Welcome to The Pond in February, the second blog post in my 2025 Calendar Blog Series.
Over the coming year, I’ll be taking you behind the scenes of each month’s illustration, sharing stories, memories, and reflections that continue to shape my creative journey.
For 2025, I created a collection that bridges my childhood art with my current skill level - I’ve revisited some of my old oil pastel drawings and watercolour paintings, recreated them digitally, and added reflective thoughts, messages, and affirmations that connect what they meant to me then with what they mean to me now. Each month is crafted with care, representing both the season and a personal story.
And a quick plug: my 2025 calendar collection is now available at a lovely discounted price till I run out! From tabletop and wall calendars to mini calendars, calendar cards, wallpapers, and bookmarks, there’s something for everyone in my shop.
A Journey of Change and Growth
For most of my life, I believed that only the big, bold moments truly mattered. I often worried about not moving forward enough - not physically, but in life overall - and assumed every moment needed to be grand. This belief was challenged during one of the most pivotal moments of my childhood when my father took a job in a different city and we moved to Bangalore.
That move was monumental. I loved our new life; coming home to something familiar in an unfamiliar city was comforting. Yet I soon noticed that our pace had shifted. Gone were the slow days of weekend trips, family gatherings, and the gentle rhythms of a close-knit extended family. Life felt faster and more urgent, leaving me often feeling like I was chasing time.
At the same time, I struggled to adjust. I wasn’t fluent in English, and among peers who seemed confident and self-assured, I felt small and uncertain. I questioned whether my life should be defined only by grand gestures, and if the quieter days were somehow wasted. Even today, I continue to wrestle with these doubts. I’m still learning to appreciate the value of small moments - like the gentle warmth of sunlight on my face or a day of quiet reflection. These subtle experiences, much like water lilies anchored by unseen roots, nurture my growth even when the currents of life feel overwhelming. I’m still teaching myself to trust in uncertainty.
Reflections and Lessons
This ongoing journey of transformation finds its way into my art every day. So much of my work is inspired by these lessons I’m still learning. With every creation, I hope to convey the message of finding joy in life’s smaller, often overlooked moments. My art is a letter to myself - a reminder to relish gentle stillness and appreciate that not every action requires an audience.
The original for this month’s illustration is a watercolour painting featuring delicate lilies and lily pads - a piece I created when I was first learning watercolours. At that time, I was experimenting with watercolour washes, and many of my early paintings were simply a series of washes capturing nature’s fleeting beauty. In the digital recreation of this drawing, I aimed to preserve the original's evocative feeling, characterized by significant negative space. To maintain this essence in the digital version, I've scattered the lilies, placing the calendar design elements in the spaces between them.
When I reflect on my childhood, I see a parallel in the water lilies. Despite the unsettling ripples, unpredictable currents and that little girl’s profound feeling of disorientation - the unseen roots held me steady, reminding me that every uncertain moment contributes to the art of being.
Today, I continue to embrace both the grand milestones and the quiet, reflective moments, even as I struggle with doubt and uncertainty. Every experience, big or small, shapes who I am becoming. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope this story inspires you to celebrate both dramatic milestones and the subtle moments in your own life just as much.
Stay tuned for the next installment in this little series - look forward to March’s post, where I’ll share another chapter of personal growth and creative exploration.
Welcome to the first instalment of my 2025 calendar blog series! Over the year, I’ll be taking you behind the scenes of each month’s illustration, sharing the stories, memories, and reflections that inspired them. This is The Canvas in January.
If you’re new here, let me quickly introduce the concept behind this calendar. For 2025, I created a collection that bridges my childhood art with my current skill level. I’ve taken some of my old oil pastel drawings, recreated them digitally, and added a few reflective thoughts, messages, affirmations to tie them back to what they meant to me then - and especially what they mean to me now. Each month is crafted with care, representing both the time of year I thought would be fitting, and a personal story, and this blog will give you a deeper glimpse into those moments :)
Oh, and before we dive in, a quick plug: the Growing in 2025 calendar collection is available now! I’ve got tabletop calendars, wall calendars, mini calendars, calendar cards, wallpapers, bookmarks - there’s something for everyone. You can check them out on my shop!
As a child, oil pastels were my favourite art medium. Most of my earliest drawings were made with them - smudging, layering, and experimenting with colour to create many worlds that felt entirely my own.
