poster was a lot of fun, using warm tones against a cool background to call attention to each band member. I needed to seriously reference a bass guitar before I could call this one “done”.

Watch out, Christmas 2026. I’m working on a family portrait, featuring myself and my 2 cats. The colors are a bit of a departure from what I normally do - I started with a monotone, brownish values portion before introducing more color. I’m hoping it gives the piece a little more weightiness and formality. One thing I’m already noticing is Hamish, the cat perched on the blue chair, is a little big compared to IRL counterpart. I’ll need to find a way to make him smaller without losing any of the work I’ve done on him thus far.

Designing

In my full-time role at SG, I’ve spent a massive portion of last year auditing and petitioning for design changes that would make the corporate website more accessible. We’re too large of a company to not address accessibility issues present until recently. As we enter 2026, the audit portion of the Accessibility project is complete, with almost everything we should account for accounted for, or will be accounted for in upcoming sprints. I’m grateful for my team and the developers who patiently partnered with me to make sure our website is an enjoyable experience for visitors of ALL abilities!

There are early beginnings of a freelance project I’m partnering with a former coworker on. Their brand needs some additional logo work (they have a wordmark, but no logomark/symbol to accompany the wordmark) and their website has a handful of opportunities for improving clarity for site visitors looking for more information. I’m excited to start working on fleshing out this brand~

Animating

I’ve had this animation stuck in my head for a long time - and with my first animation project complete, I felt confident in my ability to try something longer! My confidence went out the door when the Procreate team updated Dreams in the middle of my rough animation phase. So, now I’m learning the program all over again, but if you know me, you know that’s equally as thrilling for me. The project features more characters from Sarah J Maa's’ ACOTAR series as part of a modern-day 3-man band (inspired by @eleana.art). I’ve had these scenes playing on repeat in my head whenever I listen to “Fresh” by Artist & Poet for MONTHS now, so I’m very excited to see them play out on my iPad.

Crafting

This is as great a time as ever to motivate me to continue work on a crocheted blanket pattern. The pattern, created by Kirsten Ballering, is made up entirely of half-square granny squares. The colors I chose are a favorite of the recipient’s, and I love the way they travel down the blanket design in a beautiful gradient/ombre. While I love the idea of the finished piece, the repetitive nature of creating 120 granny squares is a bit mundane, which prevents me from spending as much time on it as I should…

My next smaller project is crocheting some sleeves on a sweatshirt, pattern by Dana at Day’s Crochet. Rather than potentially destroy an existing, beloved sweatshirt, I bought a new one from Amazon. The only problem is: it’s shipping from China and seriously delaying my enjoyment in tackling this fun-looking project. But I love the design of the sweatshirt, and the price point (in case I ruin anything).

I started reading “The Home Edit: Stay Organized,” which has inspired me to try to tackle different areas of my home. First up: the entryway. As you walk into my home, the kitchen opens up immediately on the left; to the right is a staircase to the upper level, and directly in front against the wall of the staircase I have a credenza I’d love to style. So I’m modifying a pattern from The Weekend Quilter’s Urban Quilting book to create a small runner to place on top of the credenza, using fabrics that should arrive in the mail ANY DAY NOW. I just need to get my sewing machine back after loaning it to a friend haha.

Camera Roll

Guess who bought herself a professional camera a couple months ago? I’ve loved being a photographer in the past, documenting different experiences, and I feel so pedestrian with my iPhone’s camera. My Canon EOS R50 is the perfect combination of “quality” and “casual,” and it pairs nicely with the 5 DSLR-era lenses my father no longer needs. Thanks for all the lenses and saving me a ton of money, Pa!

I’m excited to bring my camera at different events - I’ve always loved getting candids of people. I was bummed I couldn’t’ make it to the Whitewater Center with friends on New Years Day - I would have LOVED getting ice-skating shots - but thankfully, more events are coming up! Until then, I’ll just take photos of my cats.

Reading

Once again, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with my TBR. Even though I’m reading 2 books concurrently (The Assassin’s Blade from Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series and The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds), I’ve got to get started on CRUSH Your Money Goals by Bernadette Joy, make more progress on The Home Edit: Stay Organized, and re-rent The Anxious Generation from the library. OH, and I totally forgot I was paying for a Book of the Month club subscription, racked up a load of credits, and am expecting a box of 5 books in the mail this week.

I fear I’ve overestimated my ability to carve out time to read. Did you see everything else I’m doing??? (Just reread this entire page.)