Alongside my design work, I maintain a studio practice rooted in traditional media—torn paper, watercolor, and scratchboard. These illustrations share a common thread: they tell stories through texture, color, and craft. This hands-on work keeps my creative instincts grounded and brings a more expressive, human quality to the design work I do every day.
Where Cut Paper Becomes Character
These torn-paper collages reflect my tactile approach to storytelling through layered texture, color, and cut-paper detail. The first set of animal illustrations was created for an MCEC Tell Me A Story “Fortune Teller” activity, using hand-torn papers to give each character warmth and personality.
The second piece is a full spread from MC & Me, a children’s book published by the Military Child Education Coalition, where textured paper layers were used to build an expressive landscape and capture a moment of friendship between a child and MC the Longhorn. Together, these pieces showcase how traditional, handcrafted media can bring narrative depth and emotional resonance to educational and children’s content.
Light, Wash and Story
My watercolor work explores storytelling through light, gesture, and soft transitions of color. From conference themes and seasonal landscapes to scenes of childhood resilience and NICU care, each piece is built with layered washes and quiet detail that invite reflection. These illustrations often focus on connection and the moments that shape them.
Whether created for MCEC workshops, school convocations, or NICU support programs, the paintings share a consistent intent: to capture emotion with sensitivity and to communicate through atmosphere as much as form. Together, they represent the expressive side of my practice, where narrative and compassion meet in washes of color.
Created for a school convocation theme, this watercolor captures two children running forward as a cluster of balloons rises behind them. The loose washes and bright palette evoke momentum, optimism, and the buoyant energy of a new school year or shared celebration.
Part of a watercolor series created for the Military Child Education Coalition’s annual conference, the first illustration focuses on the bond between a service member and child. Soft washes, loose edges, and translucent color convey connection, resilience, and the quiet strength of military families.
The second centered on the theme of Trailblazers depicts two children walking together into uncharted territory. The warm horizon and layered washes evoke exploration, guidance, and the courage students show as they navigate new paths side by side.
Created for MCEC’s Tell Me A Story initiative, this series of seasonal landscape watercolors forms the visual foundation of the Family Traditions for All Seasons workbook. Each scene — winter, spring, summer, and fall — was painted to evoke the rhythms of family life throughout the year, pairing soft washes and luminous night skies with small, warmly lit homes scattered across textured hills. The illustrations provide a gentle, inviting backdrop for families as they reflect on their traditions together.
Created for NICU Helping Hands, these watercolor illustrations pair early pencil studies with the final painted pieces to show the progression from concept to completion. Each image—an infant cradled in loving hands and a newborn resting on a scale—was crafted to convey tenderness, vulnerability, and the profound care surrounding NICU families.
Ink, Etch and Imagination
A whimsical take on Santa, this illustration blends traditional linework with bold color to create a painterly character whose face doubles as an artist’s palette. With expressive textures, playful details, and a clever twist on the classic “Ho Ho Ho,” the piece mixes humor and craft in a distinctive visual style.
