Ceramics

In 2024, I signed up for Intro to Ceramics and a Drawing class at my local community college. At the time, I was committing to changing my career path to Art Therapy. Many people say that ceramics is a form of therapy and that’s exactly what it became for me. At first, there was a lot of frustration with myself when learning this new skill and struggling with my perfectionist tendencies. I still face those struggles today with different ceramic obstacles as I increase my knowledge and skill in this art form. Check out how I document my ceramics journey and the clay creations I make.

Check out my clay journal! Entries of my throwing sessions, experiments, and failures.

Painting

I’m excited to continue painting and challenge myself to overcome my internalized perfectionist tendencies, which is something that I have learned from ceramics but must keep practicing.

I was first introduced to gouache in an Art Foundations class in college. I was instantly drawn to the vibrancy and saturation of pigments on paper—it reminded me of printmaking ink (a class that I was very fond of in high school).

Fast forward to April 2025, I decided to gift myself some cheap paintbrushes and a gouache set for my birthday. These Himi jelly gouache sets started popping up on my TikTok feed. Suddenly, everyone was posting pictures of opening each plastic paint cartridge that came in the sets. The sets contain as little as 18 colors to up to 112. I chose this one with 56 colors—it is large and I don’t know if I’d ever use all of these colors but I do love looking at the different colors.

I am by no means an expert artist or painter for that matter and I can confidently say that I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to painting, but I have been trying to learn. I have been following YouTube tutorials online, people who either paint with these paints or who have easy-to-follow instructions. My favorite videos have definitely been @RuthWilshaw’s videos. Her voice is nice and soothing and she consistently reiterates the “trust the process'“ notion.

Omnichord

I took piano lessons as a kid and played the flute in high school but the only form of music I partake in today is singing in the shower or at karaoke. I enjoy singing and music in general but I’ve always wanted to be able to play and instrument that I can play while singing (guitar, piano, ukulele). Unfortunately my ability to read music, play the instrument, and sing concurrently is too much multitasking and hard.

I bought a kalimba a couple of years ago for fun and I enjoy playing it to destress. The sounds of the small finger instrument are incredible soothing and mimic a mini sound bath.

For my birthday, my brother got me an omnichord. I had sent it to him asking if he had heard about the instrument before and he purchased one for me. I am supposed to be sharing it with my mom but I fell into the hole of researching it and wanting it because it seemed not only like a fun instrument to play, but also an easy instrument to learn. An omnichord has note buttons on one side and a strumplate on the other. Every time you press the note you want played and strum, it mimics a guitar or harp strum, matching the notes that perfectly harmonize with whatever note was chosen. According to the internet, the instrument was originally made to be an autoharp. I have been having a lot of fun playing around with it. I google guitar chords for any songs that I want to sing and can strum along by just pressing a button. Some of the songs I’ve really enjoyed learning + playing on the left.

Fountain Pens

I have always been a pen fiend. I purchased my first fountain pen recently and I cannot get enough of them. Writing is so nice and smooth and the ink options are endless.

Fountain pens are an investment and can range anywhere from $5-$400+. The pen I picked as my first (and second) purchase is the TWSBI Eco Fountain Pen (fine point). I purchased the extra fine soon after and I have been using both of these pens every day!