Enter my friend Lani, founder of Ethos Pathways: a youth climate justice organization based in the Berkshires, MA. Ethos Pathways guides high school students towards finding their career path, recognizing that each student’s goals, needs, and circumstances are different and unique. This Spring, Lani reached out to see if I would be interested in helping her launch a new website for the program. I said yes! I brought on my friend and creative extraordinaire Hyde who served as the creative director and website designer for the project, while I tackled creating custom illustrations. With time ticking towards a June launch date, we dove into the project.

Having fun with character design

To begin, I wanted to gain a better understanding of the audience and how the illustrations could guide the digital experience. Over the course of several collaborative brainstorming sessions, we landed on depicting several student characters and how they might move through the program.

The rule of threes emerged naturally — three student characters, representing the three counties in the Berkshires, going through three components of the program.

With the direction set, I began sketching character concepts. I wanted to answer: “who are these students? What are their backgrounds? What are their goals and dreams?” To make them come alive in our minds, we named the characters Paula, Sam, and Nathan — the first letter of their names corresponded to the names of the Berkshire counties. As each character’s story grew, it informed design details such as their fashion and accessory choices.

From concept to final

After we developed the characters, we then scoped out the designs for the four custom illustrations I would create — one feature image to serve as the homepage banner, and three supporting graphics.

Since the feature image would serve as the first impression of the website, I wanted it to be engaging and hopefully a little inspiring too. Early on in my mood boards, we were drawn to the idea of the students imagining or moving towards a brighter, climate-conscious future. As we were brainstorming, Lani mentioned it would be cool if the illustration could give a nod to the Berkshires, and told us about an iconic viewpoint called the Hairpin Turn — a series of switchback roads offering sweeping views of the town of North Adams and the surrounding mountains. The concept clicked into place — we would station the characters at the top of the Hairpin Turn, looking out towards a greener future.

For the supporting graphics, we decided to highlight three aspects of the program to show our characters in action. The first image depicts the students learning in a class room setting; the second one shows the students going on a field trip to a local farm; and the last image focuses on community-oriented programming.

Once we nailed down the concepts, I dove into execution mode, turning my rough sketches into illustrations. In the final rendering, I decided to move away from line art and focus on bold shapes. Over the course of several weeks, I was merciless with myself when it came to the details — re-drawing and tweaking expressions, gestures, and shapes until I was satisfied. Soon, June arrived. After a final polish, I was done.

Reflections

This project will always have a special place in my heart. Collaborating with Lani and Hyde was truly a delightful experience, where we let our creativity and imagination run loose. Through our weekly conversations and feedback sessions, our collective brain melding led to breakthroughs and new ideas.

Looking back, I’m glad we spent quite a bit of time in the character design phase. Developing each student’s background, personality, and aesthetic was crucial to making them “feel real” and made drawing them in the final illustrations easier. The initial character design phase also prepared me for the final picnic image, where I illustrated eleven characters — the most I’ve ever drawn in a single image!

The truth is that when I start any illustration, I feel a sense of trepidation. Each time, I’m doing something that I haven’t quite done before, which can be scary. But that’s also the exciting part — that each project brings new subjects, new angles, new atmospheres to depict. And all I need to do is just follow my process, from ideation and sketching to rendering and refining. I love getting to the refining stage — when I start adding details, depth, and shading, that’s when I really start to see the piece come alive.

Thanks for reaching the end of this recap! I want to thank Lani for bringing me on this project and Hyde for his amazing creative direction. Also, special shoutout to Michelle Khare, whose Youtube series on tackling the Great World Race (running 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days) kept me company as I drew into the whee hours of the morning.

Inspiration Corner

• I finished playing the cooperative videogame Split Fiction with my sister! I adore this game; it’s the kind of story I would like to write one day!

• I was blown away by the American Repertory Theater’s production of the Black Swan.

• And Les Mis is now my favorite musical ever.

This past May, I went on a trip with my in-laws to Scotland. On the day of my flight, a friend gifted me a sketchbook, and on a whim, I decided to bring it with me. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was going to draw anything at all. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the sketchbook stayed at the bottom of my backpack for the entire trip.

The sun was shining and the sky was blue when we touched down in Edinburgh. We spent the first day exploring charming streets and alleyways, eating many scotch eggs along the way. That night at the Airbnb, I flicked through my day’s photos on my phone and thought, “alright, maybe I’ll try drawing a few things from today.” Soon, I had a page documenting my favorite moments of the day.

