What's Inspiring Me Lately
Studio Notes Issue 8 | June 28, 2026
Summer is always a weird time for me. It is by far my favorite season of the year, especially here in Colorado, but it is also my busiest time of year when it comes to my day job.
June in the foothills is when the colors of summer really pop. The flowers are the brightest and the hills haven't quite made their transition from green to brown yet. Up at higher elevations, the mountains are starting to wake up: the aspens have settled into their vibrant green, the wildflowers are in full bloom, alpine lakes are vivid blue, and the patches of snow are slowly disappearing.
Last summer, I crashed and burned hard from trying to do too much: a harder than normal summer camp season (greener staff, lots of staff absences, etc.), training for a big 120 mile bike race, and feeling really depleted when it came to anything art, so much so that I literally dropped everything. No studio time, no Instagram, no creative outlet, and a huge dose of guilt that I was letting my art goals slowly die.
This summer I wanted things to be different. You cannot grind in every aspect of your life at the same time, and the honest truth is that during the summer, really May - July, I grind at my day job running summer programs for kids aged 6-12 at the museum. And I want to. I'm good at my day job, it has a huge impact on the kids that I work with, and it's creative in its own way. We make ice cream in a bag, design water wheels, learn about the garden before cooking up tasty treats in a historic cabin (like pumpkin muffins with cinnamon whipped cream), we learn about animals and how owls have tunnel vision before making these adorable toilet paper tube owl eye masks, we explore dinosaurs and paleontologists as we try to solve a History Mystery of who stole the dinosaur tooth from the museum (I'll let you know the answer: the Assistant Curator Dusty Page was the culprit). All of this to say that this summer, like pretty much every summer, my art practice is moving slower and I am (always begrudgingly) trying to accept that as ok.
This summer, life is looking like:
Less Painting Time and More Play
I am still painting a little, but I'm trying to explore materials and ideas rather that force myself to bust out a new collection to put up in my shop. I have the seed of an idea for a new collection, but I know that putting pressure on myself to get it done this summer would kill the idea faster than if I just let it percolate in my brain.
Thumbnail sketches from hiking.
A mountain study.
Studio Notes are excerpted from my monthly newsletter where I share what is happening in the studio, what’s new on the blog, things I am loving, creative inspiration, freebies and more. Join the Collectors Club to receive the full edition delivered to your inbox.
More Time Outside
I have no endurance events I am training for and I have a big vacation coming up in August, so I am focused on spending as much time in the mountains as I can fit in. My phone is filled with alpine lakes, trees, wildflowers of every shape and size, baby goats and so much more. I know this time outside will fuel my creativity come the fall when I always get the itch to really start painting again.
Hike to Heart Lake, Rollinsville, CO
Baby mountain goat up Mt. Blue Sky.
Shooting Star wildflowers.
Silky Phacelia wildflowers.
Slow and Steady Pattern Creation
My biggest fear at the end of Immersion was that I would take too big of a break from pattern work. I'm happy to say that this hasn't happened and that while I'm still giving my Colorado Mountain Collection from Immersion a bit of a breather, I've been slowing refining some older collections for my Spoonflower shop and working on a small new collection to submit for a design brief. I'm reminding myself that I can still maintain momentum without being chained to my studio desk, which is not a great environment for creativity anyway. Can you guess the theme for this next collection from the images below?
What is summer like for you? Is it a quieter time filled with vacations and time with friends and family? Or are you grinding away at something?
From the Blog Archives
One of the fabric collections I have been slowly refining behind-the-scenes is Blush & Bloom. I created this collection as part of as a design challenge for my Pattern+ membership. When the collection wasn't selected, I started the slow process of improving the original designs, expanding colors, ordering fabric samples and getting each pattern ready for Spoonflower. You can read the full breakdown of how I built this collection on the blog in this article and check out the collection online at Spoonflower. To me this collection feels soft, feminine, and romantic.
I picture this fabric being used for baby quilts and nursery items, while some of the botanicals would work well on pillows or even wallpaper.
Yellow Ditsy Floral, Blush & Bloom collection.
Yellow Roses Floral Trellis, Blush & Bloom collection.
Summer Recs...
What I'm watching: In the summer when things are busy, I often balancing watching new things with old favorites. In the new category, I really enjoyed Dracula, the 2026 version staring Caleb Landry Drones. It was a retelling of Dracula as a gothic romance and it definitely pulled at my heartstrings. We also started watching season one of Departure on Amazon Prime, which is crime show investigating the crash of an airplane. We're only a few episodes in, but we are definitely hooked. In the nostalgia category, I started rewatching Billions, and even though the characters are always a bit questionable in their morals, I do find the show fascinating.
What I'm reading: My two faves from my recent stack of books were Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy and The Best Lies by David Ellis. These are both repeat authors for me. McConaghy always gets me to think about our environment and how we treat it and all of the unanticipated consequences of human presence on this planet. Not exactly the most uplifting topic, but I have enjoyed every one of her books so far. The Best Lies was my second book by Ellis and he might soon become one of my favorite authors. I love a good thriller and mystery and what I enjoyed about this book is how there are so many disparate story lines that all come together in a way you never saw coming.
Until next time!