Milky Way Over Sundial Peak & Winter Blues

There’s something to be said about noticing when you’re in a funk and acknowledging that it’s okay and just rolling with it. I first noticed it with my kids. We’re all cranky and mornings are tougher than usual. I told them both that it’s normal for this time of year. The holidays are over, it’s cold, it’s dark, and spring and summer feel a million years away. It feels like there’s nothing to look forward to like we had in November and December. My kids and I have deemed it the Winter Blues.

*Not to be confused with actual depression. Seasonal depression is real too, and I dunno, maybe I get a touch of it this time of year?

Somehow, acknowledging that we’re all feeling it made it suck a little less. We are hanging in there and simultaneously enjoying the snow we’re getting and also anxious for spring to get here.

Last week I realized I hadn’t done any painting since the end of December. And before that, I hadn’t painted since August. I had no motivation or inspiration; which sucks because I live in such a beautiful state!

Imposter Syndrome loves these moments and chimes in with little tidbits that sound like, “you aren’t skilled enough to paint that,” “don’t even start painting that, you won’t finish it,” and the ever popular, “paint that and everyone will learn how awful/fake/not-a-real-artist you are.” She’s a sneaky bitch.

Last summer, during one of my weekend shows, a guy asked how I made the stars on my Milky Way paintings. I told him that I was trying out different techniques as I went; some I used masking fluid, some I used white ink, some I used both. He commented that on a couple, it was hard to tell if I was going for stars or snow. I took no offense because his comment came from a place of pure analysis, but it did make me think. A few of my paintings are small, 8x10 or smaller. So when I’m using masking fluid, it can be more challenging to paint smaller stars if; especially if I’m just flinging masking fluid off of a brush.

One such painting was this one of Sundial Peak and Lake Blanche. This is a local mountain to me and one I am hoping to hike or backpack to this summer. The first time I painted it, I used masking fluid to make the stars. I splattered it on the page and then erased it off when the painting was done. It acts similarly to rubber cement. This original is maybe 8x10 inches, and I didn’t have the patience to make smaller stars by using a tiny brush and doing one at a time. You can watch a time lapse video of how I made this painting here.

I wanted to repaint this mountain on larger paper and see what I could come up with. This version has a bit more snow, more sky, and less of Lake Blanche. I skipped using masking fluid this time and made all of the stars with white pens.

This one took me more than a few days. I would paint a small part and step away for a day or two before coming back to it. I wasn’t thrilled with the mountains, feeling like they lacked some depth. Then I wasn’t happy with parts of the sky; the blues not inky enough. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to show the little bit of Lake Blanche that shows at the bottom. The reference images I had showed dark green spots where it was iced over.

I overthought this one a lot. Heck, I still am. I already know a few spots I want to change in Photoshop; like that stripe of snow down the middle that I didn’t intend to go almost perfectly vertical, LOL. I’ll scan this one and make it into prints and stickers…. after I’m happy with it.

Here you can watch the time lapse of how it was made.

Here’s a list of the supplies I used; including links. Some are affiliate links.

• Daniel Smith Watercolor

• Fluid 100 Cold Press 300lb Watercolor Paper

• Polina Bright Watercolor Brushes

• Princeton Velvetouch Brushes (Long Round in sizes 4, 8, and 12, and a flat 10)

• Pocket Palettes from Art Toolkit

• The World’s Colouriest Watercolor Set from Culture Hustle

• Uni-Ball Signo Broad Point White Gel Pen

• Zebra Fude Waterproof Brush Pens

…and the desk lamp that also holds my iPhone so I can make these cool videos.

What should I paint next?? I really want to paint locations that are outside of Utah, but I don’t love painting the same views of the most popular spots that everyone takes photos of. I kinda want to continue with public lands and National Parks too. Decisions…

Traveling Gingerbread Man 2

In 2019, our friend Jaxon had an assignment in his class where he asked friends and family to send postcards and notes claiming they met the Gingerbread Man on their road trips and travels. I leveled up on our adventures and had a TON of fun in Photoshop adding the Gingerbread Man to some photos and sending fun messages to Jaxon’s kindergarten class. You can view that post here.

Last fall, my niece Maddie’s kindergarten class was doing the same assignment and I was STOKED to get to create a few more images and also send the ones I made before. Below are the photos along with the letters we sent. For these, we actually printed everything out and sent them in cards. Apparently they were a HUGE hit in her class.

