This is finally it, the moment my husband, Sean, and I finally got brave, left the security of guided tours and the familiarity of our cruise ship, and set out to explore the city of Busan on our own! All credit due to Sean--I was so worried about going around in any country without knowing the local language. If I had been traveling alone, I don't know if I would ever have been able to work up the courage. But he convinced me, and I am so grateful because this foray helped us gain the confidence to explore every other port city after this! Our adventure grew twice as epic thanks to Busan!

Click here to read the previous entry featuring our daytime experiences in Busan.

Sunday 19 March 2023 - Nighttime in Busan

First step: take the shuttle from the port to Busan Station!

Although I had technically seen the character before, this was when I started to fall in love with Boogi 😍

Here's a great article about Boogi, Busan's totally adorable, insanely lovable mascot!

We didn't figure out why it's called this, but since I was born in Texas, I loved seeing Texas Street in Busan!

The Rotary symbol, plus the kanji that I can read (most is written in Hangul) suggest this massive monument is celebrating a Rotary Club 100 year anniversary 🎊

Got a can of Korean Gatorade from a vending machine 😄 I love trying foreign versions of familiar drinks~

Busan Station had this cool screen setup (among other interesting monuments and interactive installations) that played a variety of videos tailored to this unique physical format.

We did a lot of exploring inside Busan Station, which is just as much shopping mall as transportation hub. I was on the hunt for this adorable Boogi plushie, which I had seen someone else leaving the station with earlier. My Boogi now lives here in my studio, helping me stay positive and motivated every day 🥰

One of the best interactions I had in Busan was when this shop employee stopped me to make sure I had the QR code necessary to get the English instructions for the card game I bought there 🥰 She totally didn't have to go out of her way to do that for me, so I really appreciated her consideration!

On the shuttle back to the port, ready to call it a night. I loved how colorful and vibrant this bus was 🌈

Waiting for us in our cabin when we got back: immigration papers! We had to follow procedures to enter Korea and then to return to Japan. It makes sense logically, but it still felt weird since we were riding the same cruise ship the whole time 😆

Dreamy big city nighttime vibes 🌆 Goodnight, Busan~

And there you have it, our first true adventure of this trip! While there were some downsides to exploring a massive city in a different country on one's own (the worst experiences were the same ones that have made any trip to Portland, Seattle, or New York City unpleasant, so it must just be a big city thing 😅), we had a great experience overall and it gave us complete confidence to do it again at every port after this. Ironic that the port where we were most out of place and at risk of running into trouble (due to our lack of Korean language skills) was the place that gave us the courage to explore and make the most of our journey!

Thank you for reading the ninth entry in my Japan (and Korea) Adventure series! I'll be back soon with post #10, featuring our second full day at sea as we traveled to Kanazawa. Until then, please stay happy, healthy, and safe!

lol, I meant to get these posts done faster and instead it's been over a month since my last one! I guess I just have to accept that they'll get done as they get done 😅 So, last time, we departed from Nagasaki and headed across the Korea Strait to Busan. This was both my and my husband Sean's first time visiting Korea. I only thought of it at the last minute, but I taught myself to say hello in Korean that morning 😊 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo)! Just using one word of the local language made people totally light up in pleasant surprise ❤️ I'm so glad I tried it!

Sunday 19 March 2023 - Daytime in Busan

Coming into port, there was so much cool architecture. Look at that lighthouse!

A couple cool bridges and the first of many skyscrapers (I believe these two are mainly apartments). The tents at the bottom of the photo are filling a paved, seaside campsite!

I didn't realize it at the time, but this welcome mosaic was my first encounter with Boogi ❤️

While there was no big welcome party, unlike most of the ports in Japan, we did still enjoy getting our photos taken with these adorable mascots 🥰

Setting out on our Korean shore excursion!

Our first stop was Haedong Yonggungsa Temple, which is like a Buddhist Disneyland, full of attractions and tourists (including ourselves!) 😅

These golden pigs are supposed to bring you luck with money if you put your hand in their mouths. I wonder what our touching their tails will bring? 😆

I feel like male Buddhas are talked about way more than female ones. That's why I was excited to learn about Haesu Gwaneum Daebul and take my picture with her statue 🤩

There is a row of statues depicting all twelve Asian zodiac animals. This is me with my year of the tiger!

At the bustling marketplace outside the temple, I bought myself this lucky tiger bracelet. You can often see me wearing it during my livestreams on Twitch!

Our next stop was this luxury seaside resort, Ananti Cove. We did a little shopping for snacks and souvenirs, but nothing more worth sharing as photos 😅

Our final stop was Ahopsan Forest, which I was specifically looking forward to!

One reason I was looking forward to it is that I had never been in a proper bamboo forest before!

The other reason is that this was a filming location for Kundo: Age of the Rampant! Sean and I specifically watched the movie right before the trip to be ready!

When we watched it, and still as of this writing, the movie is free to view via YouTube Movies 🙌 It was like a Korean spaghetti western, a bit violent but really thoughtful and full of adventure, good and evil, and exploring how murky the difference between the two can be. I recommend it!

After hiking through the forest, we hopped back onto the tour bus and returned with our group to the port. Next time, I'll share our adventure in Busan that night, bravely exploring the city on foot, without guide or group 😮 Until then, please stay happy, healthy, and safe~!

It's so wild to think another month has passed already! We are well into summer here in Boise. We're even getting tiny hints of the dreamy autumn weather that's soon to come. This has been the weirdest summer weather in my memory; everything is happening a month early. Intense heat in July and now cool, cloudy mornings and even rainy days in August. It's been cool enough that I've been wearing a hoodie inside the house this week!

July was a busy month for me (well, every month is busy, really 😅) and I'm excited to share it with you!

Patreon Rewards

July's Patreon rewards featured a digitally colored version of one of my Inktober52 drawings from this year. KABOOM💥 I used both Clip Studio Paint and Adobe Photoshop to color it. Click here to sign up and get rewards like this in your mailbox. It's so much better than junk mail and bills 😁 And you'll be helping me create more art!

deviantART

Click here to view, comment, and fave on dA!

I finally had someone redeem the chibi gift certificates I've been sending out as birthday presents 🥰 My friend Marty asked me to chibify his lovely cat, Lulu. Marty's mom liked the caricature so much she got it printed on a pillow so she could be with Lulu even when she's not visiting Marty 💕 Creating something that brings so much joy to others is such an honor!

Livestreaming

Livestreaming on Twitch continues to go well! I stream art every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The final stream of July was an Inktober52 session featuring the tricky prompt of "teeth" which I think I managed fairly well 😆 Click here to check out my channel, see my schedule in your timezone, and follow me to get updates whenever I go live!

Charity Fundraising

As a way to give myself more purpose when I stream, and to give my viewers a super easy way to turn their viewing into positive change for the world, I take my unique viewers count every month and make a donation based on that number.

We had 21 unique viewers in July (a record for this year, and very close to the record of 26 set in June 2022!) and according to my formula of $0.10 USD per viewer, minimum $10 and maximum $100, that equals a $10 donation to our charity of the month, Food For Life Global!

As usual when this is an option, I checked the box to cover the processing fees so that all of the $10 would go to helping provide people around the world with healthy, freshly cooked vegan meals 🍛💕 According to their donation page, $50 will feed 100 children, which means our $10 will help 20 children!

August's charity is Vegan Outreach, a nonprofit that helps veg-curious folks learn more about veganism and make a smooth and easy transition to a more compassionate (and frankly more delicious!) lifestyle. I hope you'll join me on Twitch this month and bring your friends! Let's make the world a better place together ❤️

Mika's Monthly...

In this section, I would like to share and recommend some things that made my July awesome! I don't receive any compensation for promoting any of these; they simply helped me get through the month happy and healthy 😄 I hope they can do the same for you!

...Workout 💦 I've switched up my workout routine since the last time I featured Ring Fit Adventure in a roundup post but it remains a staple! Right now I'm doing a Ring Fit workout once a week as a supplement to my running. It's my main full-body strength workout and even though I've been playing for years, since you can turn up the difficulty as you get stronger, it continues to help me work up a sweat!

...Vegan Victuals 🍫 I was so stoked when I found a vegan recipe for my FAVORITE dessert from school lunch! So stoked that I made it the very next day! (As an aside, even though it's popular to rag on school lunch, for me, no matter whether it was in California, Arizona, or Idaho, I always loved it!) This recipe was extremely simple and I was able to sub corn puffs for most of the corn flakes (because the corn puffs box was already open) and 1 tbsp cocoa powder + 1 tbsp coconut oil for the dark chocolate (because we had the former two and not the latter one). These treats, which in school were called peanut butter candy, are dangerously easy to make and dangerously delicious 🤤 I could eat a whole pan by myself!

JUST LOOK AT IT 🤤🤤🤤

...Book 📕 I finished another life-changing book in July, The Courage to be Disliked, by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi. It's another one that requires an open mind and willingness to act, but I cannot overstate how much and how positively it has affected me 🥰 Here's my review from The StoryGraph:

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0 ⭐

First off, I can't help but be amused at the way so many other reviews condemn this book for denying the existence of trauma (specifically, it states that trauma doesn't exist in the same way the past doesn't exist) because they're basically proving the book's point. Trauma is a delicious buzzword these days and no one wants to be told that they can (have to) let it go in order to move forward! I suffered severe abuse as a child and I always thought of it as trauma, as an invisible scar that I can never be rid of. After reading this book, I realize my memories of that abuse are not scars, but baggage I've been lugging around all my life, making everything else I want to do way more difficult than it needs to be. No more. I don't have trauma. I have memories of abuse, the same as I have memories of birthday parties and family road trips. Some memories are pleasant, some are unpleasant, but none will ever again convince me to behave in a way contrary to who I want to be NOW. I dropped the baggage, thanks to this book. If your mind is open, it could help you do the same ❤️

Now, onto my main review! I loved this book! I will recommend it to anyone who seems like it would help. It was super easy to read and understand. The philosophy-style dialogue made it easy to follow the ideas; whenever I started to feel lost (or contrary) it was nice to have the Youth there to raise my objections for me, which the Philosopher always quickly and gently laid to rest. The book introduces new psychology concepts and terms, but also explains them simply, so that I never had to jump onto Wikipedia or Google for help. The only weakness is the awkwardness of the English translation. It's grammatically correct without any typos, etc. but, as an intermediate student of Japanese, I have a strong feeling it was translated too literally from the original. But even with that shortcoming, the book stands strong and I'll be turning back to it (and the multitudes of notes I took from it) whenever I need reminders to strengthen me. I picked it up in the first place because its title resonated fiercely with me. I'm pleased to report that I not only learned how to find the courage to be disliked, but how to find the courage to be happy and to be normal, to be deeply satisfied with the present moment, because that's all we ever really have.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

It's as if you see the world through dark glasses, so naturally everything seems dark. But if that is the case, instead of lamenting about the world's darkness, you could just remove the glasses.

Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn't that you lack competence. You just lack courage.

If your life, or mine, for that matter, were to come to an end here and now, it would not do to refer to either of them as unhappy. The life that ends at the age of twenty and the life that ends at ninety are both complete lives, and lives of happiness.

No matter what moments you are living, or if there are people who dislike you, as long as you do not lose sight of the guiding star of "I contribute to others," you will not lose your way, and you can do whatever you like. Whether you're disliked or not, you pay it no mind and live free.

...Show 📺 Although I watched plenty of good shows in July, there's only one I liked so much that I held a family party the next week so that I could share it with my siblings: The Super Mario Bros. Movie! It blew me away! I laughed out loud, I shrieked with joy, I was totally captivated. Video game movie adaptations have no excuses anymore; this film absolutely proves that it can be done right. The extras at the end suggested the team was totally up for making a second one. I hope they do!

...Game 📱 Pokémon Sleep came out in July and it was the keystone in the sleep hygiene bridge I've been building for YEARS. As of this writing, I am now on day 28 of going to bed and waking up on time. I have been trying to get to this point for SO. LONG. Never in my adult life, and perhaps even my entire life, has my sleep been so consistent and restorative. Thank you, Pokémon Sleep, for coming out the same year that I set "go to bed on time" as my New Year's Goal 😭💕 If you're interested in improving your sleep hygiene, or at least making sleep a more fun activity, as long as you have a smartphone, you can play this game 😄 I highly recommend it!

The Plus+, which I love, makes Pokémon Sleep even better but it's not required.

...Music 🎧 I finally received my physical copy of Metallica's new album, 72 Seasons, in July! I think it took so long because I ordered the Japanese version. (It was so unusual; the Japanese version was listed on Amazon US, sold by Amazon.com, and somehow it was cheaper than the US version!) I listened to it quite a bit throughout the month, both the files I ripped from my CD and via Spotify. If you love Metallica (they're my favorite band) this album makes for perfect energizing background music while you're working 🤘😆 My favorite song is Lux Æterna!

New Section ‼️ Vegan Artist Tips: Brushes

I've been thinking about how else I could help more animals through my work. As a vegan artist, I have learned a lot about the tools I use and how to select items that didn't cause any animal suffering. I also have a lot of answers to philosophical questions that I'd like to share, not to tell people what to do, but to provide a reasonable option when the "right" answer is murky. So, every month, I'll share some vegan artist tips 🥰🎨🖌️ I hope this section is helpful and informative. If nothing else, may it show everyone that we can make compassionate choices in our artmaking, too!

My theme this month is brushes. It came to mind because I still have a lot of brushes that were made using animal hair and animal glue. While some folks might have given or thrown away their animal brushes when they became vegan, I think that's a waste. Giving away animal brushes that are still in good condition and buying vegan brushes to replace them is contributing to carbon emissions, energy use, etc. And of course, throwing away perfectly good animal brushes is an insult to the memory of the animals who suffered in their making. So I have kept all my animal brushes and I still use them. I take very good care of them so they'll last as long as possible. When they are finally worn out, that's when I'll replace them with vegan brushes 😊

How to Care for Brushes to Ensure Longevity

1. Wash your brushes as soon as you are done with them. I use a brush cleaner mitt and vegan solid brush cleaner (pro tip: it doesn't matter if you use art or makeup brush cleaner). Just wet the brush, swirl it around on the solid cleaner, and then gently swipe it back and forth on the mitt. Rinse and repeat until the water runs clear.
2. Reshape the bristles while the brush is still wet. Let them dry in the shape you want and they'll be like new for next time!
3. Hang brushes to dry with the bristle-end down. Gravity will pull the moisture down and out of the ferrule. This helps keep any glue used in constructing the brush safe from water damage. If you can't hang your brushes, lay them to dry horizontally.
4. Use scissors to trim any stray bristles. Sometimes the act of painting can bend a bristle beyond repair. Instead of pulling it out (which might pull more out, loosen the entire bundle, and make it likely that bristles will start to fall out on their own) cut it off as close to the ferrule as possible.

What Makes a Vegan Brush or Vegan Brush Cleaner?

The most obvious place animals show up in our brushes is the bristles, which can be made from animals' hair. A less-known place animals are used is in the glue that is used to bind the bristles together or to attach the ferrule to the handle. Brush cleaners often don't openly list their ingredients so it's really hard to tell what animal products might be in them, if they don't explicitly say the product is vegan. Another troublesome question is whether the cleaner or its ingredients were tested on animals. The good news is, all you have to do is search online for "vegan paintbrush" or "vegan brush cleaner" and you will be presented with lots of animal-friendly options! 😄✨

Other News: USWNT Send-off Match

In the first half of July, my husband and I traveled to San Jose, California to enjoy the USWNT send-off match against Wales 🤩⚽ Our hope was to get to see my two favorite players, Jess Fishlock and Megan Rapinoe, face off against one another. That didn't happen (Fishlock didn't even play 😭) but we had a great time anyway!