And from then on, I was hooked. Every night, I decided on a few scenes to draw — moments that I wanted to carry with me forever. Using copic markers made the process especially fun and quick, allowing me to portray the vivid colors of the day the way I remembered it. (That is, until the rain arrived. But I love stormy and moody Scotland too!)

To me, these sketches and drawings are like time capsules, tethering me to my past self. And when I flip through the pages of my sketchbooks, I’m immediately transported back to the moment I drew them — where I was, and what I was experiencing and feeling. A window, back in time.

Inspiration corner

• This poem, “Song of the Snails on Their Way to a Funeral,” by Jacques Prévert.

• I recently got into birding! I’ve now taken quite a few intentional birding walks along the Emerald Necklace. The Merlin app has been delightful to use to identify birds — reminds me of Pokemon!

• Olivia Rodrigo’s new album, “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love.” I adore the music video for “The Cure,” which features a set made from cardboard, felted hearts, and stop motion animation.

Thanks for reading!

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Every April, the Mad River Valley in Vermont celebrates the arrival of Spring with America’s only four-event triathlon: a six-mile run, six-mile paddle, ten-mile bike ride, and 3 miles of ski mountaineering. As the temperature warms and the earth awakens again, Spring in New England provides a fleeting window of time when you can run and bike on clear roads, paddle in rivers gushing with snowmelt, and still have snow left to ski up and down a mountain. This year, 400 participants arrived in the valley to take on this challenge and embrace mud season.

I love being outdoors, but I rarely push myself physically these days. Up until this year, I could barely run a 5k. I love to just meander the neighborhood, checking in on the resident geese and swans, or pause at a stream to listen to the sound of water. But the spirit of the event enthralled me, and my husband and I signed up.

Training

As someone who would do anything to escape being cold, I will try to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible in the winter. But being steps away from the Emerald Necklace greenway, I decided to do all of my training outdoors.

Through the biting wind and stinging cold, runny noses and frozen fingers, I immersed myself in the sheer force of winter. I caught brilliant and intense sunsets over the Charles River on my commute, the sun hanging like an orange yolk. I checked in on the local geese, sleeping peacefully at Leverett Pond. I reveled in the post snowstorm wonderland, and even cross-country skied in my neighborhood. I ran gingerly across snow and ice, observing how the snow sparkles in the sunlight, and enjoyed the peace and quiet of bleaker days.

At the end of February, I attempted my first 5-mile run. By the last mile, my legs were aching and my heart was thundering, but I powered through and finished my route. I was relieved, and for the first time, I thought that maybe I can finish the triathlon.

Race day

Before we knew it, race day was nearly upon us. After an hour playing Tetris in our car to fit in all of our equipment, we were finally on our way to Vermont. Conditions were looking fantastic. When we woke up on the morning of race day, the sun was shining and the sky was blue (though it would grow cloudier over the course of the day). Whether I finished or not, I was determined to enjoy every moment out here in the Mad River Valley.

After an early and hearty breakfast at our inn, we set out to stage our equipment. We dropped off our tandem kayak, bikes, and skis at each transition station, and then took a shuttle to the start of the race where we would begin the running leg. When we arrived, it looked like a party was in full swing — music blared from the speakers, home-baked goods were served, and teams huddled, hugged, and stretched together.

The countdown started, and then we were off. The course alternated between the main road and woodlands. All along the way, we followed the Mad River, sparkling turquoise in the morning light.

Soon, we would be paddling down that very river. We arrived at the transition station, guzzled water, and slipped into our waterproof gear. I had no idea what to expect from the paddling section, but we learned very quickly that it would not be peaceful or relaxing. We navigated rapids, dropped down mini waterfalls, avoided obstacles, and steered through tight turns. Towards the end, we beached ourselves on a shallow rocky area and had to drag our kayak out to deeper water. It was so much fun, and definitely my favorite part of the event.

Over an hour later, we arrived at a meadow where our bikes lay waiting in the grass. I was dreadful of the 1,300-foot climb ahead of us. But as we settled into a rhythm and crested the first hill, my jaw dropped. Mt. Ellen — our final destination — loomed in the distance, its ski trails gleaming like white ribbons. After a thrilling descent, we then tackled the final brutal hill up to the base of the mountain. I alternated between biking and walking my bike up the road.

By now, I was exhausted. As I sat on a bench to put my ski boots on, I thought about sitting there forever, melting into the wood. But I was so close, and within range to finish before the cut-off time. Steeling myself, we began to hike up the mountain. My mind converged onto a single mantra: one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. In keeping with the promise I made to myself at the beginning of the day — to enjoy every moment out here in the valley — I glanced up occasionally and saw beautiful waterfalls streaming down the mountain.