Hi Ms. Conti's Class,

It's Matthew and Tommy again, Madison's cousins. We've done a lot of road trips lately, and it seems like we share a lot of the same interests as the Gingerbread Person. This July, we bumped into them while exploring the Trail of Ten Falls at Silver Falls State Park in Oregon. This trail is so amazing as we hike through a lush forest and we can see ten different waterfalls over the 9 mile hiking trail. On many of the waterfalls, the trail goes behind them! Thankfully, the Gingerbread Person didn't get too soggy when we splashed in the water with them. Wouldn't want them to lose an arm! We also shared some s'mores with them at our campsite. What a beautiful place to visit!

Hope we'll bump into them again this summer.

Love, Matthew and Tommy

Hola Ms. Conti's Class!

It's the Wong Family again, saying hello to Madison and wanting to share that we had a fun afternoon with the Gingerbread Person at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Crater Lake is the DEEPEST lake in North America at 1,949 feet deep! Wow! It's a crazy deep shade of blue and was formed from a volcano, so there are no rivers or streams that flow into or out of it. Pretty cool, right? We hope you can visit one day because it's such a beautiful place.

Adios, the Wong Family

Hi Madison and Ms. Conti's Class!

We spent a day exploring Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The sandstone cliffs and canyons look a lot like many places we've explored in Utah, but it has its own geological history. We watched some kids do some rock climbing, they climbed so high! It was a pretty hot day, but that didn't stop us from enjoying a couple of short hikes with the Gingerbread Person. We shared some fruit snacks and trail mix and we chatted about where they were headed next. The views were gorgeous and it was a really amazing place to explore after being on the road for so long. We hope you can check it out one day.

See ya! Matthew & Tommy

Below are a few repeats from the previous iteration:

Hello, Ms. Conti's Class,

Madison's cousins, Tommy and Matthew saying hi and sharing yet another Gingerbread Person sighting. They must have had the same road trip plans as us this year. We ran into them at the north shore of Lake Tahoe, California and they joined us for a swim in the crystal-clear water. The water is so clear in Lake Tahoe that we can see more than 50 feet down and it's the 2nd deepest lake in North America. We bid farewell when we got wrinkly fingers and advised them to do the same. Since they're made of gingerbread, we didn't want them to get soggy!

I hope they had a great time on the rest of his road trip!
Adios, Tommy and Matthew

Hi Ms. Conti's Class,

It's Tommy and Matthew again, say hi to Madison for us, we miss her! We were on a road trip with our parents and we stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats in western Utah to see if we could watch some race cars break land speed records. Did you know that the Bonneville Salt Flats are left over from when most of Utah was a massive ancient lake?? Lo and behold, we saw The Gingerbread Person too! They were scoping out some rocket cars and enjoying the weather. Thankfully it wasn't too hot, but wow, it gets bright when the sun reflects off of the salt! Sunglasses are a must! Wonder where they were headed next?

Best, Tommy and Matthew

Hi Ms. Conti's Class!

We are the Wong Family: Alex, Bill, Tommy and Matthew. We're Madison's cousins and we live in Utah. We were exploring Arches National Park in Moab, Utah earlier this year and you wouldn't believe who we ran into: The Gingerbread Person! They must have been on vacation, exploring the beautiful sandstone desert. They were so nice by sharing some gumdrops with us and we shared granola bars with them on the trail. We were totally photobombed too! What a stinker!
Love, Tommy and Matthew

Hello, Ms Conti's Class,

It's the Wong Family again, Tommy and Matthew. We were hiking with some friends in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the snowy Wasatch Mountains of Utah this week and we ran into our old friend, The Gingerbread Person. He said he was hoping to get in some skiing before another snow storm came through, and we hope he found some slopes, because it's supposed to snow again tonight!

We hope you're staying warm this winter, miss you Madison!
Cheers, Tommy and Matthew

Hike it Baby 30 Challenge - 2019

I had the pleasure of creating stickers to commemorate the two Hike it Baby 30 Challenges for 2019. In previous years, they used to have four challenges every year, but decided to cut it down to just two in April and September. You can see the stickers I created for 2018 here.

For 2019, we stuck with a similar watercolor and ink style and I made the April sticker quintessential to spring with blooming crocus, green grass, patches of melting snow, and the sky streaked for a sunrise.

In an effort to get more folks out on trail with their kids, they created a secondary challenge called Take it Outside. Participants received a sticker that loosely coordinated with the HiB30 sticker along with two sheets of little stickers to use on a calendar page that they printed out. Each day on the calendar page gave ideas for a daily activity designed to motivate people to get outside every day. I love how these turned out and it was awesome to see folks using the calendar page and stickers throughout the challenge.