Can't be sure but I think I got Jess Fishlock in this photo!!

Team USA won this match!

USA was knocked out of the World Cup surprisingly early this time (well, surprising based on past results, not based on our performance during this tournament 😅) so that's kinda sad, but my memories of this match and the little vacation we had (including eating at a bunch of delicious vegan restaurants and shopping at otaku stores!) remain happy 💖

That's all for July's roundup, I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading all the way to the end! Until next time, may you stay happy, healthy, and safe~!!

It's another hot and sunny summer day as I sit in my garden floor studio, Metallica playing on my PC speakers, an electric fan bathing my legs in cool air. It's Friday, and I feel ready for the weekend. I have to admit it's hard to focus on my work! But the more I type now, the sooner I can share my June roundup with you 😎 Here's what I was up to last month.

Patreon Rewards

I sent two rounds of rewards last month. The first was a design featuring my 2023 Chibi Kiki drawing. The second was a digitally colored version of my Botany Inktober52 drawing.

Right now, my members have all opted to receive postcards--either one with a message from me printed on it or a set of three blank ones ready to be filled out and sent--but there is also a print tier, and a print & postcard tier, and a digital rewards tier 😄 If you'd like to support my artmaking and get these rewards in your mailbox every month, click here to sign up!

deviantART

I'm getting closer to caught up posting my work to dA! Everything up to this April is now posted, which means I'm less than three months behind 😆 The piece I'm featuring here is my most recent upload, adorable chibi Aoife!

Click here to view, fave, and comment on deviantART!

Livestreaming

Things are going well on Twitch! In June, I got several Inktober52 drawings and Lucky Dip pieces done, but the result I'm sharing here took three Chibi Fridays to complete. It's a birthday gift for my younger sister: chibi Cliff Burton!

I stream Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 15:30 US Mountain Time. Click here to see my schedule in your local time zone and follow me to get notifications when I go live!

Charity Fundraising

I use my unique viewer count on Twitch every month to calculate a donation to my featured charity. My formula is $0.10 USD per unique viewer, with a minimum of $10 and a maximum of $100.

In June, I had 18 unique viewers which meant a $10 donation to Animal Outlook! I also checked the box to cover processing fees so that the max amount of money would go to helping animals 😎

July's charity is Food For Life Global. Come join my livestreams and bring your friends! It's an easy way to do good that doesn't cost you anything except time spent with yours truly ❤️

Mika's Monthly...

Here I'd like to share my recommendations from June! I'm not being compensated to promote any of these things. They helped me get through the month happy and healthy, and I hope you'll try and see if they do the same for you!

...Workout 🐕 We walk our dogs several times a week. Ever since it got hot we walk them in the mornings on weekends. Aoife and Chappie are still in training, so it's not just a chance for all of us to get some gentle exercise outside, it's a mental workout for everyone, too!

If you have dogs, you probably already walk them, but if you don't, why not see if your friends or family would let you walk their dogs? Or you could volunteer at your local animal shelter! Or heck, go pro and walk dogs to earn money!

...Vegan Victuals 🍪 In June, I received my second ever VeganCuts box! It's a monthly subscription box that comes packed with vegan snacks 🤤 It's so exciting when the box arrives, so fun to try all the new items, and so delicious, too! Every box also donates a portion of proceeds to a selected animal sanctuary, so it's like I get to help animals twice!

...Book 📕 This month's recommendation is Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? by Gary Francione. It's a more serious book than I've ever featured here but it deeply affected me, and helped me become a better person to my fellow sentient beings, so I want to share in hopes it will help others the same way! Here's my review from StoryGraph:

challenging dark informative inspiring sad tense slow-paced

5.0 ⭐

I've been putting off reviewing this book for months, not because I didn't want to review it nor because I didn't like it, but because it had such a huge (and ongoing) impact on me that I didn't know where to start. But I think humanity would become more aware, compassionate, and truly protective of animals if more people read this book, so here is my attempt to give a fair and heartfelt review!

First, TL;DR: This book is difficult--academically, conceptually, and emotionally--but it's worth your time if you care about improving conditions for the trillions of animals (annually) whose lives are affected and controlled by humanity.

I'd like to start by talking about the main argument this book makes, but it is so well set up and followed through that it almost feels spoilery to do so. Still, the book's inflammatory title might deter some readers who would otherwise agree with the conclusions it makes, so I think it's worthwhile to explain it.

The book starts by introducing examples of how things stand for animals today (while the book was first published 20+ years ago, things have unfortunately not improved much overall) including a heavy focus on animal rights philosophers and existing legal "protections". Much of the material is infuriating and heartbreaking, not because of the book, but because much of it is conveniently kept out of the public eye by the perpetrators. Before this book, I was just like most people, thinking things like, "Well, at least the animals live a nice life being taken care of, without a worry in the world, before they're killed," or "Well, at least animals in the zoo are safe from wild dangers like predators, illness, injury, etc." I bought into the propaganda of animal exploitation institutions. Since this book has a firm grounding in academia and comes from a professor of law, it's easy to verify the information it presents (there is a huge notes section at the end, including all the sources used, which you can then check for yourself). Knowing the information is solid makes it easy to agree with the arguments it makes in favor of true animal rights (i.e. the right to not be treated as property).

So what's the main argument? The book's subtitle and cover set it up. The scene is a house, burning ferociously, and you're watching from the outside. It's impossible to save more than one being, and you know your child and a dog are inside. Who do you save? The assumption may be, this is a vegan book, so it's going to tell me to save the dog, or that I should save whomever I find first, because animals should be treated like humans. I admit I had a similar expectation, and I was wrong! The book actually suggests that saving your child is not only the natural thing to do, but perhaps the morally correct decision. It completely allows for choosing a human over an animal. I was truly surprised by this and I couldn't help but agree. The argument here is just as fair and sound as throughout the rest of the book.

And by the end it gets REALLY interesting.

That burning house, with human and dog inside? That's the story animal exploiters feed us every day. It makes it very easy to say, Yeah, it sucks that we have to do things this way, but it's only natural and correct to take care of our own first.

What the animal exploiters don't tell you is that they're the ones who dragged your child and the dog inside the house before setting it ablaze.

And until now, I never even thought to ask, metaphorically of course, Wait, why is my child and that dog in that house? Why is the house on fire?

That's the core argument of this book. That individuals are being duped by those who exploit animals. That (even if we're not suffering as extremely) humans like you and I are just as much victims of animal exploitation. It's a mindblowing revelation that changed my life forever. The book makes other arguments as well, all of which are well reasoned and frankly unassailable. I recommend it to anyone who cares about animals!

That said, it is a book that requires fortitude from its reader. For one, there are graphic descriptions and harrowing photos included. One photo of a cow screaming for help on its way to slaughter haunts me every day. I think about how that cow never got help, and is long dead, and how millions like it face the same grim fate every year, thousands every day. But it also reminds me why I do what I do. Why I choose a vegan lifestyle, why I donate to reputable animal charities, why I focus my career on furthering animal welfare. I am extremely sensitive to graphic material, so this may be a difficult hurdle for some readers. I recommend the book anyway. Don't let yourself continue to be hoodwinked. You deserve to know the truth. The animals deserve to have their situation known.

Another difficult point in this book is its academic nature. This is not armchair nonfiction. It requires attention and deep thought and maybe even research to properly understand. Anyone with a college-level understanding of English should be able to follow it, but be prepared to invest time in reading and digesting what it has to say. Please don't let the time commitment deter you. Again, if you care about helping animals, it will be worth your while!

If you're able to overcome these hurdles, not only will you see the infallible validity of the book's abolitionist standpoint, you will be given guidance on how to move the world in the right direction. It's not just a book about law or philosophy, it's a map toward a truly compassionate future. The main points I took from it include:

• Laws do not effectively protect animals. Culture has to change first.
• Person = personality = animals are people.
• It doesn't matter how kindly you treat animals if they're still nothing more than property.

And, to wrap up, some powerful quotes:

In many ways, our prevailing ways of thinking about animals should make us skeptical of our claim that it is our rationality that distinguishes us from them.

Labels such as "natural" and "traditional" are just that: labels. They are not reasons. If people defend the imposition of pain and suffering on an animal based on what is natural or traditional, it usually means they cannot otherwise justify their conduct.

The argument for animal rights does not decrease respect for human life; it increases respect for all life.

...Show 🏴‍☠️ Whew, that book review was pretty intense. My next recommendation is much lighter! Recently, my husband and I watched all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. While I like them all, more or less, for me nothing is so good as the third one 🤩💖💕 Of course, you have to watch the first two for it to really make sense, but the climax and payoff in At World's End is just sooo satisfying. I can never get enough!

After watching all the PotC movies one after another like this, I realized this series is not really about the characters and their adventures, per se. Instead, the adventures are telling the story of how the seas were truly tamed, explaining why we don't have cool stuff like cursed gold and krakens anymore. Don't you think? 🤔

...Game 🎮 I've featured it previously, but in June I finally 100%'d Olympia Soirée and I 💖LOVED💕 it, so I just have to share it again! It's an otome visual novel (an illustrated novel game with a female protagonist who goes on adventures and falls in love with one of several male love interests) based heavily on Japanese history, culture, and religion but with an overall otherworldly fantasy vibe. It somehow manages to examine real world questions about class, caste, race, sex, etc. without weighing down the story in philosophy. The artwork and music are fabulous as well, so it's a really well-rounded experience!

...Music 🎧 To go along with my game recommendation, I'm sharing my Olympia Soirée playlist on YouTube music! Because the background music was never released as a purchasable soundtrack, even in Japan, this is the only way to stream both the opening/ending themes and the BGM, in order. I listened to this playlist obsessively all June 😍 The music is beautiful on its own, but add my memories of the game to it, and it's impossible to get enough!

Bonus Cute Pet Pics

Finally, as I was going through my photos to choose which I would use in this post, I couldn't help wanting to share some of the cute ones featuring my pets 🥰 The only pet who didn't get a cute photo was Sora, probably because she mostly just sat on her eggs all month 😅

Aoife blep on the pizza pillow~

Princely Kumo enjoying the sights ✨

Kiki and Chappie, pizza girls 🐱🍕🐶🍕

That's all for June's roundup! Thank you for reading all the way until the end, I hope you enjoyed it 💖 Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe~!!

I did not expect to take over a month to publish my next Japan Adventure post 😱 I'd like to record my thoughts about this first-in-my-lifetime experience before my memories start to fade, so here's hoping I can power through the rest of my adventure quickly!

Last time we departed Kagoshima and headed toward Nagasaki. It was close enough that we didn't need a day at sea to reach it, so I got to enjoy my second-ever docking event right away, which was a procedure I never tired of the entire trip 🥰

The view of Nagasaki growing ever closer was breathtaking.

We passed this little island on the way to the port and I thought it was so unique! Indeed, I never saw another quite like it on this trip. Doing a little research today, I've found its name to be Takabokojima, which means Tall Spearhead Island 🗡️

We could hear the welcome performance before we could see it...

...an epic taiko drumming show!!! 🥁🥁🥁

Something as simple as a banner made us feel not just welcomed but wanted 🥰

Our excursion this time took us to Arita, in Saga prefecture, a town famous for its ceramics. We started with a walking tour of one of the ceramics streets, which was almost all ceramics shops 😯 This was also basically the only day I got to enjoy using my umbrella!

This graveyard was interesting because the walls surrounding it are made from old kilns!

Here our tour group is entering Fukagawa Seiji, the seeming largest and most prestigious ceramics shop in the area. They have made banquet ware for the Imperial family! My visit here is one of my fondest memories from this entire trip...

...because they sold VOC-style ware and I was able to talk to the proprietor, in Japanese, about why this was so exciting to me! (VOC = Dutch East India Trading Company) I bought this VOC cake plate, one of the spendiest souvenirs of my trip, but totally worth it!

I think the proprietor resonated with my excitement because he disappeared after having an employee show me the VOC section, and then reappeared later to give me these learning materials for free! You see, my excitement came from the early modern period art history classes I took as part of my illustration degree. I'm looking forward to sharing this story with my professor!

On top of all that, my visit to Fukagawa Seiji also ended up being my first experience acting as a translator! One of my fellow tourists was trying to ask the shop's proprietor about the difference between two plates he had shown everyone. She wanted to know if the yellow, opaque one was cheaper than the white, transluscent one. Turned out, the yellow one wasn't cheaper because it wasn't for sale at all. It was the result of a mistake! I have to admit I was extremely proud of myself for being able to help facilitate communication between these two people 😁

After our walking tour, we took a short drive to another fine ceramics shop, Genemongama, which was situated next to a museum and a lovely garden~

My husband, Sean, took this beautiful photo of the garden pond 🐟

On the bus ride back home (🛳️) our tour guide made things fun by running a game of bingo after teaching everyone numbers in Japanese. Afterwards, she gave us all handmade bookmarks featuring classic Japanese imagery 💖

This view of Nagasaki as we crossed a bridge was magnificent ✨

This is the most awesome advertisement for a museum! We didn't get to go but it's definitely on my list for next time! 🦖

At departure time, the students of Yamazato Junior High offered us a farewell performance 🥰

The band played us several songs, including one from My Neighbor Totoro!

Once again, I was so moved by this generous farewell that I felt bittersweet about leaving!!!

Sean and I got some nice selfies with twilight Nagasaki before we left 🌆

Our ship, the Silver Muse, looks lovely at this time of night, too~

A view of us with the pool and attached restaurants. Dreamy! We never ended up getting in the pool, though...my only regret!

After this, the ship departed while we enjoyed dinner and dessert, and then we went to bed! Our next stop? A brand new country for both of us: Korea 🇰🇷 I'll be writing about our stay there next time, including our first brave foray into a port city UNGUIDED Σ(っ °Д °;)っ Spoiler alert: It was awesome! Please look forward to it 😄 Until then, thank you for reading and please stay happy, healthy, and safe!

P.S. Here's a bonus photo of my VOC cake plate in its new home! Writing this post inspired me to finally set it out for display. It's on my bookshelf behind my PC workstation (where I am typing this very moment!) so that I can gaze at it every day while I work 😍 Appropriately, it's on the same shelf as my art history books~

Hello everyone, welcome to another Studio Mikarts monthly roundup! I had jury duty at the end of May and even though I only had to go into court one day--and even though it was a good experience overall--it took me quite a while to mentally recover from a week of being on call. That's why I'm here, on the first day of astronomical summer (for me, that is; hello wintry southern hemisphere friends!) finally sitting down to write my roundup for May 😅 You wouldn't know it was summer from the weather, though. It's a sunny day, sure, but the temperatures took a nose dive a couple days ago and I've had to break out my sweaters again! Weird! At least the cool weather helps set the mood to write about the last full month of spring 🌸

So, let's begin!

Patreon Rewards

In May, I sent out the second piece in my chibi pets series, this time featuring caricatures of my dogs, Aoife and Chappie, both of which were drawn live on Twitch. My Patreon features five tiers that offer illustrated postcards, prints, or both (or none, if you don't want physical rewards!) as rewards that are handmade and sent out by yours truly on a monthly basis 🥰 I hope you'll consider joining and supporting my creative storytelling endeavors! Click here to check it out 💖

deviantART

Click here to view, comment, and fave on deviantART!

I'm slowly getting caught up on posting to dA! I know I say that pretty much every time, but it's still true! Now I've posted everything through January of this year. I need to pick up the pace to get on top of things, so I'm going to think about how to sneak in more posting time 🤔 Anyway, for this roundup post, I am featuring my Winter Gryphon! It's the second in my seasonal gryphon greeting card series (wow that's a long description, lol). Now that it's summer, it's the perfect time to resume my Summer Gryphon project. I left off at the thumbnail stage, so I've got a basic foundation ready to go. Now I just need to make some decisions and get cracking!