At the time, around the age of 10/13, I was attending art classes at a nearby home studio - one of my neighbours was an artist who had converted one room in her home into an art space. While most of our lessons focused on oil pastels, my teacher had begun introducing me to watercolours - a medium that was new and exciting to me. She often let me explore on my own once I’d finished the day’s assigned lesson. The original artwork for January’s calendar was no exception. It featured a canvas and a flower, painted in a style that’s hard to decipher now, but held so much significance for me then.
Her home was filled with easels and blank canvases, waiting to be transformed. I remember sitting there, observing from a distance, too shy to get up and examine them closely. I made mental notes about the “stand” (which I later learned was called an easel) and the canvases propped up on it. I don’t remember exactly what I referenced for this particular drawing - whether it was something she’d made or something I imagined - but I do remember the excitement of creating it. The flowers I drew weren’t any specific type, just something I thought an artist might paint. Because that’s what I wanted to be: an artist. I believed that being an artist meant having easels, endless canvases, and the freedom to paint whatever I wanted.
Looking back, I realize how much that belief shaped me, for better and worse. Seeing those canvases gave me direction - a sense of what I aspired to be. But it also planted the idea in my head that I needed certain tools or circumstances to truly be an artist. I told myself, “I’ll be a good artist when I have an easel. Or when I have many canvases. Or when I can paint all day.” It just became a series of
“when”s: When I have this, then I’ll be that.
Over time, life has taught me the opposite. Being an artist isn’t about the tools you own or the “setups” you envy. It’s about the act of creating - right now. It’s about showing up with whatever you have and making something out of it.
And that is the heart of January’s message. A blank canvas doesn’t wait for the perfect time. It doesn’t need Mondays, new months, or perfect plans. It is always ready, waiting for you to pick up the brush. The lesson here is that you don’t have to wait for "ideal" circumstances. So start now, start every day.
When I look at January’s illustration, I see the eager little girl who wanted to feel like an artist. She didn’t have all the tools, but had the determination to create anyway. And that’s a reminder I’d like to carry with me today, and through the year too: the world is full of blank canvases, just waiting for us to begin.
I hope this glimpse into January’s illustration inspires you to embrace your own “canvas.” Whether it’s art, a goal, or a dream you’ve been holding back on, don’t wait for the perfect time to start. Just start.
Oh, and a very happy 2025 to you! <3
Stay tuned for February’s story, and if you haven’t yet, check out my
2025 calendar collection to bring these illustrations into your home!
Updated: Oct 10, 2024
“We are the instruments more than the author of our work.”
More often than id like to admit, I have this weird feeling stirring up inside my chest that reminds me that the hardest thing for me to do is to just start things. Especially now, working as a freelancer and finding my own way in the world, I feel this almost threatening voice telling me “Yo. You can’t do it.”
This voice keeps me from beginning projects, makes me put them off for months, or even prevents me from thinking about them because they seem so daunting. And these fears might sound trivial to you—cleaning my closet, decluttering my art supplies cupboard, writing this very blog post—but my reaction is always the same: if I start now, I will fail. If I start now, I won’t do a good enough job. If I start now, I will be judged for how poorly I’m doing. If I start now, I won’t be able to commit to it.
I feel this chapter tapped into that very feeling - doubting yourself. Dealing with “perfectionism”. Not trusting the universe enough that you have all the resources you need to begin.
“Learn to accept the possibility that the universe is helping you with
what you are doing.”
This is a sentiment I often struggle with. When things are going so wrong, how do you build this trust in the universe that it is in fact in support of your dream? I find that the best way that helped me is to remind myself constantly that it is trying to get me to my dream. But maybe I need to learn something before I get there. Something unexpected that’s happening in this situation is what will get me to me dream, even though it feels really doubtful that “what I seek is seeking me too”. Even if something is going wrong, it is for me learn something important that will ultimately get me to my dream.
A few weeks before moving into my new studio last year, I felt overwhelmed. My art supplies were spilling out of the cupboard, my paintings took over my living space, and my bed became a drying station. My bedroom, my sanctuary, was turning into a chaotic workspace. I longed for an art studio, spent months dreaming about it, making Pinterest boards, and writing journal entries. But as time passed, the dream seemed to slip further away. I wasn’t earning enough to afford rent, didn’t have enough furniture, and hadn’t even shortlisted a space. It all felt so distant and difficult.
