Art Dump- July 2025

Consistency? Who is she??? I mean, ignoring the fact that I’m a few days late but guys?? Validate me please!

Back for another internet equivalent of handing you a stack of my art and saying “here.” I decided for July I wouldn’t really post anything on my IG, in faithfulness to this idea of trying to move things away from the platform. I mostly did it except for a post about Josh, so I’m calling that a win.

In my sketchbook

I’ve been living in my sketchbook this month, which is mostly good and only came to haunt me when I was putting this post together. It’s basically all sketches for my MG novel, whose very long title abbreviates to OCATSOTAT which makes me think of the below visual:

Silly!

I’m trying to have the first 7 chapters illustrated before I start querying this fall. I internally debate with myself every time I put things related to this novel in public facing posts because it is far and away more likely that it dies in the querying trenches rather than it actually getting published. But also even if it dies I will have learned a lot about art and writing and book-building and maybe I don’t need to hide that part. The hard reality of the publishing industry is that most books don’t get published, and most authors don’t publish their first book. However, I think that in order to not let that get you down, you MUST be delusional and act like your work WILL be published. So indulge me in my delusions.

On my desk

I’m working on some commissions right now but I’m not gonna post those because *privacy* But look at these teeny tiny favorite books I painted on someone’s “get to know your teacher” commission!

Scanned and saved

I got the opportunity to work on a single cover for Indelible Grace Music, which was founded decades ago by the campus minister of my university’s RUF. Indelible Grace is coming out with a new album soon and this single is for their kickstarter supporters. The version with this cover will be availible for public streaming on spotify in September.

The song is called Mighty Comforter, and I did several thumbnails trying to figure out how exactly I wanted to visualize the song’s ethos. I loved the ones of someone sleeping and being comforted by a blanket of Biblical nature-y imagery, but ultimately, the lyrics are less “peaceful comfort” and more “be comforted because all the world’s and your wrongs will be made right.” There are lots of references to God entering in and pushing aside sin and death, plus a lyric about a veil lifting, so I ultimately wanted to play with that.

I got the ask for this job right before Josh and I left the country for 2 weeks, so I had to decide on a very limited color palette before I had even begun to thumbnail. It honestly ended up being super helpful— crazy how having limits actually provides more freedom! Who knew?

Anyways, I finally nailed down a concept and got my sketch in— not one of the thumbnails, as you’ll see. I made Josh model in reference photos for me because a central element of this painting was going to involve my NEMESIS aka hands.

no free feet pics!

I don’t always lay down an underpainting, but I knew I wanted the golden heavens breaking into the darker, bluer space to glow. I didn’t know how that was going to happen but an underpainting seemed right? Here are some progress pics.

This is the painting right before scanning. The lighting at my desk is atrocious but I have to remind myself that I am God’s strongest soldier and I will make it through.

Andddddddd the final! I did some coloring adjustments and popped it into Procreate to clean and refine some things. I ended up cutting the chains because of contrast issues— in fact, contrast issues were my biggest beef with this painting. Yellow and white can get so dimensional IRL, but scanning can flatten things. With the edits done, I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve made a pice that I’m *gasp* happy with!

Look at her! She’s literally glowing!

I also made this little comic late one evening after wondering what to do with some extra gouache and reading back through some of my angsty notes-app musings.

Finally, I completed an OCATSOTAT illustration that I’m truly so happy with! In a perfect world, the book will have one full-page illustration at the beginning of each chapter, then the chapter itself will be filled with lots of different spots.

I’m not the most proficient at illustrating buildings, so naturally I set the entirety of this book in a major city. However, I loved this sketch and was excited to translate it into a final version.

My first attempt was a bust and I abandoned the whole thing for a while because I saw what I had done and decided I could never ever be a successful illustrator and everything I had ever envisioned for this work was out of my ability range and actually I really SUCK at art and also our fragile democracy is eroding into authoritarianism so why bother?

So I gave it a week and came back later.

Sometimes I feel like most of my artistic life is just trying to get back to the feeling that the sketch evokes. If you look at the sketch vs. my first attempt, it’s clear I wasn’t actually studying the parts I loved about the sketch. It’s too heavy handed, too focused on the simple capture of the shapes and lines instead of actually reaching for the spirit of the original. Going back and studying, I realized that I loved the sketch for its delicacy. The hard, bold lines of my first attempt didn’t give any room for that delicacy, which meant that there was less room for shade variation too.

I know that this is all very specific, nitty gritty kind of talk. But I think it’s important for artists to talk about the nuances of their pieces, because I’m not sure the average person knows just how much energy goes into creating what looks to be a simple illustration! The work isn’t just the final piece itself, but all the versions before it, all the time invested in making the final the best that it can be, in order to tell the story it needs to tell. Plus, I love talking about this stuff! I love learning the particulars of what makes a piece really come to life!

All that to say, I slowed the heck down as I lined this piece. I forced myself to stay on knife’s edge and make all my lines so darn precise. And it worked!

After that, I went in with my regular gouache for some shading and bing bang boom! A piece that I’m really and truly so proud of. I feel like I really know the visual language of this book now and I’m energized to keep going with the illustrations!

July Reads

The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler - John Hendrix*

Dragon Keeper - Robin Hobb

East - Edith Pattou

Forgery of Fate - Elizabeth Lim (buddy read with Glo!)

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy - Bridgett Knightly

The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found - Karina Yan Glaser*

Other July things

Besides spiraling out daily about the climate crisis (baby we’re on track for 4C in MY LIFETIME! I cannot even begin to describe how bad that is! Why have we not eaten every high-level fossil fuel company employee? WE SHOULD BE RIOTING), July has held multitudes.

Josh and I were in the UK but it was very business, so we did less touristy, relaxing things. I did make sure I saw icon-legend-moment Rachel Ziegler in EVITA and it was so good. The balcony scene gets a bad rap but I’m telling you- genius move. I was also introduced to the concept of a cheesecake crawl by my friends in London and it was as delightful as you’d think it would be. Josh turned 28(!) and we also celebrated him and our friend Caleb graduating from seminary with a giant party!

L to R: A lovely old church we popped into, a perfect bumble shot, and curtain call at Evita

I also cried a lot and got severely ill, lest you think this entire month was all fun and games. But I’m a real person and not an influencer so I don’t take pictures of myself crying to post on the internet so I can’t show you that.

ok, bye!

I got a new desk! The old one still exists but this new (old) one will help my spine not be a total shrimp!

It used to be my great-grandfather’s which is cool because he was a cartoonist for several newspapers in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Less cool because he apparently wasn’t a great father/husband. Anyways, it passed from my great aunt down to me. It is not physically messy yet but I imagine that there’s some historical mess here.

Ok, bye!