Livestreaming

The last art livestream I hosted in May was focused on the Inktober52 "scratch" prompt. It was a Monday stream that actually happened on a Monday! Recently, there have been multiple issues forcing me to reschedule my Monday streams. I hope to mitigate some of the recurring issues (like when the cleaning team arrives later than usual) but there have been one-off things that can't be helped, as well. Luckily, I always seem to have a convenient opening later in the week, so I haven't missed an Inktober52 stream yet!

Click here to check out my streaming schedule, sign up for go-live notifications, and, if you want to support my streaming efforts, join my channel as a subscriber 💖

Charity Fundraising

As a way to make my creative efforts feel more meaningful, and to give my viewers an easy way to participate (no money required, just sit back and enjoy an hour of live art!), I use my monthly unique viewers count on Twitch to calculate a donation that I personally give to charity. In May, I featured The Peregrine Fund, which works to protect raptors in the wild, including my favorite, the peregrine falcon 😍

Nineteen unique viewers joined my streams in May. Based on the formula of $0.10 USD per viewer, with a minimum of $10 and a max of $100, that equaled a $10 donation!

The Peregrine Fund was actually running a special campaign to help California condors, still a critically endangered species, who were suffering terribly from an outbreak avian influenza. This is on top of other persistent killers, like lead poisoning from gun ammunition 😢 It seems like the outbreak has passed, but many birds died. I hope my donation can help with further protection and recovery efforts!

Mika's Monthly...

Now I'd like to offer you some recommendations based on my experiences in May. These are things that got me though the month healthy, happy, and inspired! I am receiving no compensation for promoting these things; they are just things I love and I hope you will, too!

...Workout 🏃‍♀️ I got back to a regular running schedule in May! It feels great! I also changed my schedule around so that my three weekly runs happen first thing in the morning. My reason was to avoid the heat and smog of the afternoon, but I discovered some unexpected benefits that will keep me exercising straight out of bed even when it gets cold again. For one, it wakes me up like nothing else. For two, it keeps my energy levels high throughout the rest of the day, even when I didn't get the greatest sleep overnight. And for three--and most exciting for me--it raises my focus and motivation levels, allowing me to get a lot more done each day!

...Vegan Victuals 🥗 As part of our vegan Memorial Day feast, I made this lemon pepper pasta salad using a recipe from The Best Friends Cookbook. It was extremely easy and equally delicious! I used several of its suggestions for substitutes and additions, including subbing chickpea pasta (high protein!) and adding green peas. Everything in this cookbook is easy to make and amazingly delicious, so I highly recommend it!

...Book 📕 I finished the Andy Serkis narration of The Two Towers audiobook in May. It was just as awesome as the previous one 🤩 Here is my full review from The StoryGraph:

The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien
adventurous dark funny tense slow-paced

    Plot- or character-driven? A mix
    Loveable characters? Yes

5.0 ⭐

While in most trilogies I find the middle entry to be my least favorite, that has never been the case for The Lord of the Rings. This novel, The Two Towers, stands just as strong as its bookends. One of the biggest elements that makes it so appealing are the horse-rearing people of Rohan; they have been my favorite group of mankind in Middle Earth since I was a child. But this time, I also felt the Ents and their trees were just as interesting and awe-inspiring. Perhaps it's because I've become vegan since I last read these books, which has given me a greater interest in and respect for plant life, but I think it's also the idea that the forest and its keepers were here long before any humanoid life, which is rather scientific, since trees did evolve much sooner than mammals in reality.

Before I comment on the audiobook in particular, which was my format this time, I also want to mention that The Two Towers is so much better in its original format (book or audiobook), versus the 2000s live-action movie adaptation. Sam, my favorite character of all, is still nasty to Gollum, but not in the despicable way shown in the movie. His unkindness in the original is much more justified, and he's more shrewd than his movie counterpart, keeping his mouth shut when it's prudent, watching and waiting, looking before he leaps. I found this to be the case for many characters, actually. Faramir is more reasonable and less meatheaded, "wizard-like" as Sam puts it, and even the orcs are more relatable thanks to their long dialogues that give glimpses into their lifestyles and culture.

As for this audiobook, narrated by Andy Serkis, I feel there's not much more praise I can add to what I've already sung in my reviews of his readings of The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring 😅 It is simply excellent. I have no complaints whatsoever, and although I feel it might be nice to listen to my old CD and cassette tape versions of the Middle Earth books someday, I might just be too addicted to Serkis's masterful delivery to listen to anything else!

...Show 🎬 My husband and I watch a movie together almost every Friday night and recently we undertook to watch all of the live-action Spider-Man movies starting with the 2002 Tobey Maguire film (wow, I was only in the middle of my first year of high school back then 🤯) and ending with my favorite and my recommendation for May, Spider-Man: No Way Home 💖 I won't say why, but it is totally worth it to do a complete watch through like this! Do try it out sometime!

...Game 🎮 Maybe I missed it when I went over my previous roundup posts, but I think I've never yet featured Pokémon GO here! It's the phone game I play the most, nearly every day. I started on release day and I still remember how I barely had time to choose my first pokémon (Charmander, of course! 🔥) before midnight because of my crazy work schedule that day. Believe it or not, Pokémon GO is what got me running outside for the first time in my adult life! I had run on the treadmill before then, but the introduction of PokéStops to spin gave me a good reason to rack up my kilometers outside! Charmy and I are still trekking together today, along with my 1,800+ other pokémon, including several perfect ones, such as my current walking buddy, Wednesday 🖤

...Music 🎧 This month I'm recommending my newest and the most personally tailored playlist I have, Mika's Power Songs 💪 The songs might not inspire everyone the same way they inspire me, but I built this playlist with very specific ideas in mind and I listen to it almost every workday morning, to raise my energy and put me in the right mindset to get things done! It's only 36 minutes long, so I hope you'll give it a listen and feel the power!

Other News...

...Members-only Discord Server

At the end of April, I set up a Discord server accessible only to Patreon members and Twitch subscribers 😎 After my Japan vacation, it gave me such anxiety thinking about going back to social media (I have so much more time for other, more productive things without it!) but I realized, when I suddenly had to reschedule a Twitch stream, that I still wanted a place where I could quickly and easily communicate with my treasured supporters. I had been considering making a Discord for a while, so that felt like the right moment to make it happen! For my existing supporters who haven't joined yet, I hope to see you there soon! You just have to make a Discord account, link it to Twitch or Patreon, and the Studio Mikarts server should show up automatically 🌟 For anyone who would like a closer connection to me and my creative endeavors (I'm talking WIP progress images, writing and illustration updates, charity updates, even art made by your fellow supporters, etc.) I would be honored to have your support!

...Puppies' Birthdays

Finally, a purely for-fun share: it was both of my dogs' birthdays in May! They were both strays, so the dates are only estimates, but that doesn't matter as much as taking the time to celebrate their debuts on planet Earth 🥳🐶🐶💖

My best friend, Sarah, had sent me a little doggy birthday kit in April, so that's where I got the cute mini party hat and dog bone birthday banner 🎊 Aoife turned three years old, and Chappie turned two the following week~ My husband and I gave them lots of yummy vegan dog treats in celebration 🦴 Happy birthday, girls! I'm so lucky to have you in my life!!!

And that's all for May. Thank you for reading until the end 🥰 I hope you enjoyed reading about my activities and I hope you'll give some of my recommendations a try! Until next time, please stay happy, healthy, and safe!

Welcome to the sixth installment of my Japan Adventure log! In the previous post, I recounted my experience going out on my very first shore excursion (anywhere, ever). This time, I'll share my activities in the latter half of that same day, after returning to our cruise ship. In the future, I want to visit Kagoshima again, and do some free-style exploring. Since we were new to cruising, we didn't feel comfortable just leaving the ship to do whatever yet. Kagoshima, and our next stop Nagasaki, were the only ports where we didn't spend any time exploring on our own. I'll make up for that someday!

Friday 🍀 17 March 2023 ☘️ - Departing from Kagoshima

One of the first things I noticed when I entered the ship was the answer to a question I had all along: Will they celebrate St. Patrick's Day on this cruise?

I haven't included many photos so far of souvenirs I purchased, but this is a special one I really want to share: a Yakushima cedar teacup! It was for sale in the cruise terminal as we headed back to the ship. I was proud to be able to explain to the seller that I had really wanted something Yakushima cedar because it's the favorite thing of my favorite character, All Might!

After this, our first visit, it became our regular habit to have a snack or dessert at the Arts Café 🫖

The clouds came in and obscured the volcano in the afternoon, making it lucky that we got a clear view of Sakurajima on the observation excursion!

As the ship readied for departure, we were pleasantly surprised when the people of Kagoshima treated us to a farewell performance of energetic traditional Japanese music 🎶🥰🎵

Everyone was dancing, singing, and playing so whole-heartedly for us, I actually felt really sad to be leaving 🥲💕

Goodbye, Kagoshima! We'll return someday!

It was incredibly peaceful after we left the high energy of the farewell performance behind~

Sean looking dapper at dinner ✨

This was our first time eating at Indochine. It became my favorite restaurant on board, because it had the best (of the ridiculously few) vegan options.

Saffron rice and hot & sour soup! They were both sooo yummy! This was one of the few times I felt really satisfied with the regular menu food on the Silver Muse.

Next stop, Nagasaki!

It was my wish to drink green beer on St. Patty's this year; they didn't have any but we made do with some green mixed drinks ☘️ Sláinte!

So ended our first port day on board the Silver Muse 🛳️ Next time I'll share our visit to Nagasaki, including an excursion to Arita, a town famous for its pottery. I lost my mind over a cake plate 🤩 More about that in my next entry 😉 Please look forward to it!

Welcome to another entry in my Japan Adventure series! Here begins my two-part account of our first port, Kagoshima (if you don't count Osaka, where we boarded the Silver Muse in the first place). Today's post will cover morning to noon (almost to the minute 😯), including arriving at the port and heading out on our first excursion. The latter involved a ferry ride, a hot spring foot bath, and a visit to the Sakurajima volcano observatory! Retrospectively, this was one of the best days I spent in Japan on this trip, in terms of the weather. It was nice and cloudy all day, so I didn't have to worry about sun protection, and all my photos were perfectly lit by the diffuse lighting offered by the clouds 🥰

To read the previous entry in this series, click here.

Friday 17 March 2023 - Arriving in Kagoshima

This was the first and, I think, only time I saw an algal bloom on the sea! Fascinating!

Selfie with Kagoshima prefecture!

I didn't know at the time, but this is the most active volcano in Japan, Sakurajima!

Pulling into the port, I noticed some hubbub on the corner...

...it turned out to be a welcome party, waving flags from many nations, shouting loud and clear 「いらっしゃい！！」 "Welcome!!"

I love this shot; the ship carrying us, the people welcoming us, and the volcano watching over us ❤️

I shouted a return greeting, in Japanese, to the person in the red shirt while I was still on the ship. She seemed to remember me when I walked through the cruise terminal, because she switched from English to Japanese when she welcomed me through 🥰

This being my first cruise ever, I didn't realize ports had terminals specifically for cruise ships!

Me and my husband, Sean, waiting for our turn to board the tour busses in front of our ship.

All the tour busses were really nice! This was the start of our first shore excursion.

During my first ever ride on a ferry, to get to Sakurajima, I took some pictures of the volcano. I was inwardly pleased when others saw what I was doing and got out of their vehicles to take their own pictures 😊

Our first stop was the hot spring foot bath! It was situated in a beautiful park~

One of our fellow passengers kindly offered to take a photo of me using the relaxing foot bath.

It was dreamy soaking my feet in hot mineral water while watching these birds soaring overhead ✨

The next stop on our excursion was the Arimura Lava Observation Deck!

There was a small shop at the entrance selling souvenirs and food made from a regional specialty citrus fruit called kinkan (spherical kumquats). We got some sweet, delicious kinkan juice to start!

Along the observation deck walking path, there were many marked groupings of pyroclasts like this.

And in those pyroclasts, people had taken up depositing coins, like a volcanic wishing well! We added to the collection while we were there 😁

Me showing off Sakurajima! This was the best view from this observatory 🌋

Before boarding the bus to go back to the ship, we purchased a bag of fresh kinkan! We snacked on these delicious treats throughout the remainder of our vacation 🍊✨

After this, we returned to the Silver Muse and spent the rest of the day aboard the ship. I'll share about that in my next post! Please look forward to it!

Welcome to the fourth entry in my 2023 Japan adventure photo log! Click here to go back to part three. Today's topic won't take much time to cover, because we were at sea the entire day during this part of the trip. I hope you'll still enjoy these images and the story they tell about our journey from Osaka to Kagoshima 😊

Thursday 16 March 2023 - First Day at Sea

Another unexpected habit I got into, starting this day, was taking a photo of the sea every morning 🌊

My first breakfast on board! Cold cereal is my FAVORITE and they had plant milk for me to enjoy it with 😄 I also had cream of wheat, hashbrowns, and baked beans~

We were seated in the most gorgeous spot for breakfast~ The couple next to us was very easy to talk to, so we had great company, as well. If I remember correctly, their son teaches art history at a university!

I normally avoid the sun at all costs, but it was so dreamy on our veranda I couldn't help spending some time soaking up the rays and the view 😌

I truly fell in love with the ocean on this trip. There are many reasons why, but for one, it is astoundingly beautiful!

The cabin service people put a cap on our leftover bubbly so I was able to drink it slowly over a course of days, rather than feeling forced to drink it all at once (especially after my previous night of overindulgence!) or else let it go to waste. I'm pretty proud of this photo showing it off 😆

This is another framed tapestry that caught my eye in one of the ship stairwells. It was several feet tall!

We explored more of the Silver Muse this day, including taking a look from the observation deck.

Me and Sean on the observation deck! It was technically called the Observation Library and it did indeed have many books and plentiful seating in which to read if one wished!

The biggest event of the day was getting a massage! It was so nice being gently rocked by the sea while being worked on by a massage therapist 🌊💆‍♀️✨ The only downside was being pushed to buy spa products afterwards; it ruined the relaxing vibes!

At the end of each day on the cruise, we received the next day's "Daily Chronicles" and chocolates! The Chronicles included useful information about shipboard activities, excursions, the upcoming port, the weather, etc. I kept them all for my scrapbook 📑✨

That's all for today! Told you it would be short 😉 Next time I'll share our adventures in Kagoshima, including visits to a hot spring foot bath, a volcano observatory, and my first ride on a ferry! Please look forward to it!

Welcome to part three of my Japan adventure chronicles! In part two, I shared my very first day in Osaka (not just the first day for this trip, but my first time setting foot there ever!) which mostly consisted of exploration of the immediate area surrounding our hotel. We were passing the time until boarding of our cruise ship, the Silver Muse, was scheduled to begin. Today, I'll share photos of my boarding experience (another first; I had never been on a ship of any kind before!) and my first impressions being on the ship!

Wednesday 15 March 2023 - Boarding the Silver Muse

We were shuttled from the hotel to the boarding location via tour bus. The wait for our group number to be called was longer than the ride itself.

First clear view of the Silver Muse!

We were thrilled to discover that we had been upgraded from the cheapest and smallest suite (all the cabins are suites on this ship) to the top of the mid-range options! The bathroom included everything you see here plus a separate shower and bathtub, with luxury Bulgari toiletries. The only negative was how disturbingly loud the flush on the toilet was. I have no idea if that's just a thing on cruise ships or what 🤔

Here are the sleeping and sitting areas of our Deluxe Veranda Suite. The black cases on the bed were luxury sanitation kits that included a pack of face masks, hand sanitizer, antimicrobial wipes, and hand lotion ❤️

Both of the gigantic mirrors in the sleeping/sitting areas had smart TVs inside! We received notifications, messages, and news about the cruise on it, and could watch live video feeds from a couple different locations on the ship, among other things.