One and a half miles later, we finally reached the top. I took it all in, gazing out at the rolling hills below. We had run, paddled, biked, and hiked up to this very point. Now, it was all downhill from here. On my wobbly legs, I skied down the slope and crossed the finish line at 5 hours and 27 minutes.

Art practice

Since the triathlon, I’ve been thinking about a few questions: how has participating in the event influenced my art practice? What are the parallels between creating art and engaging my body physically?

So…it’s not that I didn’t believe in the mind-body connection before, but I definitely underestimated the value of having a consistent exercise schedule. Simply going outside and moving my body has vastly improved how I feel day-to-day and my ability to self-regulate. Before, going out for a walk, run, or ride felt totally optional, or was at the bottom of my to-do list. Now, I can’t imagine not doing it, and I always come back to my work or art practice with renewed energy, focus, and perspective.

Nature is also a huge source of inspiration for me, and being outside has exposed me to new experiences and observations. Recently, I went on my first post-triathlon run, and I saw an elderly woman looking up at a tree through binoculars. I asked her if she saw anything interesting, and for the next hour and a half, we went birding together. Learning about the local birds and seeing them through her eyes was beautiful. Perhaps some bird ideas are now forming…

Last but not least, I think it’s helpful to remind ourselves that we can do challenging things! And that can be across any discipline or domain. In my art practice, that’s every time I have the opportunity to create a public art project. With my physical health, it’s been participating in my first “triathlon,” or really anytime I push myself to go a little further. Each step, and each new experience, builds confidence and encourages me to think of even bigger ideas, goals, and dreams.

Thanks for reading to the end! If you ever want to go on a walk, bike ride, or birding adventure with me, let me know! I can’t think of a better way to spend a day than chatting and frolicking under the sun.

Inspiration corner

• I recently finished Octavia Butler’s novel “Wild Seeds.”

• I am obsessed with Raye’s sophomore album “THIS MUSIC MAIN CONTAIN HOPE.” The music video for “Click Clack Symphony” had me tearing up.

• Montreal’s murals.

Fast forward to now, the end of 2025. Did I meet any of those goals I set out to achieve? No. Because I threw out that plan a few days after creating it.

I realized I was burnt out from conducting outreach and marketing throughout 2024, and I rarely had the opportunity to work on my growing list of personal projects. So I tossed aside my spreadsheet and decided to direct my energy differently in 2025. In retrospect, three themes emerged that guided my year: collaboration, experimentation, and inspiration.

Collaboration

One of my highlights of 2025 was collaborating with friends through the artist collective Rabbits of Realness. Rabbits of Realness aims to encourage creative expression and nurture mental health through community workshops, letter writing, and sharing art and ideas through zines. Over the course of the year, we held 8 workshops and events, tabled at 5 zine fairs, and distributed 155 letter writing kits to kids and adults! While art-making and running an art business can feel isolating at times, it’s been immensely fulfilling to connect with others, dream together, and make art together.

The experience also taught me the power of pop-up art spaces. In July, we partnered with the New Art Center to host a zine-making station at Framingham’s Pride Event. We greeted passersby and attendees, explaining our zine-making activity. One attendee approached our table, and we asked if they would like to make a zine. After a long few seconds, they replied, “Sure. I think I do have a story I want to tell.” For the next two hours, they were heads-down making a zine, so focused amidst the chatter, music, and festivities. At the end, they showed us their creation and shared their personal journey around mental health. That day has stayed with me ever since, as a reminder of the importance of accessible and free art-making events. Popping up in seemingly unexpected places can serve as opportunities to encourage creativity, reflection, and connection.

Experimentation

Digital art and illustration has been my bread and butter. These tools are how I got started with drawing, and is a medium near and dear to my heart. The possibilities with colors, layers, and effects are boundless, and there is so much more I plan to explore and improve upon. But this year, I wanted to challenge myself to create more art with physical materials. I had fun trying all kinds of media: markers, watercolor, gouache, and collage. I took a figure drawing class and attended workshops and activity nights in cyanotype and felting. Some of these new media made it into my zine-making practice, including my collage zine “Messages from Your Inner Child” and a cyanotype zine “Rise.” It’s been incredibly fun experimenting with different media and attending workshops with friends to learn something new.