Then I started this chapter and read one line that changed everything:
“Expect the universe to support your dream. It will.”
I asked myself then, what in this situation do I need to learn from? What is happening here that will pave the way to my dream? What is this trying to show me?
I learnt that I longed for a separation between my work and life so my work doesn’t become all consuming. I learnt that my younger self wished for a day where she had a space to work in peacefully. I learnt that perhaps instead of obsessing over how much space I don’t have and how much I am not able to work in my room I need to take a step back and just enjoy it for what it is - a bedroom full of art and a drive for art so strong that my 4 bedroom walls were becoming too small to contain it.
I decided then that I would slow down to enjoy my work a little. Take a step back and let the universe turn its keys. Take peace in owning what I have created so far. It felt counter productive at the time, but I didn’t really create many new things for a while and just soaked up all the beauty I had created up until now, and concentrated on helping my mum with her company. As it turns out, on one of our outings with colleagues we unexpectedly visited a vacant office space. I felt an instant connection and there it was. 3 weeks later, I was preparing for the “office-warming” of my new studio.
Now I know that this isn’t exactly the revelation you’d expect reading the chapter, as it talks more about starting projects, but it definitely was something that resonated with me at the right time.
With this newfound trust in the universe, I read on. The chapter made me realise that voice I mentioned earlier. The one that tells me I can’t do it. There were and still are so many things that I just havent been able to get to because Im afraid of how they will turn out.
Speaking in line with the studio itself, I put off doing a makeover for my cabinet for 6 months because I was afraid of how it will turn out and I was overwhelmed by how I will tackle the project itself. But you have to remind yourself over and over that you really will figure it out. You have to move out of the head and into action, because you’re only causing it more pain by letting it stay a dream. You have to move ahead and start working on it.
This chapter felt heavy because it's something I navigate constantly. I read affirmations, then something goes wrong, and I forget. I have to keep reminding myself that the universe wants me to succeed, and it wants you to succeed too. Trust it and just begin.
Alright, now that we’ve built trust in the universe, it was time to go out into the world and do some of the activities from the chapter. This took me a while to get to as I became occupied with moving into the studio and then shop work for my new year shop update. But I truly feel these have been some of the most mentally rewarding tasks yet.
One of the activities was to take yourself to a sacred space. For me that was without a doubt a library. I decided to head to our state central library, a really old building with shelves and shelves of books and a peaceful atmosphere ive only dreamt of. It felt like I was at this old university library that ive come to to take notes on really important subject. And that important subject, after much searching, turned out to be woodworking.
I spent a good 2 hrs there, disconnected from the internet and deep in my book, sketching and learning and exploring. It truly did feel like a sacred space and it was incredible.
I do not have a library close to where I live, but if I did, I would be there all the time to unwind. But until that dream is a reality, you will find me in the kids public library in my apartment looking at the illustrations of children’s books.
I love me a good smell in the house. I am a big fan of candles, fragrant foods and spices and the smells of nature. I was so excited when I read this task. I had been seeing these “diy mini simmer pots” recipes on Pinterest and somehow was waiting for someone’s permission to make one. And this task was it.
I bought myself a ceramic fondue pot with a cute little handle that makes it look like a saucepan. I combined some of my favourite smelling ingredients to create a wonderfully warming smell in the studio. It smelt like autumn time and l=falling leaves and cinnamon lattes and it was the most wonderfully calming thing.
Oh I loved this activity. The task here was to create a pictorial autobiography using magazine pictures after you freely dismembered them. My inner child was squealing out of happiness. I went out and bought some magazines and picked up a few I had lying around the house. Another thing I picked uo was this rotary blade with a few different attachments. I felt like I was in Disney moveie and I just had this crazy idea while a cool montage plays with exciting background music.
I decided to use the scalloped edged blade to cut out all my pictures for the fun of it. I collected dreams, hopes, pictures that I found beautiful, reminders, words that resonated with me, anything.
I gave this collection of images and dreams a place of honour on my desk at home, I look at it every morning ever since and it is the most uplifting thing.
so vibey, i love it
This chapter turned out to be one of the most transformative ones yet I feel, in its own special way. I hope you enjoyed my thoughts and my journey through this week, and I hope you’ll join me for the next one!