Drinks were included in our cruise fare, and they provided a bottle of sparkling wine in our room to kick everything off 🍾 I do wish marking ourselves as teetotalers was an option, though. I like the flavor but not the alcohol, and my husband, Sean, doesn't drink at all.

The fantastic view of the Osaka Cruise Terminal from our ✨~veranda~✨ 😄 We were expecting to have nothing more than a picture window (that is, a window that gives a great view but doesn't open) when we booked, so being upgraded to this suite was dreamy for the veranda alone!

カンパイ！or Cheers! 🥂 I popped open the bubbly, and Sean had Sprite 😄

We explored the ship after getting settled in our room. It was full of interesting and unusual art! This is an example of some glass work.

Here is an example of avant-garde sculpture.

A framed tapestry; these were my favorite.

Non-representational painting. I loved the colors and textures of this one.

Me and the great wheel at night! My only regret is not getting to ride on it!

Our first dinner on board was at Kaiseki, a Japanese style restaurant. They kept the drinks flowing much too liberally, especially the delicious sake! I enjoyed it at the time but I don't want to drink like that again 😅

The atmosphere and food presentation was excellent in this tiny restaurant, but I have to admit, their vegan "options" were very limited. Still, we had a good time, enjoying our first evening on board any ship ever!

Although I don't have any memory of departing from the port, because I drank WAY too much, my hangover woke me up at three-in-the-morning and I got to enjoy a dreamy vision of the moon shining through the clouds and lighting up the sea 🌘💕

So ended our first day in Osaka, our first day on the Silver Muse, and our first night on the cruise. I'll be back soon with part 4 of my adventure, which was a full day at sea, heading towards Kagoshima. Please look forward to it!

The weather has been a bit odd recently, several weeks of frosty sweater weather (a bit of a shock after spending three weeks in warm, sunny Japan), then a sudden wave of summer temps and dry thunderstorms for a few days, followed by cool rain starting today. I'm glad the deep chill of winter is finally over, but I hope the rain sticks around for a while. I want to be able to enjoy proper spring weather!

My cherry tree in bloom mid-April 🌸

Today I'd like to share with you my art-related activities and recommendations from the past two months. I won't go into specifics about my Japan trip, since I'm already doing that in a separate blog series, but it may come up here and there. In any case, I hope you'll enjoy this two-month art roundup!

Patreon Rewards

In March I sent out these adorable postcard rewards featuring the chibi caricatures I recently made of my two pet pigeons, Kumo and Sora. I did not originally make the caricatures with the idea of turning them into a reward, but it worked out so well that I'm going to make rewards featuring my two pups and my kitty next 😊 I'm very close to done with the puppy reward, so be sure to sign up here if you'd like to receive the next adorable postcard (or a larger, more detailed print version)!

deviantART

Click here to view, comment, and fave on deviantART!

Whaaat?! I finished posting all my 2022 work to dA?!

Yes! I did! Finally!

Now I have four months of a productive 2023 to catch up on 😆 Of the most recent uploads, this final piece from Inktober 2022 is my favorite. The prompt was "farm" and I was still following my gryphon theme, so I drew a turkey-gryphon farmer! Not only did I enjoy the amusing visual, I feel this was one of my best inking jobs from the challenge. Makes sense, since it was the 31st ink drawing I did that month!

Art Livestreaming

At the end of April, I finished my Aoife chibi! Aoife is my big dog; I finished Chibi Chappie (my little dog) on the last Friday before I left for Japan 😄 These two will become my next Patreon reward, as I mentioned. You can watch the final round of work on chibi Aoife, which was done live on Twitch, on YouTube:

My streaming schedule remains the same as usual: Inktober52 on Mondays (an ink drawing combining a weekly prompt with my self-imposed gryphon theme), a Lucky Dip on Wednesdays (four random art tools used to practice an anime-style character drawing), and Chibi Fridays (adorable chibi caricature drawings). Be sure to check out my Twitch schedule and follow me there to get notifications whenever I go live!

Charity Fundraising

Because March is Women's History Month in my country, I chose RedRover as my charity this time. RedRover, among other good things, helps people escaping domestic abuse (a population which is disproportionately comprised of women) keep their pets with them, especially because pets in such situations are in just as much, if not more, danger as their abused human guardians.

Since I was going to miss several weeks of livestreaming while on vacation, I decided to use March and April's stats combined to determine my donation. My formula is thus: for every unique viewer I get on Twitch in the selected time period, I donate USD $0.10, with a minimum of $10 and a maximum of $100.

Through March and April, I had 14 unique viewers, which equals a $10 donation to RedRover! They had a checkbox to cover processing fees, so I actually donated a little bit more to ensure the funds could be as effective as possible ❤️

My featured charity for May is The Peregrine Fund. I chose them because the California condor population, already critically endangered, is suffering huge losses due to an outbreak of avian influenza. The Peregrine Fund is making concerted efforts to help the birds, and I want to join them 💪

Mika's Monthly...

In this section, I will share some of the things that have kept me fueled, happy, and healthy through March and April. I hope you'll give some of these recommendations a try! (As always, I am not being compensated for any of these recommendations. I'll let you know if that ever changes!)

...Workout 👟 The way I kept active the most during these past two months was walking! In particular, this was the most accessible way to get my blood pumping while still enjoying my vacation in Japan. I even did a one mile walk around the track on the top deck of our cruise ship, the Silver Muse, during a day at sea! Of course, the ship moved so fast that the stats on my Garmin were totally off 😆

...Vegan Victuals 🍱 At the end of April I hosted my first cherry blossom viewing party! I've wanted to do so ever since I moved here, because there's a cherry tree in my back yard. For the party, my sister and I made vegan bento boxes for everyone 😊 It was way easier than I expected. I bought some cute vegetable cutters to make the flower veggies, but other than the bento boxes themselves, no other specialized equipment was required. These boxes were lined with leaves of romaine lettuce, filled with steamed short grain rice which was then topped with furikake seasonings, then filled the rest of the way with carrots, cucumber, radishes, avocado, steamed broccoli, cherry tomatoes, boiled sweet peas, vegan hot dogs, and cute animal-shaped vegan chik'n nuggets ✨

...Show 📺 I finished watching The Mandalorian season 3 in April and I loved it! Din Djarin has solidified himself as my favorite character in the series 🥰 I am so excited for the next season, I really want to see where things go from here. There are so many possibilities!

...Music 🎧 I've been listening to a lot of music of all genres over the past couple months, so it was a bit difficult to choose what to feature. One thing I didn't get very much of in Japan was a fix for my otome game obsession, so I have been listening to a lot of my otome game soundtracks since I got home! I let that guide my decision here, so I'm sharing my otome game playlist from Spotify 😄

That's it for this roundup post! In the couple days since I started writing, the weather has granted my wish and stayed lovely cool and rainy~ It's absolutely dreamy this morning ☁️😌🌧️ I don't expect it to last, with summer just around the corner, so I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can! Here's hoping you're also enjoying the weather wherever you are~✨ Until next time, stay safe, happy, and healthy!

Welcome to Part 2 of my Japan vacation report! You can read Part 1 here. Today's entry will cover my first day in Osaka, which wasn't very long. My husband and I mostly explored the area around our hotel before beginning the boarding procedures for our cruise ship. Even with the short amount of time, however, we still found some cool stuff which I shall now share with you here!

Wednesday 15 March 2023 -  Exploring Sakishima, Osaka

This photo is actually from the night before, but I'm including it because...

...I ended up taking the exact same photo, effortlessly, the next morning! The tower on the left is Cosmo Tower, the third tallest building in Japan.

It wasn't even (astronomical) spring yet but many lovely flowers were abloom!

We enjoyed a walk in the sunshine 🌞 Cosmo Tower and the ATC building are visible behind us.

A map of the area we walked around in. We mostly followed the canal.

One of the best things about Japan: awesome vending machines everywhere!

This ship was a random find! It's a restored Kofun period ship named Namihaya. This Asahi article from last October indicates people are trying to find a better home for it.

There were lots of lively birds in this area!

The blue and green ship in the background is the most vibrant ship I've ever seen!

Turns out this Osaka-themed manhole cover is an item in Animal Crossing: New Horizons 😲 My sister sent me an image of it! I discovered later that many places in Japan have their own specific cover designs, so I started taking photos of all that I noticed!

My first wild jellyfish sightings! I photographed several floating along in this seawater canal.

This was a cool driftwood art installation in our hotel, the Hyatt Regency Osaka.

Part of the artificial pond just outside the hotel.

I spotted several of these birds in the tiny park we walked to. I've now identified them as tsugumi, an Asian bird that I'd have never seen wild in my homeland!

That's all for this entry; I'm going to put our next step, boarding and exploring our cruise ship, into its own post. That will be next! Please look forward to it 😄

First, a little background information. My husband, Sean, and I were originally planning to attend the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. I had started saving up ever since the Rio Olympics closing ceremonies, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe emerged from a green pipe dressed as Mario ❤️ But, of course, those plans were destroyed (with some false hope in between) by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even the replacement trip we decided on, a cruise around Japan in 2022, was cancelled for the same reason. But happily, the replacement for our replacement wasn't cancelled, and we got to have the most awesome adventure of our lives so far~!

Now begins a multi-post account of my three weeks in Japan! Please enjoy!

13-14 March 2023 - Traveling from Boise to Osaka

We didn't realize it would be like this, so it was an exhausting surprise to find our total awake time (not including naps on flights) ended up being over 24 hours, starting from waking up in the early morning on the 13th at home in Boise, and ending when we finally got to enter our hotel room in Osaka in the evening on the 14th 😅 The travel itself was great, we flew Delta One across the Pacific, which was sooo nice, especially since my last trip to Japan was via the cheapest seats, so I already had the least comfortable experience in memory as comparison. But I didn't expect to be so tired on my first day in Japan!

Me and Sean on the plane from Boise to Seattle.

My Delta One seat on the flight from Seattle to Tokyo. I've never flown so fancy before~ The seat lays down into a bed!

As soon as you're seated, the first drinks service begins! We chose orange juice 🍊

All strapped in and ready for takeoff!

Included with this seat was a care packet containing an eye mask, ear plugs, hand cream, lip balm, toothbrush and paste, and an eco-conscious pen.

It also came with slippers, headphones (for use with the built-in media system), and a bottle of water 😊 All needs accounted for!

The media system was so cool! Not only could you watch movies, listen to music, or the like, you could see all kinds of data and visualizations of the flight itself and its progress 🤩

The first movie I decided to watch was Spaceballs, a childhood favorite! I'd actually been wanting to rewatch it for a while and I was pleased to find it just as laugh-out-loud funny as ever 😂

My vegan breakfast at the end of the flight was delicious!

I didn't have enough time to watch the whole thing, but the second movie I chose was The Last Samurai, another long-time favorite. Again, I was pleased to find it just as good as I remembered 🥹

We safely landed at Tokyo International Airport, and when I was allowed to turn off airplane mode on my phone, it officially became Tuesday afternoon for me! We skipped a bunch of time when we crossed the International Date Line; it was only just after midnight back at home.

The sunset was beautiful on the plane ride to Osaka~

Gorgeous twilight aerial view of Osaka 🌇

We stayed the first night at the Hyatt Regency Osaka, a very nice hotel!

The best everyday part of Japan is the toilets 🤩🚽✨ Almost all have a "washlet" with various features such as a bidet, privacy sounds (so you can poop with other people nearby and not feel self-conscious! I loved it!!!), heated seat, etc. I want one at home...

Was so nice to go to sleep in a comfy bed after over 24 hours of travel. I had zero jet lag because I managed to stay up until a normal bed time 😌💤

That's it for the first day of our journey! Next time I will cover our morning exploring around the hotel in Osaka and boarding our cruise ship, the Silver Muse. Please look forward to it!

I'm sitting in my garden floor studio, dressed for my lunchtime workout, with the space heater going because I finally got cold. It's surprisingly bright outside, so I have my curtains closed, even though I'd like to look out and see if it starts to snow. Last night's weather forecast predicted snow by this evening ☃️ I hope that prediction comes true!

February went really well for Studio Mikarts. Progress in all areas, no major hiccups, just smooth sailing~ I have lots of cool updates to share and news about upcoming plans, so let's begin!

Patreon Rewards

February was the first time I've printed Patreon rewards in-house. I used the same type of paper that I already use for full-size prints, Red River Paper's Aurora Art Natural, and the same archival printer, my Epson Expression Photo. The reward pictured here is my Winter Gryphon illustration. As you can see, printing went well, so I'll continue printing all rewards in-house for the foreseeable future. Sign up to get monthly Patreon rewards from Studio Mikarts here! You can choose from a single postcard, a pack of three postcards, a full-size print, or a print and three postcards 😄

deviantART

My Spring Gryphon was featured as a Daily Deviation!

I have some exciting news to share about deviantART! After nearly 20 years using the site, I finally made something that earned a Daily Deviation! 🎊😄🎉✨ For anyone who doesn't know what a Daily Deviation (DD for short) is, it's the prominent featuring of a user's submission by a deviantART official. I've always wanted to be chosen, but I never caught anyone's eye until now. Is it a coincidence that the selected piece was made during my first year after graduating from art school? Maybe, maybe not!

Gryphia Progress

I've continued working through my previous notes to prepare for planning chapter eight and beyond. It's taking a surprising amount of time; I have a lot of notes! But I think it's time well-spent, since I've rediscovered old ideas that fit wonderfully, and remembered previous elements that I don't want to forget to address before the story ends. Progress slowed as the month wore on, because I began using my writing time to prepare for my trip to Japan (in less than a week!) but small steps still move one forward, so that's all that matters 😊

Art Livestreaming

I had an excellent month of livestreaming, as usual! I've continued my January schedule, with Inktober52 on Monday, Wednesday Lucky Dips, and Chibi Fridays. I created so much work on stream in February it was hard to decide which piece to feature here, so I just chose the final piece I made. It's a sparrow + shiba inu gryphon, in response to the Inktober52 prompt: pup 🐶 Click here to check out my livestreaming schedule and, while you're there, don't forget follow me to get notifications whenever I go live! 

Charity Fundraising

My featured charity in February was The Rat Retreat, an Idaho-based organization that provides good homes to rats and educates the public about these sweet, intelligent, misunderstood beings. My monthly donation is always decided by the number of unique viewers on Twitch; I donate $0.10 USD per viewer, with a minimum of $10 and a max of $100. Nine viewers in February equals a $10 donation!

Since I'll be on vacation (sailing around Japan!) for four weeks starting mid-March, my next featured charity shall use both March and April's streaming stats. Since March is Women's History Month in my country, I chose RedRover as my next featured charity, because one of the things they do is help people who are escaping abusive homes bring their pets with them. Women are disproportionately victims of domestic abuse and too few shelters accept pets, who are often victims themselves, so I hope my donation at the end of April will help both women and their beloved pets!

Mika's Monthly...

Here are my recommendations in a variety of categories for things that made my February healthy, fun, and awesome! As always, I am not being compensated in any way, I just legitimately love these things and hope you'll give them a try, too 😄

...Workout 💃 After recovering from a triceps injury I sustained at the beginning of the year (like, literally on January 1st 😅) in February I was finally able to resume playing Zumba: Burn it Up! on my Nintendo Switch! This game is super fun, I love the music selection, and there's not a huge emphasis on getting the dance moves exactly right. The game part just seems to care whether you're moving to the beat, so it's really easy to get into the game even if you have no dance experience! I decided to add dancing to my workout routine after watching a documentary that suggested exercise that also engages your brain in learning is overall more effective. Whether that's true or not, dancing is fun, so Zumba is remaining a staple in my routine!