A particularly fun experiment was creating zines on seed paper. When I attended the Forbes Library Zine Fair in Northampton, MA this past February with Rabbits of Realness, we visited a seed paper store. As I browsed the shelves, filled with beautiful greeting cards and other compostable stationary, I thought, “what if someone could plant a zine?” So I bought a bundle of seed paper. When I arrived home, I got busy writing poems and experimenting with creating all-natural ink with coffee beans. This experiment turned into my three “Letters to the Earth” mini plantable zines.

Currently though, I am really digging papier mache. The other week, I tried my hand at creating a small cup, using junk mail and a “glue” of water and flour. But honestly, I am just elated that I finally have a way of putting all of my expired flour to use.

Inspiration

I also wanted to more actively seek inspiration. I explored more of the local Boston theater scene with friends, attending heartfelt plays such as Learning how to read by moonlight, Kim’s Convenience, and Silent Sky.

I read an eclectic mix of books, from graphic novels to poetry books to fantasy and science fiction. Some of my highlights are Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, Oathbound (Book 3 of the Legendborn Cycle) by Tracy Deonn, the magic my body becomes by Jess Rizkallah, Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha, and The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.

I am still thinking about the exhibit “Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden,” a collaboration between the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Pao Arts Center. To see my favorite childhood spices, fruits, and ingredients sculpted as larger-than-life pieces was simply awe inspiring. The sculptures had a playful essence while also feeling anatomically accurate. To see a maple seed leaf spread against the wall like a pair of albatross wings reminded me of those funny-shaped leaves I often saw on my walk home from the school bus stop as a kid. Even the littlest of things are worthy of our examination, attention, and imagination. The Pao Arts Center also had a beautiful companion exhibit, “Where We Meet: Imagining Gardens and Futures.” The potted plants display and several accordion zines of recipes from artist Yu-Wen Wu were a joy to experience. Afterwards, the exhibit led me to ask my mom about her connection to gardening (more to come on that in 2026).

Last but not least, being in nature has been healing, rejuvenating, and inspiring. And it’s the local nature that my soul craves. I’ve been taking more walks along the Emerald Necklace, getting happily distracted by the resident ducks, geese, and swans. My jaw will always drop at the sight of the beautiful afternoon light filtering through the trees. But to me, what has truly been moving is noticing the micro seasons of New England; how nature changes not only season by season and month by month, but also week by week.

Art journey

I will end by briefly touching upon my art journey and favorite projects from this year. Throughout 2025, I continued to apply to calls for art that resonated with me. In total, I applied to 15 calls for art and was accepted by two of them. The first one was a public art project for the Town of Franklin, where they printed some of my digital art on corn hole boards. I didn’t get a chance to see them in action, but I hope the community enjoyed them! The second project I won’t spoil yet — more to come in early 2026.

When I look back on 2025, I was most proud of the following experiences and projects:

1. I was in my first exhibit ever! After completing the public art project Ping Pong Tables of Chinatown: A Celebration of Diversity and Nature in 2024 with Katelyn Lipton and Jennifer Duan, we had the opportunity to continue sharing our project through the Pao Arts Center’s exhibit, “Celebrations of Perseverance: Public Art in Chinatown, 2024-2025.” We joined other projects that Pao had curated through Boston’s Un-monument Initiative.

2. I completed a short comic called Cycle — a personal piece that I initially pitched to a comics anthology, got rejected, but decided to make anyways. I hope to create more comics in this style in the future!

3. I somehow managed to stay mostly on track with Peachtober, and had a blast with the prompts this year. You can read my Peachtober reflection here.

4. Lastly, I was invited by Antidesigns as a featured guest at one of their Test Print Tuesday events, hosted in collaboration with Zone 3. I created four designs that attendees could experiment printing with, and it was wonderful to see everyone’s creations.

Overall, 2025 was a year of community and marinating. Time and time again, art served as a place of both comfort and bold action. Ideas that have been circulating in my mind for years are starting to crystallize, and I am interested to see how they will take shape. Thanks for reading and being here, and I’ll see you in 2026!

This October, I gave my best crack at Peachtober — a daily art challenge in the month of October run by Sha’an d’Anthes (Furrylittlepeach). In the past, I would make grand plans to attempt this drawing challenge. But somewhere along the way, I would lose the nerve or rhythm. Life happened, and time would fly out the window.

Due to a work conference and prep for other art events, I arguably had even less time compared to past years to dedicate to this challenge. But I was determined to give it a try. By the end, I managed to complete 25 out of 31 days. Was it exhausting? Yes. Am I still recovering? For sure. But along the way, I learned a lot about myself and my drawing process. So here’s a recap of Peachtober 2025.

