What’s On My Palette | Studio Log - Feb 15 - 22

Creative Practice

Feb 26

illustrated blog header with hand-painted blue background with an artist palette with colors the shape of foods and paintbrushes to look like chopsticks

A peek inside my studio this week — works in progress, little experiments, finished pieces, and behind-the-scenes bits from my creative practice. This is where the messy magic lives.

✨What’s On My Palette is a recurring studio series where I share the art supplies, color palettes, and creative tools behind my current illustration projects. Perfect for artists, stationery lovers, and creative entrepreneurs curious about process and materials.

overhead desk shot with a rainbow of paint bottles gathered with hand-painted papers strewn around — Painting papers this week.

workspace shot of a desk with paints, a palette, and painted papers all around — I love creating a fresh palette to work from.

Overhead desk shot with painted papers and small bottles of paint — Once dry, they’ll get some splatter and texture added before getting the blade.

Any leftover bits get added to my growing collection of rainbow scraps.

Between sick days and snow days, I had limited time in the studio last week, but I did manage to get a couple 75 Art drawings finished:

#8/75 NOLA Street Tiles

Worn, patterned, and quietly iconic.

There’s something comforting about the details that don’t change. Even when the season (or your health…) does.

close up shot of mixed media drawing of iconic New Orleans street tiles — The ICONIC and beautiful ceramic street tiles of New Orleans!

another close up shot of iconic New Orleans street tiles — These drawings are colored using just an Amazon budget version of the Caran d'Ache Aquarelle Pastels, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how well they blend together.
So smooth!

overhead shot of finished drawing New Orleans street tiles with a white marble background — Once I’m done with 75 Art, I’ll hopefully have a decent collection of designs put together, and I’m pondering using them to make my first pattern collection… hmm…
New Orleans/Mardi Gras patterns and backgrounds? Maybe?

#9/75 Sweet Potato

Humble, comforting, nourishing.

This challenge has stretched a little while life asked me to rest.

I’m not “falling behind” I’m letting it move at a human pace instead of a hustle pace.

Still here. Still drawing.

work in progress shot of artist applying watercolor to a drawing of a sweet potato — Working within only one color palette has meant that I’ve had to get crafty with my mixing + layering…

close up shot of sweet potato drawing — Only 12 colors also means accepting that the final color may not be exactly right, but we’re not striving for perfection with this challenge.

another close up progress shot of sweet potato for 75 Art drawing challenge — DONE is better than perfect.
Aiming for perfection kept me stuck for many years.
Let that shit go.

I also got to spend more time on analog art, which has been nice after so much digital work, especially with my sick kids and all the extra couch hours I logged recently.

Tearing and snipping, not worried about the outcome, is such a treat. 10/10 recommend doing more often!