The shortest, easiest class but still enough to work up a good sweat! #TheActiveOtaku #ZumbaBurnItUp #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/1CurufJJrJ

— Studio Mikarts - Denise みか Hutchins (@StudioMikarts) February 28, 2023

...Vegan Victuals 💝 For Valentine's Day, my husband got me a box of No Whey! Truffles 😍 This brand is awesome because not only are their chocolates absolutely scrumptious, they're vegan! I am happy any time there's an excuse to eat their tasty treats!

...Book 📕 The one book I finished in February was Andy Serkis' audiobook reading of The Fellowship of the Ring, but even if I had finished some of the other books I'm currently reading, this still would have been my top recommendation for the month. As I state in my StoryGraph review, Andy Serkis doesn't just read the book, he gives a performance!

...Show 📺 I started rewatching one of my favorite anime of all time last month: Natsume Yuujinchou. It's generally a monster-of-the-week style show featuring a boy in high school who can see youkai (a kind of Japanese spirits/monsters). His ability causes him all kinds of trouble, worst of all social isolation and difficulty finding a place to safely be, both socially and physically. It's usually a bittersweet show (almost every episode makes me cry, no matter how many times I watch it!) but it also has some very dark and creepy moments, plus a healthy dose of cuteness and humor. Although the show doesn't directly address these topics, it nevertheless makes me think deeply about relationships, mental health, and how difficult it is for everyone to navigate the world, whatever their circumstances.

...Game 🎮 A Little to the Left is a game I instantly wanted ever since I saw it in a Nintendo Direct last year. Happily, one of my friends gave me a Nintendo gift card for Christmas, so of course I bought this gem immediately! It's a super chill and cozy puzzle and organization game. Many puzzles have multiple correct solutions and there's a Daily Tidy challenge, so even though the main game (which has a surprisingly touching ending!) doesn't take long to get through, the replay value is still rather high 😊 I've been playing every day to unlock all the Daily Tidy badges!

I finished the main game yesterday; this was one of my favorite levels. Eye candy~ I'm glad there's a Daily Tidy for me to look forward to throughout the year! #ALittleToTheLeft #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/Yvvfgd5Idr

— Studio Mikarts - Denise みか Hutchins (@StudioMikarts) December 30, 2022

...Music 🎧 I discovered something amazing in February: several of my favorite video games have soundtracks and other albums available on Spotify! This inspired me to create a new playlist called Mika's Instrumental Game Favorites 🎻 and I've been listening to it virtually every day since. It's got a lot of calm, peaceful tracks from Okami and Ace Attorney but also some more peppy, rocking tracks from Sonic Adventure. Either way it makes for nice background music for all kinds of activities throughout the day (I've been listening especially at shower time!).

So that's it for February's roundup! In the week since I started writing, it's snowed multiple times and it looks like it's trying to come down again as I type 😄🌨️ There are only a few days left before I depart for Japan 🎌 Half of March will be taken up by this adventure, and I intend to make lots of plein air drawings and paintings while I'm there! I think that will make next month's roundup quite different and interesting. Please look forward to it! Until then, may you be safe, happy, and well ❤️

Chappie and Aoife enjoying the snow~!

I can't believe January passed so quickly! And we're already entering the second week of February! It even seems like spring is stepping in early. It's getting much warmer during the day, lots of (dratted) sunshine between rainy spells (all of which seem to happen when I'm not available to enjoy them!), and no fresh snow for weeks. I'm not sure I'm ready for winter to be over. I would have liked more snow! But next month I'll be at sea for a couple weeks, cruising around Japan, so warmer weather would be welcome then 😊

This will be my second month composing a roundup post using my new guidelines (one image and paragraph per section, condensing my recommendations into a short bullet list, etc.). I received positive feedback on last month's entry, so I hope you will enjoy this one, too!

Patreon Rewards

Chibi Tanuki rewards were mailed in January! These were the final rewards to be printed by a third-party print shop. The costs were spiraling out of control, so I decided to start printing in-house! I have recently settled on and ordered the paper, Red River Paper's Aurora Art Natural 300, which is the thicker version of the paper I already use for my giclée print reproductions. I'll also be using the same archival inks, as well, which means both my postcard and print rewards will be museum-quality reproductions! Please sign up here to become a patron and support my work 🥰

deviantART: Spring Gryphon

I'm still playing catch-up with deviantART, so I've uploaded several older pieces recently, all from 2022. It's exciting because this is the closest to caught-up I've been since I resumed posting there! The image I'd like to feature this time is my Spring Gryphon, which was completed last summer (I tried for spring but took too long 😅) as a seasonal greeting card. It's the first of four images I'm making that represent the seasons with a plant and a naturalistically appropriate gryphon. For spring I chose sakura, and the gryphon is a combination of a mejiro bird and momonga flying squirrel 🌸 You can purchase print-on-demand products featuring this Spring Gryphon on my Fine Art America shop.

Gryphia Progress

Progress on my first draft continues at an even keel. I finished up chapter seven and started brainstorming for chapter eight (and beyond) in January. Since I'm now close to entering the final stages of the story, I decided to reread all my notes up until now, to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything that I wanted to include, and to create new ideas by combining my old thoughts with what has actually been written, which is often quite different! It's an exciting stage!

Art Livestreaming

My Twitch streams have gone great so far this year, including the addition of a Monday stream during which I tackle the Inktober52 weekly prompt. One of my favorite projects in January was a chibi caricature of my pet pigeon, Sora. She's already cute enough in real life, but I think I managed to make her even cuter in chibi form 🥰 Click here to check out my livestreaming schedule, sign up for go-live notifications, and join me for a chat while I work!

Charity Fundraising

My charity for January was Veganuary, an organization which helps people try a compassionate, vegan lifestyle by running a challenge every January. They send out recipes, transition tips, data about the positive impact veganism has, and plain ol' encouragement, every day of the challenge. It's a very fun and inspiring event!

In January, I had 13 unique viewers during my Twitch streams, which translates into a $10 donation to Veganuary! Happily, it turned out that there was a 2x donation match in place, so this donation was essentially doubled to $20!

Usually this is all I have to say about charity donations in a month, but there was another exciting moment in January! The Twitch fundraising goal I had going for The Protego Foundation was completely met by a single viewer, SarahQuilt (my best friend for over two decades ❤️), so even more funds are going toward helping animals! Thank you, Sarah~!!!

For February, I have chosen The Rat Retreat as my featured charity. They help find good homes for and educate the public about these misunderstood, oft-ill-treated, but lovable beings. I have a special place in my heart for rats; in my 20s, I cared for three sisters, whom I adopted from my local shelter, for their entire lives. Minerva, Bathilda, and Nymphadora~ They were so sweet and fun and smart ❤️ I'm looking forward to making a donation that will help more rats have long, healthy, happy lives!

Mika's Monthly...

Here are my monthly recommendations! I hope you'll give some of them a try 😊 As usual, I am not being compensated for these promotions, they're all things I legit want to share because I love them!

...Workout 🧘‍♀️ Yoga Master is the fitness game I use the most. Every workday morning, I wake up and stretch out with one of my custom programs. The nice thing about the game is that you don't have to actually play it like a game. For me that made it stressful, rather than relaxing, so I turned off the scoring system and began using it more like a video yoga program, but one I can always customize to my liking!

...Vegan Victuals 🍽️ Nuggs are one of the very first vegan chicken nugget alternatives I ever ate. They are SO GOOD. My favorite is the spicy version, dipped in homemade vegan ranch 🤤 OMG I am seriously salivating now, just thinking about their crispy breading and tender insides~ They are pictured below alongside Wholly Veggie Mozzarella Style Sticks, which are also incredibly delicious!

...Book 📖 Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice by Colum McCann was the first book I finished reading this year. It was my writing-time companion for several months, and although it didn't always quite reach me, it still said the right things so often that I'm keeping it in my writing-time rotation (I usually warm up for writing by reading about writing!). You can read my brief review here.

...Show 📺 In January I rewatched all of the My Hero Academia movies. I found the first one just as awesome as I remembered, the second one both awesome and silly (a little overwrought, lol), but the third one struck me so much more powerfully! I had seen it a couple times before, but until now, I always felt it was on even footing with its siblings. This time, World Heroes' Mission took an indisputable first place (see what I did there? No? Bakugo quote 😉) in my personal ranking. My experience with anime movies generally has been so mixed; too often they just get worse the more that are made; not so with My Hero Academia 💖 (Also, I am again obsessed with Rody Soul 😍)

...Game 🎮 I made it my goal for 2023 to spend at least one hour every day playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and I don't regret it one bit! It's the type of game you can play for a just short while, or easily sink several hours into without getting bored, which makes it both a good workday stress-buster and weekend chillout. By playing every day this year, I hope to enjoy all the seasonal events, collect all the items (like art for the museum!), and finally feel like I did all the things 😊✨ This goal is helping very much with growing my self-compassion and stabilizing my mental health. I have historically been a perfectionist and workaholic. Making it a goal to play video games every day challenges my inner critic, who tries to tell me I'm just being lazy, and gives me time to recharge properly so that I can go to work the next day feeling my best!

Stopped by Brewster's place for the first time~ I wish it existed in real life! #AnimalCrossing #ACNH #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/ydrAnH0Ihh

— Studio Mikarts - Denise みか Hutchins (@StudioMikarts) January 31, 2023

...Music 🎧 I've been following Wagakki Band since their first album in 2014, which was comprised of Vocaloid covers using a combination of traditional Japanese instruments (wagakki) and those you'd find in a typical rock band. It was the perfect mashup for me, since I loved that sound ever since Naruto (and its background music) first came out 😍 They're one of the few bands from whom I actually buy all the main albums, and I finally opened my copy their most recent release in January, which is excitingly their second Vocaloid cover album! It's streaming on Spotify so you may not have to go so far as to import the physical album to enjoy these fresh tracks~

Other News: Focus Retreat Center Story

The news story for which I was interviewed back in October, during the Inktober retreat in Malone, New York has been released at last, and some of my interview made the cut! Half of my bit is just me being cheeky, but you can also hear my excitement about how the retreat helped me complete all 31 drawings for Inktober for the first time ever! Click here to listen to the story online. It's the entire news program, so to get to the segment about the Focus Retreat Center, skip forward to 19:29 (min:sec) or if you just want to get to my soundbite, skip to 23:02 😎

That's all I have for you this month. 2023 has gotten off to a great start for me, and I hope it is the same for you! Even if not, I hope the year continues to get better and better for all of us~ I'll be back next month with February's roundup. Until then, may you be happy, healthy, and safe ❤️

It's a fabulously cloudy morning as I begin typing this. My favorite kind of weather (if it's not going to properly rain, snow, or storm!) ☁️ I'm listening to the Disney Goes Classical album that Spotify recommended to me; it starts out with the overture from Mary Poppins, so I've got goosebumps all over, ha ha.

I'm trying something different in 2023 with these roundup posts. (Happy New Year, by the way! 🎆) They've been taking far too long to compose, so I'm limiting how much I write and how many photos I post for each topic. I hope that not only will this allow me to share the same ideas in less time (time that could be spent creating new stories in word and image!) but that you, my readers, will enjoy the faster clip, as well. That said, let's try it out!

Patreon Rewards

I sent the rest of the six Inktober rewards in December 😄 You can read more about it on Patreon. And if you'd like to get my illustrations in your mailbox, you can sign up there, too! You can choose between a monthly postcard, a set of three postcards, a print, or a print AND three postcards. Patrons don't just get rewards, they are directly funding my storytelling work! They are truly members of Studio Mikarts and my most precious audience 🥰

deviantART

Click here to view and comment on deviantART.

I'm only a year behind on posting to dA now! 😂 I've uploaded several pieces from 2022 recently, but this is my proudest, my birthday gryphon illustration. I'm still sending this one out as a birthday card to friends and family through the first half of this year. I plan to create a new birthday card illustration at around the same time of year as this one was done. Then my people will all receive the new design on their special days 😊 You can buy this as a greeting card, print, or dozens of other things on Fine Art America. Birthday shower curtain, anyone?

Gryphia Progress

It may not seem like much, but I'm actually quite proud of the two days' writing work I managed to squeeze in during December's holiday and birthday madness (I have six birthdays to celebrate! 🥳). To be honest, I was really struggling mentally with everything I had to do. So being able to sit down, two mornings in a row, and make good progress on chapter seven was a huge win! I don't have any major interruptions to my regular schedule until March, so I'm looking forward to finishing up this roundup post and getting back to writing my novel!

Art Livestreaming

This is another area where I was proud of myself for keeping up with it during the end-of-year madness. It would have only been too easy to just give up and take the whole month off. That is to say, it would have been easy if livestreaming was still as disheartening as it was a few months ago. Things had changed by the beginning of December. I have been honored for months now by a dedicated viewer (hello, Exie~!!) who I look forward to chatting with every stream, and I was shocked to be notified that I qualified for Twitch Affiliate status, as well!

Being offered affiliate was not only a boost to my confidence--an affirmation that I've been doing the right things in my off-beat way--but I had two folks subscribe to my channel on my very first affiliate stream 🥰💕 I'm so glad I stuck to it when things were looking so bleak mid-year; now I'm looking forward to growing my channel and sharing my art with more people!

Charity Fundraising

My featured charity in December was The Protego Foundation. I had only recently learned of their work using the power of the Harry Potter fandom to encourage positive change for animals through veganism (from the Harry Potter Vegan Cookbook! which I reviewed in November) and because Harry Potter always comes to my mind during the holiday season, it seemed like a great fit.

My fundraising challenge uses the number of unique viewers per month to determine how much I will donate. I give $0.10 USD per viewer, with a minimum of $10 and a max of $100. I had 15 unique viewers in December, so I made a $10 donation to The Protego Foundation!

Mika's Monthly...

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I'm trying something new in my presentation of these roundups. I considered cutting this section altogether, but I like giving these recommendations, not only as a way to share what's been going on in my life, but because I think they could inspire and enrich, even lengthen, the creative lives of anyone who decides to try them. One's creative life is not separate from everything else one does, after all! But I want this blog to focus on my creative endeavors, and until now, these recommendations were taking half the time and space--a bit too much. I hope this new presentation will work better all around 😊 

As always, I'm not in any way being compensated for these promotions, they're just honest recommendations from me ❤️

...Workout 🏃‍♀️ I finished the YMCA Christmas Run again this year. Running is such an easy sport to get into, and it's a full-body workout, so you get a lot of bang for your buck. There's nothing so fun as running a themed race with a few hundred (or thousand!) other people!

...Vegan Victuals 🌮 Try the "Taco Bell Cheesy Gordita Crunch" recipe from the Vegan Fast Food cookbook (which I happily received for Christmas). So good my mouth is watering just remembering these amazing tacos 🤤 

Mmm...soft crunchy vegan tacos...

...Book 🐲 The Hobbit audiobook as read by Andy Serkis. This is my favorite book of all time to start, then adding Andy Serkis's excellent narration, let's just say I started his reading of The Fellowship of the Ring immediately after! You can read my full review (which is relatively short) here on The StoryGraph.

...Show 🤶 The Santa Clauses on Disney+ was pleasantly surprising! I grew up watching The Santa Clause, and I still watch it every year, but I have a well-founded distrust of sequels made decades later. This show therefore exceeded my expectations, didn't disappoint in the least; it was hilarious, wacky, and magical. I'll definitely be watching it again next holiday season!

...Game 🤓 My husband had kickstarted this game and received it in October, but it wasn't until December that we finally played it. Um, Actually... The Game of Nerdy Corrections is a hilarious game that we played with my siblings during the holidays and it was enthusiastically requested multiple times. It's a great party game--pure fun, no stress--that I think anyone will enjoy!