Preparing for Peachtober

Every September, the Peachtober prompts are released in advance to help creatives plan and prepare for the challenge. (Sha’an shares her process putting together the Peachtober prompt list in this video, if you’re curious!) I was still on the fence about whether to participate this year, but after seeing the prompt list, I fell in love with the prompts immediately.

For the challenge, I decided to create digital illustrations in Procreate. (In the future, I would love to experiment with other media too!)

I spent a couple of days in September brainstorming and sketching ideas for all 31 prompts. And when I say sketch, I mean something like this:

When October arrived, I would transform each day’s sketch into the final piece. There were a few times when I changed directions completely, but overall, sketching the designs in advance helped me narrow down the concept, which I could continue to marinate on throughout the month.

What I learned along the way

1. Constraints led me to make bold decisions quickly. One of the main constraints in a drawing challenge is time. When I draw, I often spend a long time tinkering over particular elements or color choices. But to complete an illustration in a day, I knew I would have to make decisions quickly. Over the course of the challenge, I noticed I was using color more boldly to create contrast and lighting — aspects that I’ve been wanting to improve on in my work.

2. I could discover the essence of a piece along the way. When I draw, I usually try to unearth all the details of a piece in the sketch phase — creating layers upon layers and versions upon versions of sketches until the piece is refined and ready to take to final. For a fun challenge like Peachtober, however, I realized I didn’t need to figure out everything in advance; the painting process itself became an act of exploration and discovery. I figured out most of the backgrounds and details along the way, asking myself, “What would a slug eat at a picnic?” “What other creatures can I add to this tree stump to make the scene more interesting?” and “Where would spectators watch the snail race?”

3. Practice creates fluidity. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how far I would get in Peachtober — especially in the beginning, when pieces would take me 5+ hours to finish. I began approaching my days differently, harnessing pockets of time in the mornings, during lunch breaks, and evenings to make progress. (And limiting my time doom scrolling on the internet.) The repetition of drawing daily also meant that I became faster in moving through my drawing process. By the end of the challenge, I had cut my drawing time in half, and my fastest time working on a piece was 1.5 hours from start to finish. While speed is not everything, doing Peachtober helped me gain more fluidity in my drawing process.

4. Sometimes, intensity can create breakthroughs. This year, I felt stagnation with my digital art. I knew I needed to try something new and different, so I enjoyed exploring other media such as watercolor and printmaking. By the time Peachtober rolled around, I knew I wanted to use digital art as my medium of choice. Doing a daily art challenge for the month brought a level of intensity and pressure that changed my approach to drawing digitally. It was energizing and motivating, and helped me push through my mental block. Even if I wasn’t fully happy with a piece by the end of the day, I could try again the next day.

Procreate corner

Before closing out, I wanted to share some of my favorite Procreate tools, since I received some questions during the challenge. Hopefully this is helpful, and I would love to hear your tips and tricks too!

All the brushes I use come with Procreate — I have not used or downloaded any custom brushes yet. My go-to brushes are Tinderbox and Gouache, and I use Soft Brush for spotlights. Lately, I’ve enjoyed using Narinder pencil for sketching and small textured details. During Peachtober, I experimented with other painting brushes such as Dry Brush, Oriental Brush, Turpentine, and Old Brush.

Other tools I use often include:

• Smudge tool to achieve gradient effects, big or small

• Alphalock to paint on a particular layer

• Transparency effects to explore dynamic coloring and lighting

• Gradient map to help with initial color choices

In conclusion…

I’m so glad I attempted this year’s Peachtober. It injected my art practice with new energy and inspiration. I learned to draw subjects that I haven’t drawn before, such as slugs, snails, and ghosts. I drew funky things, such as a person wearing an aquarium hat and a toad playing the drums. Seeing my work progress day by day was fulfilling and fun, and I hope to take these lessons forward and further explore some of the concepts that came out of this challenge.

As a final drawing, the featured illustration on this post is a combination of two days I missed — Ring (day 6) and Bark (day 12). And with that, I am officially done with Peachtober 2025.

See you in the next!

Inspiration corner

• The New England Graphic Medicine Summit took place in Boston on October 24, and it was an inspiring event about the intersection of science, healthcare, and comics! If interested, I created a recap of the Summit here.

• I finished reading the graphic novel Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag by Michael Anthony, who I met at the New England Graphic Medicine Summit!

• Last weekend, I went to the Harvard Art Museums, which is free to the public. I enjoyed their special exhibition titled “Sketch, Shade, Smudge: Drawing from Gray to Black.”

To kick things off again, here’s a little travelogue on a recent trip to Sweden.

