top of page
Search


Hello, My Beautiful Butterflies, and Happy May to you all!!!!


Summer is just around the corner, but I'm truly holding onto spring like it's my job....I'm not ready for the heat. So I have a new print in the shop to celebrate the cheerful vibes of Spring and to celebrate the beauty of being a butterfly.


I have always called you all my Beautiful Butterflies. I'm not 100% sure where that came from. I just remember using the phrase at one point, and then again, and then it stuck. But honestly, it's such a fitting phrase for you all. Butterflies are such a symbol of growth...emerging from their caterpillar state into their true-self fluttering about spreading joy to the world...something I associate with all of you and with my artwork. I like to spread a little joy and a little imagination with each piece that I make, and you all being along for the ride makes it even more special.


For this blog post, I wanted to dive into the behind-the-scenes of this painting. I also have a bonus timelapse video at the end of this post. The video has no talking, just music, and is filled to the brim with calm and relaxing vibes.


The original painting was for a client's nursery, and the colors of the painting matched the wallpaper used in the room. To start I sketched up this little number on my iPad to get a rough idea of layout and colors.

Next, I made a black-and-white drawing of the iPad sketch to transfer over to watercolor paper.



After I painted in the background and mixed up my colors I went in and painted each element color by color.



It was almost like painting by numbers (one of my favorite Michael's purchases as a kid). And slowly the whole painting came together with the last little bit adding in some definition and detail to the butterfly itself.



And here's the final piece!!



I seriously was so so excited about how this little butterfly number turned out. It was so cheerful and happy and the perfect thing to share for Spring/Summer.


And as a lovely little bonus, I filmed myself making this painting and compiled it together for your viewing pleasure. I kept it nice and relaxing with calming music and no talking. Just painting. Hope you enjoy the video below!




If you'd like to purchase a print of this butterfly painting you can find a link below.




That's all from me this month! I'll catch all of you Beautiful Butterflies in June!!!!!

xoxo,

Rachel



Helloooooo my Beautiful Butterflies!!!


Remember when I shared some behind-the-scenes photos of the upcoming book I illustrated? I believe it was last fall that these pics found your way to your inbox (sooo much has happened for me since then so I'm fuzzy on the exact month I shared this).


Anywho, I'm coming at you with an exciting announcement: The ABCs of Grief is officially available for purchase! EEEEK!!!!


Thank you to everyone who purchased during the pre-order last fall and to those of you who have sent me such kind messages! This book was truly a labor of love. I started working on this project about a year ago and have since experienced a very wild year personally. I won't dive too far into it (you can read more about it on my Instagram post here), but suffice it to say this book helped me process what I was experiencing while making the illustrations.

This book, written by Jessica Correnti of Kids Grief Support teaches little ones how to understand and process what Grief is using the Alphabet. Her beautiful words express the universalness of grief and also how grieving can be for truly anything under the sun (death, illness, friendship, divorce, and the list goes on). She also teaches us that everyone's experience of grief is different and unique. This book is made for kids, but truly I think every adult could benefit from reading this too.


You can buy your copy here.


I shared some behind-the-scenes pics of the illustrations last fall, but now that the book is out I wanted to share a few more photos of the making of the illustrations and the finished product.


I hand-drew all of the sketches on my iPad, then transferred them to watercolor paper to be hand-painted.





I kid you not when I say that my desk was filled to the brim with illustrations for this book.


When I was all finished illustrating, I scanned in the paintings and formatted them on my computer for printing. Sounds like a small task, but formatting took a whole month of back and forth between me and the author, adding in lettering, and getting all of the settings just right for printing.



Receiving my copy in the mail was such an amazing experience!!! When you put in so much work into something, seeing the final product is utterly surreal; especially comparing the printed page to the original illustration.





I hope you enjoy this book as much as I do. Remember you can buy your copy here.


Until next time,

Rachel









Hello, my Beautiful Butterflies, and Happy March to you all!! The last time I was in your inbox Thanksgiving was on the horizon, and I had a belly full of holiday treats and a baby! Well, on November 29th in the wee hours of the morning, I popped that little babe out of the oven and into this crazy world. It's been 3ish months since she was born and my hubby and I have taken a lot of time off work, away from social media, and really just away from outside life in general to stay present in the early months of life for our little one. We named her Leonora after Ricky's grandmother. The name means "compassion" and "light" and it's everything we hope for our baby girl as she joins the land we call Mother Earth.


I can't fully describe what it feels like to be a mom, as I'm still processing it myself and I'm so curious going forward how it will change my work (if at all). I've started to dive into a few pieces here and there for clients but not much for myself yet, so the jury is still out on how my style and interests will evolve with a little on my brain all the time.


I am officially back to work full-time now. I started poking my head into work part-time a month ago, but now Leonora is in daycare, and Ricky and I both are navigating a new normal of work and parenting. For this month's post, I decided to make a little drawing of sweet Leonora and the meaning of her name.


I quickly put together a simple line drawing of her. I envisioned her opening a cardboard box sharing both compassion and light with the world like she had an abundance of leftovers or like she was tossing confetti around. I kept the drawing simple because let's face it my time is limited.



Next, I wanted to bring in some color - I put together this warm color palette of blues and clay colors.



Now it was time to draw over the sketch with these new colors. Again, I wanted to keep it simple, so I kept most of the elements as outlines instead of filling them in....I was going for "Where the Sidewalk Ends" kind of vibes.



But alas, sitting there, I wanted a little extra pizzazz, so I added a background color and some white behind the lettering to give it another layer. I'm so pleased with the whimsical results.



I hope our little Leonora loves it so much, and as a treat here's a pic of me and Leonora (she's getting so big!!)


Until next time,

Rachel







bottom of page