...Music 🎄 It's out of season now, but all month I listened almost exclusively to my new Christmas favorites playlist on Spotify. It's full of the Christmas albums and soundtracks that I absolutely love. I recommend listening straight through (not on shuffle) because one album is a reading of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Other News: 2023 Goals

Finally, I'd like to share with you the goals I set for myself on January 1st this year (using my Jibun Techo planner, which is new to and absolutely perfect for me~) both as a topic of interest and as a form of accountability! I will check in at the end of the year and report on how things went 😊

• Career 🎨 I will create 12 new, large, full-color illustrations.
• Education 💮 I will sit and pass the JLPT N2 exam.
• Finances 💸 I will make, rather than buy, birthday & holiday gifts.
• Health 💤 I will go to bed on time on work nights.
• Hobbies 🎮 I will play Animal Crossing every day.
• Travel 🛳️ I will cruise around Japan with my husband.
• Family 👩‍🍳 I will host seasonal family dinners.
• Relationships 💌 I will send a card or letter every week.
• Reading 📚 I will read & review at least 26 books.

And that's it for December's roundup! It only took me half the time it usually does, so I'm rather looking forward to checking in again next month, and sharing all the progress I'll be making in my creative career journey. Thank you for reading! 🥰

I've got my curtains half open, so I can see if it starts to snow, while still preventing the morning sun from blinding me when it peeks out through a crack in the clouds. This is the second day in a row the weather forecast said it would snow in the morning, but instead I sit here disappointed, looking at the pale blue sky behind the icy grey clouds 😑 Come, Mother Nature, let it snow! 😆

Still, it's pretty cozy in my studio this morning. I've got a mug of lemon tea at my elbow, my two dogs sleeping peacefully in their beds, and a playlist of my favorite Christmas music filling the air. My tootsies are cold, but I've got a fluffy robe keeping the rest of me nice and warm~ With all the holiday busyness ever since Thanksgiving, I haven't been able to sit down and work on this roundup post until now, the third week of December. To make sure I can actually get it done in a timely manner, this will be a condensed roundup, a few sections removed, and others combined. If I can finish writing this today, that would be ideal~ Let's get started!

Patreon Rewards

In November, seven different Patreon rewards were ordered all at once! It was the first time I've created so many different designs at one time. Included were the six Inktober drawings that Studio Mikarts members voted for, plus the chibi tanuki illustration that was finished at the beginning of the month.

All seven Patreon rewards: six Inktober plus one chibi tanuki.

Two of these seven rewards were sent out in November. I wanted to space them out weekly so that everyone would get a nice, steady stream of happiness in their mailboxes, instead of one big art dump 😅 Plus it saved my hand, since I am still handwriting my messages of greeting and gratitude.

Inktober reward #1: Flame

After these seven rewards have all gone out, I am going to begin printing all rewards in-house and handwriting only the first message, which will then be replicated on or with all the rewards. This saves me a lot of money in production costs (while still delivering museum-quality art reproductions 😎) as well as time and physical strain.

It was a big concern as I thought of the future and the growth of Studio Mikarts. I put it to the vote on Patreon, and was so relieved that all of my patrons voted for the printed message option. So kind and considerate, I have the best patrons 🥰 And their comments about still loving the heartfelt nature of the handwritten message is what led to my hybrid solution of handwriting once and replicating, rather than simply typing the message.

Inktober reward #2: Bouquet

So what's next? I have two illustrations in the works. My main project is my winter gryphon, which in November I got halfway through the final sketch. The snowy evergreen environment is all worked out, I just need to add the gryphon itself now.

The full-size sketch for my winter gryphon illustration.

The other illustration I'm working on is my chibi orca. More about that in the Livestreaming section below 😉 To sign up and become a Studio Mikarts member on Patreon, click here! You can choose from five tiers, receiving postcards, prints, both, or neither (the latter is actually the most supportive option ❤️) and all members get access to exclusive updates and limited time rewards. I'm looking forward to seeing you there~!

Gryphia Progress

Just a small update here. I'm proud to say I've continued working on my novel, but it's been very slow going, so there's not much to report. Still, something is better than nothing and in November I exceeded 3,000 words written for chapter six!

deviantART

An interesting thing happened as I was preparing material for this section of my post: I noticed that deviantART got rid of their physical prints shop 😲 Fortunately, I already have an alternate on-demand prints account through Fine Art America but it was still a disappointing surprise. dA is turning heavily toward digital offerings, including subscriptions much like Patreon and even A.I. generated artwork (hotly contested by the community there; I'm still not sure how I feel about it...), which unfortunately makes it far less in line with my creative journey than ever before.

Still, after some consideration, I decided to continue using the site. For one, it remains an online repository of my artwork, including all my major work going back to my high school days! For two, they still have the commissions feature, which allows me to offer chibi caricature commissions online. It's a nice feature! There are some other fun things that make the site worth using too, like silly badges and cool profile customization, so although I'm still disappointed that they're pushing so hard toward digital stuff, I feel fairly at peace with the recent changes 😅

Click here to view and add to your collections on deviantART!

Anyway, this is the piece I am featuring today: my Nyan Meow Mice. I recently uploaded the rest of my 2021 artwork, which is to say, all the work from my capstone illustration project 😄 I'm really proud of this project and I intend to expand upon it next year. I love all the pieces I created so far, but the mice one just feels extra good for some reason, which is why I chose it for this post. If you'd like to see all six illustrations and the endpaper and cover designs, click here to visit my gallery on deviantART!

Art Excursions: Hyatt Hidden Lakes Reserve

It's gotten really cold here since late October, so this excursion was a bit tough! In November, I went with my sister, who is also a professional creative, to Hyatt Hidden Lakes Reserve, a hidden gem right in my backyard. It's a small nature reserve with unpaved trails and excellent viewpoints where you can relax in the stillness, or be enchanted by the cacophony of bird voices, all while gazing at the wildlife (I've seen countless bird species, bats, deer, and even stray domestic rabbits here!) and taking in the scenic wetland environment.

As I mentioned, it was very cold that day, but gloves weren't an option for me while sketching, since I needed precision for my chosen media: watercolor! The golden rays of the sun camouflage how red my frozen hands are in these photos 😅

I used nothing but watercolor for my sketches, no pencil or pen. It's an exercise I really enjoy, because it forces me to be creative with my brush strokes. How can I depict this, knowing the colors will blend when they touch? Knowing this brushstroke might dry before I can get the color ready for the next one? How can I make this shape recognizable in the least amount of time and strokes? These are the types of questions I'm answering when I sketch with watercolor. And the answers show up later in my more detailed and complete watercolor illustrations 😁

Livestreaming

I had a great time with my viewers on Twitch in November; I am so grateful to my regular chatters who make each art stream such a pleasure! Here are the results of my Lucky Dip and Chibi Friday streams:

Lucky Dip XIX

Chibi Friday 35: Tanuki Part 7 (final)

Lucky Dip XX

Chibi Friday 36: Orca Part 1

Lucky Dip XXI

Chibi Friday 37: Orca Part 2

Lucky Dip XXII

For Lucky Dips, which are on Wednesdays, I randomly choose four art tools and then make an image with them. For the past few months, I've been working through a manga pose reference book so that I don't have to worry about what to draw, just how to draw it using the tools I have. Plus, I think my manga/anime-style drawing is getting better thanks to this!

For Chibi Fridays, starting in August this year, I have been asking my patrons to vote on which animal they'd like me to draw as a chibi. Then I generate two random words and use them to construct a scene with the animal at its center. I keep working on that illustration for as many Chibi Friday livestreams as it takes to complete it. Here's the recording of the last one from November:

Be sure to follow me on Twitch to be notified every time I go live! Let's chat soon~!

Charity Fundraising

In November, I chose Farm Sanctuary as my charity of the month. They do amazing work helping end the suffering of farm animals, both for individuals and for the billions trapped in the misery of the farming industry. They run a turkey adoption program around Thanksgiving, which is how I found them last year. Thanksgiving is often referred to as Turkey Day. For me, that now has a different and more positive meaning, as I enjoy symbolically adopting a turkey from them, rather than killing and eating one 🦃🤎

I had 19 unique viewers on Twitch in November. I donate $0.10 per viewer to my selected charity, with a minimum of $10 and and max of $100, which means a $10 donation to help take care of the animals at Farm Sanctuary this time 🥰

December's charity is The Protego Foundation! They use the Harry Potter fandom as a base for building a kinder world through veganism and other animal activism. I hope you'll join me on Twitch this week for my final December stream and have fun hanging out while helping improve the lives of magical (that is to say, all!) animals 💖

Monthly Recommendations

This will be a condensed version of the funnest part of my monthly roundups. I hope you'll enjoy reading about these recommendations and perhaps giving them a try yourself! (As usual, I am not being paid to advertise these things; they're just positive elements of my November that I am excited to share with you~)

🍽️ Vegan Victuals & Book of the Month 📕
The Unofficial Harry Potter Vegan Cookbook by Imana Grashuis & Tylor Starr

My review from The StoryGraph says it all, so I will let it do the talking, spiced up with some photos of my cooking!

adventurous funny hopeful informative inspiring fast-paced

5.0 ⭐

Absolutely five-star cookbook! For TL;DR: the recipes are delicious, the book beautiful, and the information about veganism and vegan cooking both helpful and inspiring!

If you're a Harry Potter fan, get this cookbook! It doesn't matter if you're not vegan, forget about the stereotypes, this food is indulgent and beautiful and absolutely satisfying. The good you'll be doing for animals, the environment, and your own health can just be considered bonuses! It's easy to forget, but the book itself is a beautiful showpiece as well, with a silky, embossed cover; patterned endpapers; well-organized, easy-to-read text; and full-page, color photographs included with every recipe.

Before I describe my experience with the half-dozen recipes I've already tried, here are some highlights from the other sections of the book:

• Enthralling foreword by Evanna Lynch. If you're already vegan, your passion for the cause will be set ablaze ❤️‍🔥 For those who are veg-curious, you may be moved to finally take the next step!
• Listing the reasons to go vegan and tying them to the Wizarding World we all know and love~
• Vegan alternatives section that can help veganize any recipe or allow you to throw together a quick vegan meal without instructions.
• Fun and helpful Kitchen Witch Tips. A bit too new age witch (spiritual/religious) and not enough fantasy witch (my view of the Wizarding World) for me, so I came up with my own versions because I did like the core ideas being presented (such as clean the kitchen before cooking, get as much light into the kitchen as possible when working, be mindful and grateful as you cook, etc.).
• The appendix section that lists all recipes, including by which Harry Potter book they're from (such a good idea!), and the metric conversion page (I grew up with Imperial but I prefer metric for its precision!).

I made several recipes from this book for Thanksgiving this year and I was able to provide my family with a complete and magical vegan feast! In fact, I had to make some recipes the weekend after the holiday because I chose way more things than I could make 😅 Here's what I made and how it was:

• Rabbit Food Grazing Board: So delicious, so filling, perfect for a big gathering or party! The grilled olives were an awesome, unusual addition that I loved, and it was treat to have pomegranate seeds for the first time since childhood (they went well with everything), but the star was the tzatziki sauce. I will make this sauce any time I want tzatziki from now on!

• Dragon Roasted Nuts: These were a big hit with my entire family, one of the things people called out as particularly delicious. The best thing is, they have a flavor that is both seductively familiar and yet wholly unique. It's hard to stop eating them because you just want more and more of that enchanting taste!

• Fang's Boarhound Treats: I made these as my pups' Thanksgiving treat and they LOVED them. Absolutely no hesitation or polite curiosity, just munch, munch, down the hatch! Being vegan, these treats are made with stuff humans wouldn't mind eating, like applesauce, peanut butter, and vegan yogurt. I might have to reserve one for myself next time...

• Butterbeer Three Ways: For Thanksgiving, I chose to make the hot butterbeer and kept it warm in a small slow cooker. The only downside is the calculation necessary to quadruple the recipe, as it only serves two normally. This was another item that was particularly praised by everyone in my family!

• Pumpkin Patch Brownies: SO INDULGENT. So rich and delicious~ To simplify the recipe, I replaced the cubed pumpkin, coconut oil, and gingerbread spices with canned pumpkin pie filling. It worked great (the pumpkin pie flavor sat evenly with the rich chocolate) and cut off at least a good half hour of cooking/prep work!

To make cooking easier for Christmas this year, we've ordered catering for the main meal, and I'm just going to make some desserts and drinks, several of them from this book, including the Apple Pie and Arthur's Eggnog 🤤 And there are so many holiday appropriate recipes still remaining, not just for the end-of-year holidays. How about Liquid Luck for New Year's? Amortentia for Valentine's Day? The Great Feast for Independence Day? Full Moon Cookies for Halloween? Not to mention Happee Birthdae Cake for all those special days! And there are plenty recipes more for whatever you're in the mood for, such as Cheery Owl Breakfast Donuts, Buckbeak's Stuffed Pumpkins, Coconut Snow Cones, Caramelized Devil's Snare, Ernie's Sandwich, Slithering Snake Ravioli, Polyjuice Potion, and Treacle Tart (Harry's favorite!).

I hope everyone will try this cookbook and enjoy all its magical offerings~!

🎧 Music of the Month 🎧
Mika's Celtic Christmas 🎄 on Spotify

Christmastime is my favorite time of year, so although you might think this more appropriate for December, I was already listening to my Celtic Christmas playlist the month before X3 I especially like to listen to it at the end of the day as I'm winding down for bed~

I recommend listening to this playlist on shuffle, though it's not a problem to listen straight through. I just added whole Christmas albums until I was satisfied, no rhyme or reason to the order other than the playlist's theme and my memory of artists that fit it 😅

Other News: Gratitude Postcard Project

In November, the month of Thanksgiving in my country, I have for years now tried to practice active gratitude through a daily project. Usually, I pick something I'm grateful for each day and consider it through a social media post, journal entry, sketch, etc. This year I thought to do something a bit different: sending gratitude postcards!

So many postcards to choose from🤩

I'm sure I was inspired by the fact that I send so many postcards all year round, not just to my patrons, but to friends and family as a way to stay in touch. Still, I find it interesting that only this year did I think of doing such a thing. Maybe it's because this was the first November in four years where I wasn't overburdened by end-of-semester projects and looming finals. Being a degree-holding college graduate is something I'm very grateful for 😆

First batch included the hand-painted postcard I made at the Grand Canyon!

So, for this project, I posted online everywhere I could think, inviting folks to send me their addresses if they would like a postcard. Considering that's very personal information, I was pleased to have sent out a total of twelve gratitude postcards throughout the month!

Second batch~

I'm not sure if I'll do this project again next year, but I think I'd like to. Perhaps more people will trust me with their addresses if it becomes a yearly event 🫡

Final and largest batch~!

And here we are, at the end of November's roundup. It's the day after I started writing and the clouds are thinner than ever, and it's even colder! I still have hope, though: the forecast says it will snow tonight! 🙏❄️🌨️ It also says it will rain on Christmas Eve and Christmas, but let's just ignore that for now...

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and perhaps got inspired to try something new 😀 This is my last blog entry for 2022, so I would like to wish you a very happy holiday season and a magical new year~! 🎉💖✨ As always, may you be safe, happy, and healthy!

It's a snowy morning as I begin typing this entry, one of my favorite atmospheres, but unfortunately, it's already wet and mushy and melting. I'm listening to Tchaikovsky, my favorite classical composer. His music seemed like a good fit for the weather. My usual morning tea has gone cold, but that's ok because there's not much left anyway. I'll wait until lunch for another cup. For the next couple hours, I'm going to focus on sharing my roundup of the past two months with you 💕

October marked the first time I've missed a roundup since I started doing them. After over two years not being sick with anything, in September I caught COVID-19. And I had symptoms; I wasn't one of the lucky people it doesn't affect. Thanks to my vaccination and booster shots, I was never sick enough to go to the doctor for care, but I was sick enough that most everything in my life got put on pause while I recovered. That included writing my September roundup. Instead of scrambling to catch up once I was better, I decided to just do a joint post after October, and here we are!