This October, I traveled to Sweden for a work conference. For those who don’t know, by day I do marketing and communications for a scientific organization focused on building standards to share genomic and health data. Twice a year, we bring our global community together for a week of presentations and workshops. I’ve never been to Scandinavia before, so after the conference, I stuck around to explore Stockholm for a few days. Here are some of my favorite moments from the trip.

1. Trekking Uto island. Stockholm is part of an archipelago of more than 24,000 islands, filled with cute towns and rugged nature. We traveled south to the island of Uto, where we trekked for 12 miles through enchanting forests, windy wetlands, and rugged coastlines.

2. Cardamom buns. Nearly every fika, I ordered delicious, fragrant cardamom buns. I miss them already.

3. Biking from Ekerö to Stockholm. I love biking. It’s my main form of transportation around Boston, and one of my favorite ways to explore a place. Stockholm has amazing biking infrastructure, so I found a half-day cycling route that starts west of Stockholm. After renting bikes in the city center, we took a ferry west through Lake Mälaren to the town of Ekerö. From Ekerö, we biked back to Stockholm, stopping along the way to visit Drottningholm palace and its surrounding gardens.

4. Vasa museum. The museum houses an ornately decorated ship built in the early 1600s, which sank on its maiden voyage right in the archipelago. The ship was discovered 300 years later — the brackish waters helped preserve the ship’s carvings and artistry.

5. Swedish meatballs. With delicious lingonberries.

6. Biking Djurgården. I hopped on a bike again to cycle the island of Djurgården! I passed by grazing cows, idyllic fields, and coastal views. On the way back, I accidentally took my jank rental bike onto a hilly forest trail. I flew through a tunnel of yellow trees, absolutely elated as the bike groaned and protested all the way.

7. Walking in Södermalm. My favorite views of the city were from Södermalm island.

See you in the next post!

Inspiration corner

• Recently finished reading On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

• Staring at autumn leaves

• Listening to the album The Dream by The Favors

Growing up, I loved playing ping pong with my family. We bought a ping pong table that we stored by the front door, and when unfolded, it would fill the entire living room. After dinner, we’d play for at least 30 minutes, volleying back and forth, the ping pong ball bouncing all over the room as I learned new tricks and techniques.

My younger self would never have thought that nearly two decades later, I would paint a ping pong table.

Together with Katelyn Lipton and Jenn Duan, we applied to Pao Art’s call for public art in May 2024, as part of the City of Boston’s Un-monument, Re-monument, De-monument initiative. We dreamed up the idea of painting ping pong tables to activate community spaces, encourage intergenerational connection, and promote wellness. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

We were excited to be selected to take our project forward, along with many amazing community projects.

Below, I chronicle our journey bringing this idea to life. While the past few weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions — despair, grace, antsy-ness, frustration, gratitude — I’m reminded of the power of community and bringing people together, which is exactly what our project set out to do.

Designing the murals

Through community feedback, we settled upon painting two ping pong tables, each reflecting a different theme: “people of Chinatown” and “birds and plants of Chinatown.” I went on to tackle the first theme, and Katelyn and Jenn helmed the second theme.

From my memories walking around Chinatown, I knew I wanted to feature the iconic Chinatown gate and the surrounding park area. I loved watching the kids play at the playground while the adults played cards or ate lunch at the tables nearby. These were the first few scenes I drew.

Another big part of my Chinatown experience is going out to eat at the amazing restaurants and cafes. I depicted some of these foods, such as hot pot, egg tarts, and bubble tea.

The hot pot part of the design is particularly memorable for me. Over the years, my family would go to our friend’s home for Lunar New Year, and they made the best hot pot I’ve ever had in my life. Home made Chicken broth, brewing for three days; home made dumplings; a wide array of meats, vegetables, and fish balls. When I think of hot pot, I think of communal gatherings and celebrating with friends and family.

Running through the entire design is a red ribbon, symbolizing the red thread of fate. There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says, “an invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place, or circumstance.” The red ribbon provided a way to divide up the scenes on the table, and to emphasize the theme of connection.

Preparing the ping pong tables

In September, we were ready to implement the murals. To engage the community with our project and to drum up excitement, we painted outdoors on the Pao Arts Center’s back patio. We sanded, primed, and transferred the designs in a day.

Painting the ping pong tables

Over the course of five days, I painted the ping pong table mural. This was the most intricate design I’ve painted so far, and the most colors that I’ve used in a piece. I mixed a lot of colors, using takeout containers that I saved.

