This has been a serious season of personal development for me. Recently I’ve been working with a coach who has helped me understand that my emotions can be traced back to my thoughts. I’ve started a practice of tracking my emotions and laddering them up my thoughts to cultivate better awareness.

In @garyjohnbishop‘s book Unf*ck Your Life he provides the idea that we are not our thoughts, which I appreciate. Yeah we aren’t going to feel great all the time, but that doesn’t mean something is wrong. It means that you’re human.

This artwork was made on the Procreate app on the iPad.

We deserve to celebrate making it to May, you guys. This spring has been hard and I feel you. So pour yourself a glass. Cheers, friend.

While we are in the midst of social distancing, I’m launching a free Lettering at Lunch series on Monday and Fridays at noon PST to provide bite-size lettering tips via Instagram Live.

Wherever you are, I invite you to join me! All you need is A) a reliable Wifi connection, B) an Instagram account, C) something to write with and write on. I’ll be leading you through one letter of the alphabet a day — we’ll essentially go through the Intro to Brush Lettering workshop in slow motion, a few letters at a time!

As a cultivator of community and perennial educator, I’m hopeful this will bring us together and help us hone our skills. Hope to see you there!

Drills, drills, drills. As a dancer and an artist, I know first hand how the rudiments will shape everything else. Without a good foundation, your work won’t look the way you want it to. So let’s get back to the basics. As a little gift from me to you, I have lettering drills that you can download for free. Print ’em, share ’em, use ’em on your iPad and watch your best work materialize. Try it for 30 days and see the difference unfold. Click here to download your free lettering drills!

How good it is to be with someone sometimes. In a month dedicated to love, it’s been working its way into my lettering. Hold the ones you love close, soak in each moment so you can savor them in your memory when you’re apart.

Love is in the air and making its way onto a wine glass near you! Here’s a couple flirty ideas to get your juices flowing, including “I quit Tinder for you” — the penultimate in modern romance. If you wanna skip the mushy stuff, we’ve got something for you too!

Tickets are still available for Sunday’s Sip and Paint class going on at @universalstandard in Belltown in Seattle. I’ll be flying to class from Albuquerque so I hope to see you there! Our friends at US will have mimosas so we’re gonna have a GREAT time! Plan to stick around afterwards and try on some of their gorgeous clothes!

Don’t underestimate the power of red lipstick! Not only does it pack a punch, back in the day, red lipstick was worn by powerful women like Cleopatra, and was later worn only by prostitutes, likely why red lipstick was later outlawed by the Catholic church. Fast forward to the 20th century where red lipstick was associated with the women’s suffragette movement and reclamation of women’s sexual freedoms and you’ll see that wearing it can be a feminist statement unto itself.

Photo by @carltoncanary, styling by @saraheward, design and lettering by @larklettering.

I’m always learning new ways to make magic happen in @procreate, like duplicating layers and changing the color. 🙌 2020 and I’m seeing clearly! What have you learned lately?