I have some unique news to share with you in this post, so I hope you'll enjoy reading to the end 😄

Patreon Rewards

Because of being sick for several weeks from the end of September into the beginning of October, I wasn't able to produce any worthwhile new rewards to send out to Studio Mikarts members during those months. I won't deny I felt guilt and anxiety about it, but as always, my patrons are amazingly patient and understanding people. I'm excited to report that they are soon to be thoroughly rewarded for their constancy 🥰

I completed all 31 Inktober drawings in October (for the first time ever! more on that later) and chose my top ten to present to my patrons. They voted on their top six at the beginning of this month and now all of the winning drawings have been ordered as rewards!

A preview of the patron-only voting post on Patreon.

If you're interested in becoming a Studio Mikarts member, now is a great time to sign up! If you select any of the postcard or print tiers (Pen Pal, Writer, Collector, or Connoisseur) before 21 November 2022, you'll be guaranteed to receive all six of the Inktober rewards! What a solid way to start your collection! 😮 You'll also have the pride of knowing that your support is helping me continue to make cool, unique artwork, both in a financial sense--helping me with things like buying art supplies, paying for intangible costs like the very URL of this blog, and funding entries into art shows, contests, and professional guilds--and in an emotional and social sense, giving me reassurance that my artwork is worthy, and proving to others that these images have value 🖼️✨

Click here to join the studio!

Gryphia Progress

It's not pleasant to realize that I haven't written anything for my first Gryphia novel since the latter half of September. But it's not as if I have lost my motivation or have writer's block. It's just that I've been so busy ever since! First I went on a week-long anniversary vacation (a planned break from writing), then I spent several weeks recovering from COVID-19, soon after that it was time to go to New York state for the Inktober retreat, and for the past couple weeks, I kept finding both legitimate and silly reasons to be busy during my writing hours, until here we are today 😅 The good news is, once I'm done with this post, my writing time will again be available for Gryphia work!

Adding more words, doing more research. Today I learned a lot about blood transfusions, both present day and through history 💉#WIP #Writing #Novel #Fantasy #Gryphons #Freewrite pic.twitter.com/vAnKYIQeKy

— Studio Mikarts (@StudioMikarts) September 14, 2022

It's not as if I didn't get ANY writing done in the past two months, either. I got about halfway through writing chapter six (of twelve) before my extended break began. That means I'm almost halfway through the entire first draft! It's no longer realistic to aim for my goal of finishing the first draft this year, but I intend to ride the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) energy to make as much progress as possible this month! Wish me luck!

deviantART

I uploaded a lot of work to deviantART last month! It bothered me that in 2020, I had done several lovely drawings for Inktober, but I never even scanned them into my computer. So I took the time to digitize and post all eleven pieces. Even though they're a couple years old now, I still love how they turned out~

This is one of my favorites from the lot. Click here to view on dA.

All of these Inktober drawings followed the same format: a Halloween-themed animal depicted with some sort of plant or mineral, inked in black with limited color added using marker. I drew them all in my tiny Royal Talens sketchbook, which has beautiful, warm ivory-colored paper. Click here to visit my Inktober gallery where you can see all of the 2020 drawings and some of my favorites from previous years, too!

Art Excursions: Grand Canyon North Rim

As I said in my previous blog post, I have continued to go out on art excursions to practice my plein air work, sharpening my life drawing skills and working with subjects I don't see every day. In the past two months I only had a single plein air session, but it was a biggie: I painted the Grand Canyon!

Sitting on the edge of a cliff while painting the view. It was a first for me!

Thank you to my husband, Sean, for taking these photos 😊

The only thing I didn't like about this art excursion was my own choice of media. I did not realize that the travel watercolor kit I brought was mostly full of bright, neon colors 😱 I initially chose it because it had a few lovely metallic paints, but the other colors didn't look so shockingly bright in the pan. Not until I wet and applied them to the page did their true nature show.

I did my best to work with them, though. After all, I wasn't going to waste the opportunity just because I didn't have the colors I expected. Indeed, the session was a great art lesson because I began experimenting with mixing colors. I ended up being able to produce some nice hues that reflected what I was seeing quite well. And even if the end result wasn't what I hoped to produce, it's still a unique experimental piece!

The final plein air watercolor sketch, with ink details added later.

There was a particular reason I chose a watercolor kit that included metallic paints. Normally in my work, metallic, glitter, and other light-reflecting elements are a waste, because they're not picked up properly by the scanner and therefore don't make it into the final piece. In this case, however, I knew I would not just be creating a plein air sketch, but that I would be doing it on watercolor postcard paper! The final painted postcard, with all its metallic glory, was mailed to my best friend since adolescence, Sarah, who is now the owner of my first ever painting of and from the Grand Canyon 😊

Greetings from the Grand Canyon!

While I was at the Grand Canyon (we visited the North Rim, which I had never been to before and has a very different look from the South Rim I visited in childhood!) I bought a bunch of neat souvenirs from the gift shops. One of them was a purely practical purchase: a sling rucksack that will make future art excursions much easier! Until now, it's been cumbersome carrying my art tools, a waterbottle, perhaps a snack, and my personal items in a regular backpack, which I have to take off and put back on every time I need something, usually with the backpack or something else spending time on the dirty ground while I rearrange 😬 With this new rucksack, I can just swing it around to my front when I need something or even wear it across my chest the whole time! It's hard to put into words how much this bag is going to improve my art excursions. The bottom line is, I'm going to be spending more time making art!

Livestreaming

One of the first things I was able to get back to once I started feeling well enough, thanks to the impetus of Inktober, was livestreaming on Twitch. In September, I streamed every week until I took my anniversary vacation, completing two Lucky Dip pieces and making a couple more hours of progress on the digital coloring of my chibi tanuki piece.

I think the chat-inspired title of this one ended up being Beast Boy Be Creepin' 😆

My final Lucky Dip until November!

For October, I switched from Lucky Dips and Chibi Fridays to Inktober! This was my plan since returning to Twitch earlier this year, and it went so well I intend to do it every year 😊 I livestreamed a total of six Inktober drawings this October (the other 25 were all done during the Inktober retreat! More on that later~). I'm not sure how outwardly apparent it is, but without a doubt, participating in the Inktober challenge this year helped not only my inking skills, but my composition and design skills, and improved my drawing efficiency and confidence.

My first drawing served as a warmup for the entire challenge.

This gryphon was nicknamed the "wiener bird" by Twitch 😆

You can't really tell, but this is a bat-snake gryphon!

My first attempt at using a gesture drawing to increase overall dynamism.

By this time, I was less hesitant to try drawing unusual scenes from imagination!

I absolutely love this, my final drawing 🤩 Gives a completely different meaning to "turkey farm"!

To join me during future livestreams (where we can chat in real time!) visit my Twitch page and click the "Follow" button. You'll get notifications when I go live, either in your email, on your Twitch app, or both. My streaming schedule is the same every week. Check out the schedule on my page to see times and dates in your time zone 🌏

Charity Fundraising: Zoo Boise

Because I lost so many streaming days in September, and because I was too ill to update it before I resumed streaming in October, I kept Zoo Boise as my featured charity. My fundraising formula is based on the number of unique viewers I get on Twitch in a month (or in this case, two months). I donate USD $0.10 per viewer, with a minimum of $10 and a max of $100.

Across September and October, I had 26 unique viewers! That amounted to a $10 donation 🤗💸✨

When I made the donation, I was pleasantly surprised to find a specific goal listed on the donation page. This $10 is going to help build the red pandas a bigger, better home! I'm excited to see it when it's done 💕 If you'd also like to help with the red pandas' new home, please make a donation here!

This month, November, my featured charity is Farm Sanctuary. They are working to create a more kind and healthy world, where farm animals are allowed to live out their natural lives freely, in peace and happiness. Since 1986 (my birth year 🤯) they have run the Adopt a Turkey Project, redefining the meaning of Turkey Day 🦃💖 You can even take a quiz to determine which of this year's spokesturkeys match your personality! I got Roberto, the Adventurer~ The money we raise livestreaming in November will count towards his symbolic adoption. If the total is greater than that, I will donate the extra as well!

Monthly Recommendations

Now it's time for one of the most fun parts of my roundup posts: monthly recommendations! This time they span two months, but because this post is already plenty long, I'm still sticking to one recommendation per category. As a reminder, I'm not being paid to promote any of these things (though I wouldn't mind if that were actually the case 🤑) they're just things I legitimately want to share in hopes that you, my readers, might enjoy them, too.

👟 Workout of the Month 👟
Hiking

With a trip to southern Utah in September and to northern New York in October, hiking was a big theme for both months! I hiked with my husband along an easy trail at Grand Canyon National Park during our day trip there, and then joined in a couple group hikes in Adirondacks Park during the Inktober retreat.

It's starting to get snowy and cold here, so hiking is more dangerous for many reasons. I've probably done my final hikes for 2022. If you're lucky enough to find some trails that are still warm and dry, why not don your hiking boots and set out? Physical exertion in the great outdoors, there's nothing more invigorating!

🍽️ Vegan Victuals of the Month 🍽️
Cinnaholic Cinnamon Rolls

Ever since I went full vegan earlier this year, Cinnaholic has become my favorite indulgent dessert shop. Everything they offer is vegan, so it's a safe haven where I can order anything without spending a bunch of time checking all the ingredients. The calories in their rolls are over the top (no surprise there, nothing so delicious could be low-cal!), so I've had to limit myself 😅 but there's nothing better when you're craving comfort sweets 🤤

Chai frosting, maple frosting, apples, chocolate chips, graham crackers, and marshmallows~

I reminded myself of Cinnaholic during the Inktober retreat, when I drew an owl gryphon eyeing a delicious roll for the prompt "tempting". My trip back to Boise was very stressful (in fact it was the worst day of flying I've ever experienced...), so of course, my first full day back home, I ordered the scrumptious roll you see above!

#Inktober day 25: Tempting 🤤 Making myself hungry for a Cinnaholic roll~#FocusRetreatCenter #Illustration #Drawing #Ink #Fantasy #Gryphons #Inktober2022 #Kuretake_Inktober #Kuretake_Inktober2022 #MoleskineInktober pic.twitter.com/LcZerbE3FE

— Studio Mikarts (@StudioMikarts) October 21, 2022

Spoiler alert: This Cinnaholic-craving gryphon (which I'm considering a loose self-portrait 😆) was one of the Inktober drawings that got voted into reward status! Postcards are on their way to the studio as I write 💌

📕 Book of the Month 📕
A Man and His Cat by Umi Sakurai

My recommended book this time is the start of a series that spans at least ten volumes (the eighth English volume is slated for release in May 2023). If you love cats or pets or just warm, fuzzy feelings, I think you'll love this~ It was originally published in Japanese on Twitter.

ガンガンpixivで「おじさまと猫」の番外編が更新しました！
釣り名人ふくまると、自ら進むおじさまです！

続きはこちらです↓https://t.co/J9HEbHGqXA pic.twitter.com/7OUUuZwMk4

— 桜井海＠おじ猫10巻絵本11/11発売決定！ゲームプレイ中！ (@sakurai_umi_) August 29, 2020

Here's my review of the first volume, originally posted on The StoryGraph:

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

⭐ 5.0

This was such a touching, heartwarming manga! It's very reminiscent of Chi's Sweet Home, both being cute tales told mainly from the point of view of cats who find new homes with loving humans. If you enjoyed Chi's story, I'm sure you'd love this. A Man and His Cat is a bit more bittersweet, with hints of past tragedy and more moments of sadness, but it's also full of humor and cuddly scenes that make you smile. The artwork is well done: pretty and easy to digest. When I finished this first volume, which I waited a long time to purchase so that I could save money by buying used, I immediately ordered all the following volumes--used if I could get them, but new if that was the only option--because that's how much I wanted to continue the story! If you're in the mood for something uplifting and fluffy, and especially if you were already considering reading this manga, I encourage you to give A Man and His Cat a try~

📺 Show of the Month 📺
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law on Disney+

I was looking forward to watching She-Hulk long before it premiered, simply because I'm always in the mood for more female superheroes to inspire me, but I had no idea what to expect from the show. Happily, I enjoyed it from the beginning, and the more I watched, the more I liked it. After finishing the final episode, it had planted itself firmly in the top three of my Marvel series ranking. I think Moon Knight is still my number one, but She-Hulk is so unique (and so hilarious!!!) that it displaced Loki for second place. I highly recommend the show, and make sure to watch to the very end! It's so good, just writing that last sentence gave me goosebumps 😆

Official Trailer | She-Hulk: Attorney at Law | Disney+

Digging around a bit, it looks like a season 2 might be dependent on viewership of season 1, so why not help a girl out and give it a watch? 🙏🙏🙏

🎮 Game of the Month 🎮
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective by SPACE Cowboys

The first time I played one of the cases from this series was at a board game cafe that unfortunately (but understandably) closed down at the beginning of the pandemic. Just that one session was enough to get me hooked, and I was very pleased to receive one of the games for Christmas last year! I could finally play again 🤩

We've made it through three cases so far this year 🔎✨

While the replayability of each individual case is questionable, since all the details are revealed at the end, there are four games with ten cases each, for a grand total of 40 cases to get through. I'd argue that one could still go back and attempt to solve the cases again. 39 cases later, the details might have been forgotten, and if they weren't, one could try for a better score. Either way, even if you played a case a day, it would take you over a month to solve them all!

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective is a multiplayer, cooperative experience that challenges your logic and deductive skills, and requires a scrupulous attention to detail to achieve a high score (we've never beaten Holmes yet 😅). I recommend keeping pencils and paper in the box for players to use for note taking, and as a way to chronicle your gameplay journey, showing who you played with, when, and how you did. This is one of the few board games I own that specifically gets requested on game nights. Goes to show what a strong and positive impression it leaves on its players!

🎧 Music of the Month 🎧
Mika's Halloween 🎃 on Spotify

For my final recommendation, although it's now out of season, I'd like to share my Halloween playlist with you! It's a truly eclectic mix that includes everything from otome game themes to classical music, from 80s rock to obscure oldies, and from Disney songs to movie soundtracks. The one thing tying all these wildly different genres together is the Halloween theme! I hope you'll enjoy this seasonal playlist, if not now, then next year 😄

Shuffle play is recommended here, since I've been casually building this playlist for two years, without regard to how things are ordered. Tracks are ocassionally removed, but by and large, the run time has only increased. I'm sure by next spooky season, it will have grown even longer. In fact, if you have a favorite Halloween tune that isn't already on this playlist, send it my way! I'm always open to new ingredients for the musical brew~

Personal News: Growing Our Family

One of the activities we planned for our anniversary vacation this past September was adopting some new pets from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary 💕 The pain of losing Sun this summer had finally lessened enough that, instead of feeling like I never wanted to keep a dog again, I began to feel desperate to share my love with a new animal friend. In the end, we welcomed two dogs and a pigeon to our family 🥰 The following are photos of all our beloved pets, old and new.

First we have Aoife, our home's gentle giant. She became firmly attached to me from day one! She now follows me around the house, whether I'm doing yoga in the den, working in the studio, or cooking in the kitchen. Of course that means she sleeps with me every night, too~

This is Sora, who we rescued last year. We were content not knowing her sex all this time, but she finally revealed it when we brought her new pigeon companion home. Just seeing him in his separate cage, as we slowly introduced them over several days, was enough for her to lay her first egg 🤯

Here we have Kumo, our little shining prince. His adoption timeline met so perfectly with our visit to the sanctuary that he was never even publicly listed for adoption. He's a calm, gentle boy, who nonetheless keeps strong, pushy Sora in check.

