monthly recap Monthly Recap: June 2025 New readers! Busy people! This is your shortcut to everything that happened on the Playground in June—including soup, risograph, and one very long zine.
inspiration My First Art Book Love: Malika Favre Her bold style is nothing like mine—but this book is packed with ideas I secretly (okay, not so secretly) want to steal.
work in progress Too Many Menus, Not Enough Hands—But the Stars Had a Plan Star charts, strength tests, and ramen metaphors: here’s how I learned to stop fighting myself and lean into what I do best.
inspiration The Thoughtful Beauty of Mizuhiki I went searching for a special envelope for an upcoming wedding—and ended up falling down the beautiful, thoughtful world of mizuhiki.
work in progress My Orchid Bloomed—Three Years Later! After years of care (and one summer of neglect... oops), my adopted orchid finally bloomed—and taught me something big about light and love.
inspiration My First 'Soup Painting' Food characters, soup baths, tart dance floors—why not call it a genre? I finally drew one, and it was so fun.
work in progress Bathtime Brainwaves My best ideas come when I’m not even trying—usually in the bath, when my brain finally gets a chance to relax (and throw me a surprise idea!).
inspiration Pokémon Is Back in My Life From grandpa-sponsored Pokémon Green to surprise Google Poké Ball hunting—Pokémon is back in my life and I’m slightly obsessed (again).
inspiration Summer's Out, Murals Are IN! What started as “let’s check out some new murals” turned into “wait, is that a seductive starfish??” Hubbard Street never disappoints!
work in progress Sugar Smarter, Feel Better I used to get crushed by sudden waves of anxiety, sleepiness, or brain fog—until I realized it wasn’t a mindset problem. It was sugar.
inspiration Art of Mitate One of my favorite styles is mitate—likening one thing to something else. Tatsuya Tanaka’s work is full of ideas!
news My Stickers Are Here and They’re Glorious Vibrant colors! A scannable QR code! Palm-sized perfection! My custom stickers just arrived and I’m in love. Can’t wait to share them at the next meetup.
work in progress Risograph Experiments, Round 2! (Now with More Shadows) Printed a bunch in two hours! Shadows, gradients, emergency teal ink, and a few coal-miner faces later—I learned a ton and had a blast.
work in progress Gradient Revenge: Risograph Test Round Two! My last gradient print flopped a little… so I made an army of shaded faces and colorful hair to get my revenge. Let’s print!
work in progress When in Doubt, Make the Card Yourself None of the store-bought cards felt right… so I made one myself. With kanji. Using our bodies. It’s ridiculous. And perfect.
work in progress My Risograph File Adventure This time I did the color separation myself! Some mess, some stress, and sneaky leftover blobs—but hey, that’s risograph magic.
work in progress Fold, Cut, Repeat! The Something Long Saga I folded! I panicked! I learned! “Something Long” is done (maybe?) and I’ve got notes for Future Me.
work in progress RISO Meetup Magic I’m usually way too shy to talk to people, but thanks to risograph (my new secret superpower), I made real-life art friends! Bonus: I gave out Something Long and it made people smile.
work in progress Printing Day at Spudnik Press I finally printed Something Long! One upside-down file and one ink surprise later, I still had so much fun.
work in progress Ready to Print Something Long! Tomorrow’s the big day—I’m finally printing Something Long! All the layout puzzles are solved and files are ready to go.
work in progress Still Drawing Something Long I’ve already drawn 17 long things for my Something Long book—and I’m still going. Maybe winter shadows next? Or… ear hair?
inspiration Fired Up Friday at Ignite Glass Studio I stopped by Ignite Glass Studio’s Fired Up Friday and left with a newfound awe for the art (and sweat) behind glassblowing!
work in progress Why I’ve Been Able to Post a Blog for 100 Days in a Row I’ve posted 100 blogs in 100 days! The reason? Morning Pages. I write out all my messy thoughts every morning—and blog ideas come out, too.
news 100 Posts In—And a Shiny New Domain! Today marks my 100th blog post! I gave myself a shiny new domain to celebrate—and promised myself I’d keep going!
work in progress Getting Riso-Ready with Spectrolite I’m getting ready for a riso printing session at Spudnik Press this weekend—and this magical little app called Spectrolite is saving my brain.
