Hi friends,

I can’t believe February has already come and gone. It has been a whirlwind of a month and I feel like I am currently hovering over a limbo time and space that will forever be marked by a Before and After. I know it sounds a bit cryptic, so I hope to share more another time. To be honest, it’s been difficult to write and draw lately.. but something that has helped me chug along these days is to ground myself in gratitude. I’m still quite bad at it, but I am trying to spend time every day naming a few things that I am grateful for (the more specific, the better). I know in my head there is much to be thankful for, but sometimes it’s easy to forget unless I make a conscious effort to recall what they are.

I’m thankful for friends, for those of you who are reading and always encouraging/supporting me on this creative journey. I’m thankful for the nice weather and being close to the beach and afternoon walks to the neighborhood park. In fact, the little doodle above is inspired by one of those walks.

I don’t have much else to share for today, but here’s another calendar for the month of March. I’ll be back soon to share an entry about a recent commission I did. In the meantime, take care and hope you’re all doing well.

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Good habits only + a February printable

I know we’re already a week into February and it’s the shortest month of the year, but I’ve got a calendar printable for anyone else who may feel like they’re also getting a late start. It’s never too late!

In December, I drew this makeshift daily stretch check on a stack of post-its and have been using it since. But a few days ago, I was thinking it would be nice to have something like a habits check-off list on a monthly calendar. So here we are. It’s not perfect by any means, but if you’re in need of some organizing and healthy habit tracking, I hope you enjoy!

The habits checker is kind of starting to give me scantron vibes and I wonder if that says something about my personality. Lol.

February Calendar Printable - click here to download!

Year of the Tiger

Happy Lunar New Year! Growing up, I never celebrated Seol-Nal / Seollal but like many Korean Americans, our family carried out Korean new year traditions- eating ddukgook (rice cake soup), playing yootnori (board game), and practicing saebae (bowing to our elders)- on January 1st. In fact, as a kid, I always thought today was only Chinese New Year’s. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that’s what it was like growing up for me (maybe because of where I grew up, maybe because of how I grew up)! Now, as an adult, I think a lot about my Korean heritage. I think about our family’s journey, the mixed language we speak, and the dishes that bring us comfort (a combo of Mom’s cooking and McDonald’s). I hope I can keep passing those down as imperfect as it may be. And at the same time, I also think about stories and songs and celebrations that can be re-introduced, traditions that have been lost over time. I hope that Seollal can be one of the things that I bring back for my own kid. After all, who doesn’t like another reason to eat a bunch of ddukgook?

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I knew I wanted to draw something for the lunar new year, but it initially started as an entirely different drawing. As I was taking a break to think about how to do the background, I started drawing some Korean dishes. I thought about the chaos and fun of family gatherings and our moms preparing the meals. Thinking about how this year is the Year of the Tiger, this character popped into my head: the tiger mom (lol). What would she be doing? Who else would be with her? I loosely and quickly sketched something out in the bottom corner. And that became the premise for the piece I’m sharing today.

^ On the left, you can see my initial sketchbook page where it literally started out as an afterthought. I thought I wanted to use colored pencils in the final artwork, but after feeling discouraged by the way it was turning out, I decided to take it to ink instead. On the right, you can see me working out some of the elements. Even though I usually get nervous working with ink since it’s not so easy to fix or undo, I was glad I went in this direction!

After the stress of drawing, I scan it or take a picture of it and clean it up in Photoshop. Then, I get to do my favorite part which is color. I remember Carson Ellis saying in an interview that she finds color to be very intuitive for her. I really resonate with that because I noticed that even though I may not know much about color theory, whenever I get to the coloring part of the drawing, I finally feel like I can relax. I don’t know how to describe it besides that it’s a mix of play + going by what “feels” right + leaving room for surprises. It’s fun for me, indulgent even. And strangely enough, more than coloring traditionally, I feel much more in my zone when I color digitally. To me, the endless color options are a treat, especially when I can quickly switch between the slightest difference of hues.

On that note, I was not planning on making this piece as pink as it turned out, but when I was cleaning up my scan in the very beginning, I created a pink rectangle layer so I could easily spot the problem areas. I loved the way it looked and began to color parts of it right away to see how it looked against the pink background. That’s what I mean by leaving room for surprises. When there are those kinds of surprises while working, it’s so much more fun. I did slightly scale it back in the final art, but I don’t know if I would have gone that bold in colors if it wasn’t for the pink rectangle to begin with!

Anyway, it’s already late into the evening now and the lunar new year will have passed for some already! So good night and thanks for reading. Wishing you all a great start to the new year so far.

P.S. I realized that I asked people to follow along without giving an option to subscribe or know when I update. For now, I’ll just pop onto my IG to share whenever I have a new post until I figure out the best way to update you all with new posts!