The most stressful part was working with the black paint — it was my first time painting with the color in my murals, and I knew I had to be precise. Very slowly, very carefully, I used the tiniest brush we had to outline each character’s hair. Once the outline was done, I could breathe easy, filling in the rest of the space. I admit, I did a little celebratory dance when I finished painting all the hair — it took an entire afternoon!

To paint the characters’ facial expressions and the Chinese characters on the Chinatown gate, I decided to use Posca paint markers. I obtained the marker from Blick, and returned to complete the details.

Varnishing the ping pong tables

To protect the murals, we varnished the surface with polyurethane. The big lesson I learned here is that polyurethane smears Posca paint markers.

After an online search, I discovered that a spray varnish can be used first to “fix” the marks in place. I returned to Blick again to obtain Krylon spray.

After touching up the mural, I sprayed the Posca marker areas thoroughly. That did the trick — I applied the polyurethane without a hitch.

And with that, the tables were officially done!

Gathering the community

On October 20th, we held our activation event, a ping pong block party, to unveil the tables and bring people together for fun outdoor activities. It was a gorgeous fall day, and a wonderful way to celebrate the project with friends and the community.

We wanted attendees to walk away with a little something, so we created a little companion zine with the birds and plants of Chinatown, along with a map of some of our favorite spots in Chinatown.

At the end, we donated the tables to ACDC for use in their future programming and events.

Giving many thanks

It takes a village to accomplish a public art project. A huge thank you to Lani Asunción for selecting our project, and to Pao Arts Center and ACDC for their support in implementing this project. Another thank you to fellow artist and friend Jane Kim-Testa for letting me borrow some supplies, and for helping us fold our little companion zines! And of course, thank you to my partner and sister for being my cheerleaders throughout my creative journey.

Last but not least, this whole project was an incredible partnership with the amazing Katelyn Lipton and Jenn Duan. For nearly half a year, we brainstormed, organized, coordinated, and supported each other to bring our vision to life. I learned so much from them, and it’s been such an honor and joy to collaborate together. You may find their links below — I encourage you to follow and explore their work!

• Katelyn Lipton

  • Website: https://www.katelynleeannart.com

  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katelynlipton/

• Jenn Duan

  • Website: https://jennduan.com/art

  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/springtangerines/

Thank you for reading this recap of our ping pong project. If you have any questions about the process, please feel free to let me know! Take care, and see you in the next one.

I’ve always been drawn to editorial illustration. The challenge of distilling a story or concept into a visual excites me, and I think there’s a beautiful synergy when text and graphics come together.

To get started, I created a list of publications and their art directors to reach out to. Since many universities create magazines for their alumni networks, I included Tufts University — my alma mater. In December 2023, I sent an email to the art director (AD) of Tufts Magazine. Lo and behold, I heard back! I got lucky on the timing — the team was in the midst of planning the Spring 2024 issue. After a few exchanges, the AD assigned me a project: illustrating a piece about food as medicine.

The team had an idea from the start: a medicine cabinet stuffed with produce. The AD encouraged me to suggest other ideas as well. After reading the article online, I proposed two other concepts: 1) a pill capsule stuffed with produce and 2) a cityscape where all the buildings are composed of fruits and vegetables. The AD approved the pill capsule idea, and so I proceeded with sketching the medicine cabinet and pill capsule. Once done, I submitted them for feedback.

The team chose the medicine cabinet concept, and provided the feedback to make the background feel more like a bathroom. I added more details to flesh out the setting, and worked on other tweaks and adjustments. Once I was happy with the sketch, I submitted it for approval. I got the green light, and could now take the sketch to final.

I set-up a new high-resolution canvas and got to work drawing the line art and developing the color palette. I wanted the fresh produce to pop, so I chose vibrant and saturated colors to bring them to life. To de-emphasize the bathroom background, I experimented with a monochromatic color scheme and desaturated the colors. I wasn’t quite sure how to approach the person, but after discussing with a few friends, I went with a vibrant greenish-teal color, to show the connection between the produce and the person. Healthy food, healthy people. After figuring out the color palette, I went in with more detailed coloring. And that was it!

Huge thanks to the AD at Tufts Magazine for bringing me in on this project. It was a fun and collaborative process!

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What’s inspiring me lately:

• Judith Letting Go, with beautiful cover art done by SaraMarie Bottaro

• The musical artists Melt, Sammy Rae & The Friends, and Fujii Kaze

• Días de Consuelo by David Ortega

Growing up, I loved doodling in the margins of my notebooks. Art was my safe place, a world I could retreat into to let my imagination run wild. Art existed in the margins of my life, and it wasn’t until my junior year in college that I took an Intro to Drawing class. I fell in love with art and ended up minoring in it.

