Art I've Made

I've always liked doing art, but hadn't made much time for it for a long time. After taking a drawing class on a whim in Fall 2024, I've been getting back into art of all kinds. In Spring 2025, I did a two-month cohort program at the Drawing Room designed to explore a variety of media, and I've continued taking other classes there as well as working on art on my own.

Click the image thumbnails to expand them!

Watercolors

The first class I took as part of the cohort program was a watercolor class using a variety of vegetables as reference. Watercolor is tricky! I'm super happy with how the leek turned out, though.

A larger watercolor painting of several vegetables and two smaller paintings of a leek and a carrot

I did these paintings on my own rather than in a class - the landscape is referenced from a photo I found online, and the others are referenced from photos I took (included below! I think a couple were from the botanic gardens, and one was while I was out on a walk).

Four small watercolor paintings. One is of a mountainous landscape, one is of a flower, one is of flowers and a bee, and one is of lily pads

Drawing

I've taken two different figure drawing classes with different instructors who emphasized different things, and it was fascinating to see the differences depending on what I was focusing on. The first instructor focused on light and shadow, with a technique to create the highlights by erasing away a layer of pastel, which definitely helped me think about the interplay of light and shadow more effectively.

A quickly-drawn figure in charcoal on blue paper

A quickly-drawn figure in blue pastel on green paper

A figure on orange paper covered in blue pastel, the shadows are a dark red and the highlights show the orange paper underneath

A figure on pink paper covered in darker pink pastel, the shadows are a dark greenish-gray and the highlights show the pink paper underneath

The second instructor focused more on shape and movement, and noticing the contours of what you're drawing instead of just what you think it looks like. I definitely noticed the difference in how defined the arms and legs, especially, were in these drawings.

A figure drawn in charcoal wearing a long flowy coat, with the suggestion of a seat and curtain in the background

I also took a fruit drawing class, which notably was the first of these drawing classes involving color. Balancing color and shading is tricky for how relatively simple the shapes are! So happy with how the pear turned out, though.

Drawings on a table with the fruit reference visible in the background

An orange and banana drawn with chalk pastels

A dragonfruit on top of an overturned bowl, with an apple and peach visible below, drawn in chalk pastel

An apple with an orange and part of an overturned bowl on either side, drawn in chalk pastel

The instructor of this last class said something about how improving at drawing is to some degree about being able to focus on multiple aspects of an image at the same time - at first you might only be able to get say the shading right, or the color, or the shape, but it falls apart when you try to combine them. As you improve, maybe you can represent two of those, and so on. I think this unlocked something in my brain - the idea that focusing on one at a time, and not being able to get every aspect of the image right, is just part of the process and worth practicing.

Ceramics

I've done a few ceramics classes now, and most of what I learned is that the bigger the piece, the more stressful it is! Little things are fun to make, a large object feels like it will collapse any moment.

An unfired purple plant pot with rainbow arms coming from either side

A fired purple plant pot with rainbow arms coming from either side, with a fake plant in it

Four unfired clay pieces shaped like a peeled banana, an unpeeled banana, a strawberry, and a slice of mushroom pizza

Four clay magnets on a fridge, shaped like a peeled banana, an unpeeled banana, a strawberry, and a slice of mushroom pizza

One really cool part of the cohort program is a ceramic group project - 20 or so of us worked together to build the pieces of a farm. I made a bunch of carrots, apples, a basket, a cabbage, and a frog, which would be used along with a market stand, crop field, and pond that others made.

A bunch of unfired small clay carrots and apples, along with a basket, a cabbage, and a frog

A collection of fired clay pieces, including a basket, carrots, apples, a cabbage, and a frog

A ceramic pond with frogs and a duck on lilypads

A ceramic farm stand with various baked goods, flowers, and fruit

A ceramic crop field with carrots and a wheelbarrow

Block Printing

At the start of this class I had no clue what I wanted to do, and suddenly the idea of a multicolor fish where the scales are a different stamp than the outline came to me. I wasn't totally sure if it would come together until I did the first test print, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. It's a bit hard to align the stamps perfectly, but if they're misaligned it just adds to the charm :)

Two stamps shaped like a fish and the fish's scales

An apron with block-printed fish in turquoise and pink ink

A closer look at an apron with block-printed fish in turquoise and pink ink

Needle Felting

Needle felting is really satisfying (good way to get some frustration out!) but it definitely took at least partway through the class before it started to click and I understood how to have control over the medium. I wanted to add more detail to the buildings (but ran out of time) but I'm really happy with how the little pigeon in the foreground turned out.

A needle-felted scene showing a pigeon on a city sidewalk next to some flowers and bushes

Collage

Collage is a bit more casual than the other examples here, but still plenty creative! The second example feels like much more of a standard approach to collage, but it was also really fun to make the first one and treat the source material as something much more abstract - just a series of patterns instead of standalone items.