Here’s the calendar page that I created for participants to download and print:

They received this sticker sheet in the mail shortly after signing up:

You can see a mini version of the Take it Outside sticker too!

When the September challenge rolled around, I created a new sticker and we added a few more hikers to the artwork, wanting to give more of a community feel. The Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina were the inspiration for this sticker.

To go with the September sticker, they did another Take it Outside challenge for new members too, this was the coordinating sticker.

Traveling Gingerbread Man

My friend Jen has a kindergartener and his teacher was working on a project with the class; teaching them a bit about geography. The teacher sent out a paper to parents asking them to ask friends and family who don’t live in their town to send messages claiming they sighted the Gingerbread Man in their city or sometime during their travels. If they could include a photo, then fantastic. She even went on to say that email messages are fine, and even fictional messages are okay so long as they help the kids learn about different places on the map. They were mapping each sighting on a big map in the classroom.

I kicked it up a notch and had WAY too much fun in Photoshop. Here are the messages I sent:

“Hi Mrs. B's Class!

We are the Wong Family: Alex, Bill, Tommy and Matthew. We're friends of Jaxon's. We were exploring Arches National Park in Moab, Utah earlier this year and you wouldn't believe who we ran into: The Gingerbread Man! He must have been on vacation, exploring the desert. He was so nice by sharing some gumdrops with us and we shared granola bars with him on the trail. He totally photobombed us too! What a stinker!
Love, Tommy and Matthew Wong (ages 10 and 5)”

“Hi Mrs. B's Class,

It's Tommy and Matthew again, say hi to Jaxon for us, we miss him! We were on a road trip with our parents and we stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats in western Utah to see if we could watch some race cars break land speed records. Lo and behold, we saw The Gingerbread Man too! He was scoping out some rocket cars and enjoying the weather. Thankfully it wasn't too hot, but wow, it gets bright when the sun reflects off of the salt! Sunglasses are a must! Wonder where he was headed next?

Best, Tommy and Matthew Wong”

“Hello, Mrs. B's Class,

Tommy and Matthew saying hi and sharing yet another Gingerbread Man sighting. He must have had the same road trip plans as us this year. We ran into him in the north shore of Lake Tahoe, California and he joined us for a swim in the crystal-clear water. We bid farewell when we got wrinkly fingers and advised him to do the same. Since he's made of gingerbread, we didn't want him to get soggy!

I hope he had a great time on the rest of his road trip!
Adios, Tommy and Matthew”

“Hello Mrs B's Class,

It's the Wong Family again, Tommy and Matthew. We were hiking with some friends in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the snowy Wasatch Mountains of Utah this week and we ran into our old friend, The Gingerbread Man. He said he was hoping to get in some skiing before another snow storm came through, and we hope he found some slopes, because it's supposed to snow again tonight!

We hope you're staying warm this winter.
Cheers, Tommy and Matthew Wong”

A big part of me hopes my youngest son’s kindergarten class does a similar activity… so I could make more photos. Hahaha!

Hike it Baby Artist Series Stickers

I started doing design work for Hike it Baby a little more than a year ago, and it’s been SO much fun to create whatever I can for them.

Every year they host hiking challenges that encourage families to get outside with their kids. Up until 2018, they had quarterly challenges in January, April, September, and November, and the goal is to hike 30 miles in 30 days or spend 30 minutes outside three times each week. Participants can log their miles or time on the Hike it Baby website, they’re entered into drawings to win awesome prizes from sponsors, and they get to join in a Facebook group solely for participants of each challenge where we share photos from our hikes and encourage each other to keep getting outside. We get to see some pretty epic photos from hikes in the Rockies, the Appalachians, the Oregon coast, the mountains in Alaska, and even some great hikes in Japan. It’s an inspiring group to be a part of for those 30 days.

Everyone who registers for a Hike it Baby 30 challenge also gets a sticker to commemorate. In the past stickers have always been a solid color with a fun little graphic. The color and design is different each challenge and participants love to collect them. I had the privilege of designing two of them from 2017; the brown sticker with the foxes and the navy blue sticker with the buck and fawn.

For 2018, the folks at Hike it Baby decided to up the ante on the Hike it Baby 30 stickers and they asked me to do a landscape watercolor painting for the four challenges; each representing the season and a different landscape in the Hike it Baby world.

I was so pleased with how these turned out in sticker form.

January Challenge - still one of my favorites!

April Challenge

September Challenge

November Challenge

Three of these designs made for great t-shirt designs too.

More than a few people have joked that we can’t possibly go back to the older style anymore, so we’re brainstorming ideas for 2019. We shall see how it turns out!