After graduating, I bought an iPad and Apple Pencil in 2017 and dove head first into the world of digital art. I tackled comics and other ideas that had been brewing in my mind for a long time. But I hit a wall — my execution was lacking and I felt completely lost. My day job sucked the energy out of me and I felt unmotivated in many aspects of my life. Art fell to the wayside.

Fast forward to 2020: we were all stuck at home, and I wanted to get creative again (I was happily in a new job by this point). At the time, I was obsessed with Lady Gaga’s Chromatica album, so I thought, “What if I illustrated every single song from the album?” So I did, and it was the spark I needed to find my groove again. Later that year, I finally committed myself to making art. And since then, it’s been a wild ride.

Over the past three years, here’s what I’ve learned:

1. It’s not too late to start. Trust me. Drawing for the sake of drawing, drawing because it makes you happy, drawing because it is healing and restorative — if you feel compelled for whatever reason, just start.

2. Write down all your ideas. I love making lists. I make lists of my goals and dreams. Lists of art ideas. Lists of comic ideas. I write down snippets of poetry, things that I observe, how I’m feeling. Anything I think of, I write it down in my notes app on my phone for inspiration later. For me, it’s tough to sit down and draw without knowing what to create. Having lists of ideas ready at my fingertips gives me a good starting point.

3. Turn those ideas into bodies of work. Ever listen to a song and then immediately want to find the album to listen to? That’s the idea here — I’ve found it to be powerful to create bodies of work, unified by a theme, concept, or approach. (Artist Lauren Hom talks a lot about this idea, around creating passion projects!) Creating bodies of work was a way to hold myself accountable, give myself a direction, and help me treat my work less preciously. Last year, for example, I wanted to work on drawing nature. I started my “Otherworlds” series, where I picked a photo from my travels and created a piece of art inspired by it. To make it interesting and fun for myself, I put a fantastical twist to each one. I didn’t love everything I drew in that series, but I felt myself improve over time. Down the road, the Otherworlds series would open up public art opportunities for me.

   

4. Focus on a few artistic principles to work on at a time. I didn’t draw a ton growing up, so by the time I committed myself to making art, there were (and still are!) so many things I wanted to improve on quickly. I was overwhelmed — anatomy, backgrounds, color, composition, lettering, comics, storytelling, style…the list goes on and on. Since I was always scared of color, I picked color as my first focus area. Now, I’m focusing on composition — can I make my work more interesting, more surprising, more dynamic? As I draw these days, I tell myself, “make it weird, Stephanie.” I find myself spending more time in the sketching phase, discovering and unearthing the essence of the piece. I use Skillshare to help me learn new principles. Artist Belinda Kou is an ambassador and offers 1 month free of Skillshare premium.

5. Keep going. When I start sometimes, doubt floods my head. I think the piece looks horrible. I despair and want to give up. Sometimes I do give up, demoralized that what I see on the page is not what I envision. I realize now that those thoughts come when I’m still way too early on in the process — I need to keep going. Explore the composition more. Tweak the colors. Add depth. Make my shapes and lines even weirder. Experiment. Even start over. These days when I’m drawing, I consciously tell myself to keep going and finish the piece. It may not look good now, but it can be good.

6. Share your work. I decided early on that I would share most of my work online. I treat Instagram like an open journal, a timeline of my progress, ideas, and concepts. When I work on public art projects, I begin by scrolling through my profile — searching my past work for concepts I can remix into new designs. This was how I approached “Aquarius” and “Sun road.”

   

   

   Sharing your work also means people can follow along on your journey! While creating art changed my relationship with myself, sharing my art changed my life. For me, the most meaningful part is connecting with people — old friends, new friends, the community, and other fellow artists. You never know who might reach out with a story of solidarity or with an opportunity for you.

7. Have fun! Embarking on this art journey has been hard. Sketching late into the night, wracking my brain for ideas. Obsessing over color choices and composition. Prepping and painting murals in 90 degree weather. Battling imposter syndrome and self-doubt every step of the way. But I love doing what I do. I will always cherish being able to tell stories, connect with people, and bring art into the community. So don't forget to have fun and enjoy the ride!

Things that have inspired me lately:

• Miyazaki’s latest movie, the Boy and the Heron

• Artist and storyteller Meera Lee Patel’s substack newsletter

• Artist Christina Chung’s substack newsletter

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next one!

Best,
Stephanie