Longtime readers may remember Kiki! She's our oldest pet now, though you'd never know she was over 14 just by looking at her. She's still healthy, energetic, playful, and spicy 😈 She's also an excellent beta-reader and editor, as you can see here!

Finally we have Chappie, our little wiggle worm. She looks exactly like a black & tan Australian Kelpie, though we won't know her breed for sure until we do a cheek swab DNA test. She was cautious and shy at first, but after a couple weeks she also ended up super attached to me 😅💕

So it is that we have a full house once again~ It's been many years since there were so many of us: two humans, one cat, two pigeons, and two dogs. It's actually been great for my daily routine and overall health. Taking care of the dogs in the morning gets me out of bed when it was so easy to sleep in before. I have new running buddies (the dogs, of course!) so I've finally gotten back to my main sport after being derailed by illness and travel. I even get up and move more often throughout the day, enticed by a coo or meow or the squeak of a toy.

The saying is true: life is good, pets make it better!

Other News: Inaugural Inktober Retreat

Now we near the end of this double roundup post. While the trip I took in September was of a personal nature, during the third week of October, it was all business (in a way, the business of honing my drawing skills!) as I attended the first ever Inktober retreat. I wrote a detailed review of the Focus Retreat Center, where the event was held. Here it is on Google Maps, and also pasted here in its entirety, followed by annotated photos from my trip.

I stayed at the Focus Retreat Center (FRC) for the third week of their Inktober retreat in 2022. I'd never been to a retreat of any kind before, so I only had vague expectations based on FRC handout materials and Inktober retreat-specific information, plus hopes built up by stories I've heard from people who have gone on various retreats elsewhere. I'm happy to report that my stay here was everything I had hoped and much more!

As a vegan, I wasn't sure if FRC could accommodate my dietary needs, but there was plenty to eat (in fact, I couldn't stop myself eating too much!) and I never needed to prepare/source my own food to maintain my vegan lifestyle. The retreat was all-inclusive, so three square meals, snacks, and drinks were included, and the dining area was open 24-hours, so if I needed a late-night snack or hot cup of tea to get me through my last Inktober drawing that day, I was able to satiate myself freely.

My room was spacious and comfortable and quickly became my main workspace as I marathoned 25 Inktober drawings over six days. We were allowed to roll in an electric standing desk and office chair and mine fit perfectly at the foot of my bed. I came to rely on the desk to mitigate as much physical strain as possible; I would sit for one drawing and stand for the next. This kept my chronic low back pain, and other complaints that crop up during long work sessions, at bay. Other cool features in the room: digital thermostat, remote-controlled lighting with brightness and warmth settings, and two-way window shades so you could let in natural light while maintaining privacy. A couple downsides to the room(s): the floors were squeaky and the walls paper-thin. I was able to hear my neighbor clearly and I felt overly conscious moving around too much later in the evenings, for fear of disturbing others. At least for sleeping, the bed was super comfy, so I just used my usual earplugs (normally to block out nighttime city sound) and the thin walls weren't an issue.

Something awesome for my room in particular: it was next to a bathroom! The bathrooms are shared (Poo~pourri recommended!) and a bit small, but the water pressure/heat was good. I have long, curly hair that takes half an hour to wash properly, but even on wash day, the hot water lasted! I don't even get that at home!

FRC is situated facing a lovely park that was full of gorgeous autumn leaves, fluffy grey squirrels, and little chirping birds during my stay. I really enjoyed my evening walks through the area. There were also plenty of conveniently close businesses and facilities, such as a police station, visitor information center (just walk in any time for free Malone postcards!), a drug store, and a post office. Walking around Malone is easy to do (the drivers were extremely considerate of pedestrians; I'm used to having to walk around the back of cars that don't stop until they're sitting on top of the crosswalk, but here every car I met stayed well back until I had passed) and full of interesting sights, especially the architecture. The only time I needed vehicular transportation was on my way to/from the Adirondack Regional Airport (which FRC generously facilitated) and when our group went out on hikes. I tackled two trails while I was in Malone, both beautiful and just the right amount of challenging. The relatively easy access to hiking is another point in FRC's favor, if you're like me, inspired by nature and rejuvenated by physical activity.

I think the greatest compliment I can give FRC is that the positive, inclusive, and healthy atmosphere they actively foster is no doubt the reason I was able to achieve my goal of completing 25 Inktober drawings during my stay. And because of that, I was, for the first time in many years attempting the Inktober challenge, finally able to complete all 31 drawings! If ever circumstances come together again the way they did this year, I would return to FRC for a future retreat without question. I highly recommend it!

The start of my trip from Boise to New York!

The glittering New England ocean was beautiful from the plane 🤩

My room for the week!

The desk I worked at for 24 of the 25 drawings.

The desk got this high, so even tall people can use it standing!

The gorgeous view from the Azure Mountain fire tower.

The fright of climbing the multistory tower is worth it!

This pen holder was 3D printed by request for me by Pete, co-owner of FRC ✨

I never knew I needed this but now I can't do without it! Thank you, Pete 🥰

First of the Inktober retreat goodies: a t-shirt!

Other Inktober retreat goodies: supplies for next year, including a Moleskine sketchbook!

My workstation setup for most of the retreat.

I collected so many pretty leaves while I was in New York 🍁🍂 And I loved the rain!!

My evening walks in the park through crunchy leaves were the best~

Picturesque scenery right outside the retreat center!

A view from the front entrance.

Watching Moon Knight (told'ja it's my fave) while working.

Malone is a beautiful place in autumn.

My Inktober theme was gryphons, and here were some outside the post office!

I had to buy tape to protect my pen-rest finger, which was getting raw from so much drawing 🤕

One of the many delicious vegan meals that were served: tofu pad Thai.

Being presented with my certificate of attendance, just after I gave my concluding speech 😊

So grateful to this group for making the retreat amazing!

Bonus Inktober retreat goodie: a hoodie!

Of course I can't not send local postcards to my best!

Just before I left, my new friend Vika brought me to visit Lake Placid ✨

It was a rough journey home, but it still had its moments!

And that's it for this double-month's roundup! So many events to report, so many memories to share, I hope you enjoyed the read 😊✨ Thank you for sticking with me to the end. Until next month, stay safe and be well~!

It's another bright, sunny day. The vines growing up my garden floor window are protecting me from the harshest rays. The sky is cloudless and yet not clear; the normal blue is a hazy grey, probably smoky from the wildfires. Despite the summer heat this week, I'm wearing a hoodie. It's cold in the air conditioned basement.

August was a wild, eventful month. In rounding up everything for this post, I was surprised time and again, "Wow, that was in August? It feels like ages ago, now." I hope you'll enjoy examining this final full month of summer with me!

Patreon Rewards

This was the first thing that surprised me, when I realized it was indeed part of August. Patreon rewards for the month went out on the 8th. They featured my Spring Gryphon greeting card illustration, which was started back in June. It was my hope to get my Summer Gryphon completed in August as well, but with Sun's unexpected passing at the end of July, I couldn't muster the focus to meet such a deadline.

Copying the final sketch lines onto a sheet of tracing paper.

Physical media work complete.

The final piece, with digital adjustment and additions.

Not only postcards, but a full-size print went out into the world this time!

The very limited handwritten-note tiers of my Patreon are still open 😊 Your support helps me keep making art and telling stories, both from a practical, financial perspective, and also in an emotionally encouraging way, by showing me there are people who truly believe in my work. Sign up here to get a monthly postcard, print, or both 💖

Gryphia Progress

At the end of August, I had reached 3,600+ words written for my first draft of chapter five. Just today, September 2nd, I finished the chapter! I'm honestly getting a little worried that my 12-chapter format won't be long enough to contain the story I intend to write, but I continually remind myself that this is only the first draft. There will be plenty of time for revision, where I can edit to fit the original format, or decide to lengthen it. Right now, all that matters is writing the very first, and very rough, version of this story.

I'm aiming for 3,000-5,000 words per chapter.

deviantART

This blog post prompted me to finally get some more art uploaded to dA so I would have something to write about in this section! dA is the place I've posted my art online the longest, nearly twenty years. Keeping that going, so I can see how far I've come, is the reason I continue to use the platform. It's a fun impetus but never a priority. Hence why I am still a year behind in posting, lol.

"海鮮鍋 (Kaisen'nabe)" Click here to view on deviantART.

The piece I'm featuring here is my favorite project from my final undergraduate painting class, finished spring semester of 2021. The details are all on dA (so click the link 😉) but in brief, this is both a wolfy representation of the characters in one of my favorite otome visual novels, 百花百狼 aka Nightshade, and a depiction of the primary emotions using color and flowers. I'm so fond of this piece, I considered getting it as a tattoo!

The only art I have left to post from 2021 is my senior project, which includes six pieces. Then I have all the art I've made so far this year 😅 It would be nice if I could be caught up before 2023 arrives, lol.

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Summer Conference

Now this was an exciting and exhausting weekend! I attended my first "work conference" at the beginning of the month. It wouldn't have happened if SCBWI wasn't holding it 100% virtually. Ongoing pandemic aside, I simply can't afford the cost of attending a conference in New York City ☹️

The conference had a huge range of speakers and topics, delivered in keynote speeches, moderated panels, and breakout presentations. I learned so much about the publishing industry and how to improve my storytelling! It felt like I finally walked up to the distant, looming gatekeepers and found them not hard, sneering power mongers, but normal people just trying to help others find the correct door to pass through.

My studio viewing setup.

Sketches from the live, guided drawing session.

I love the sweet little story that I ended up creating!

I took SO MANY NOTES. It was like a semester in three days!

You might have noticed my awesome, crayon red hair in those photos 😊 My sister both reminded me of my childhood plan to dye my hair bright, flashy colors once it naturally lightened enough, and she actually helped me dye it! I found the Arctic Fox brand when I was googling around for long-lasting color, but I chose them because they're vegan! It goes without saying I'm chuffed with the results ❤️

Art Excursions

A huge, immediate impact the SCBWI conference had on me was inspiring some changes to my monthly routine. I am now adding an art excursion to my schedule every couple weeks, to get some live drawing practice. In August, I visited Zoo Boise two times (I always loved drawing the animals there, so of course it was my first choice) and nearly filled this sketchbook (which I bought at the zoo itself; it's made of fiber reclaimed from elephant poop 🤯).

From my August 13th visit.

From my August 18th visit.

I haven't decided where I'll go for my next excursions, but the World Center for Birds of Prey is top of my list. I'll also be visiting the Grand Canyon later this month, so I'll definitely be sketching the sights there! Please look forward to my plein air sketches in every roundup post from now on 📝✨

Livestreaming

It's the 7th of September now (yes, this blog post has taken me a while to compose!) and starting today, my livestream windows will be shortened to one hour. To be honest, it's been lonely the past few months, with hardly any viewership. On top of that, even when I have a live audience to keep me company, it remains physically taxing and mentally exhausting to make art while sitting still and talking for two hours straight.

I started using a new formula for Chibi Friday, to start telling stories with each piece.

Last week, I felt like giving up livestreaming altogether 😔 But I would like to continue fundraising for charity through my streams, and to keep open the opportunity to share my work with new people. Plus, it's Inktober next month, an event I almost always participate in. The popularity of Inktober may increase viewership, which will increase both the funds I donate to my October charity and the chance of having my work seen!

The ink wasn't Copic-proof, so I mapped colors with the markers before going digital.

So my plan is to continue livestreaming at least through the end of October. If by then I still feel like my time could be better spent on something else, I'll quit livestreaming and think of a new way to have fun raising money for charity together. For now, here is my updated schedule:

• Wednesdays 15:30 - 16:30 MDT (GMT-6) Lucky Dip
  (making a single piece of art using four randomly selected art supplies)
• Fridays 15:30 - 16:30 MDT (GMT-6) Chibi Friday
  (drawing one of my adorable, signature chibi caricatures)

Be sure to subscribe to my channel on Twitch (it's free!) to get notifications whenever I go live, and to see my most up-to-date schedule, including which days I won't be streaming due to vacation.

To honor Sun's memory, my Lucky Dip sessions featured 15 random items!

15 items for Sun's 15 years of life. His portrait turned out great 😊🤍

In happier news, I'm getting somewhat caught up on posting recordings to YouTube! 😅 Here's one of my recent uploads:

Staying caught up on YouTube posting is another benefit of the shorter stream window. One hour is half the time I was streaming previously, which means half the file size for the recording, and half the time required to upload and share it! This is another area where I'd really like to be completely caught up before the end of the year 🤞

Charity Fundraising

My charity for August was Best Friends Animal Society, whose mission is to eliminate the practice of killing homeless animals in the United States of America. Frankly, it's appalling that in our modern age of advanced technology, global communication, and unprecedented overall prosperity, this is still an issue. I remember that harrowing scene in Lady and the Tramp, with the happy-go-lucky, innocent dog being led off to the gas chamber, and it's shocking to realize this still occurs today.

In August I had 15 unique Twitch viewers, which equals a $10 USD donation to the organization! This is on top of a donation I made shortly after Sun's passing, at the beginning of August, in sponsorship of their long-term resident Shiba Inu, Hazel. I wanted to put August's Twitch-generated donation directly toward her care once again, so I actually increased the amount to $25, which is the minimum for a sponsorship 🐶💖

If you'd like to make your own donation to Best Friends Animal Society, or sponsor a specific animal in their care, click here ❤️ And to participate in my Twitch fundraising for September, join me when I go live and bring your friends! This month, I am raising money for Zoo Boise, whose activities support conservation of endangered species and the protection of wild animals around the world.

Monthly Recommendations

Now we come to the most fun part of my monthly roundups: recommendations! These are all things that brought goodness into my life in August and I'm excited to share them with you. Anything that requires a purchase is not being sponsored by the producer, nor am I being compensated in any way. I just really love this stuff for real 😄

👟 Workout of the Month 👟
Swimming

It being the dead of summer, with record-breaking temperatures, I had a great time swimming in August! The nice thing about it for me is that I don't swim as a sport, I just mess around in the water, come up with games, try some acrobatics, and just become a kid again. I always have a crazy fun time, and because these activities aren't part of my everyday life, I always end up sore as if I had done a full-body strength training session. It's the no-workout workout!

Although I'm desperately looking forward to cooler temps and autumn weather, I'm making the best of the remainder of summer with more swimming! Why not jump in yourself? I hope you can find a gym, public rec center, a friend with a pool, or even a lake or river to enjoy before summer is over!

🍽️ Vegan Victuals of the Month 🍽️
Red Curry with Tofu by Veestro

We started ordering Veestro meals last year and we enjoyed them so much (both the deliciousness and the convenience) that they've become a freezer staple ever since. They are the perfect weeknight dinner because they're tasty, healthy, vegan, quick & easy to prepare, and come in a variety of cuisines!

Although there are several Veestros (our term at home for "Veestro meals" lol) that I'm always happy to eat, there is just one stand-out favorite: the Red Curry with Tofu! This meal is SO DELICIOUS. Just writing about it this moment, even though it's breakfast time (this blog really is taking me forever: it's now the 16th!) and I just ate, my mouth is salivating in hopes of enjoying the brown rice smothered in mellow red curry filled with broccoli, cauliflower, and tofu 🤤✨

Unfortunately, Veestro recently announced a completely revamped delivery style and menu, which doesn't include my beloved Red Curry 😭 Please, Veestro, bring it back! I could eat this meal every day without tiring. It's not just my favorite Veestro meal, it's one of my favorite dinners, period!

📕 Book of the Month 📕
The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo

This month's recommended book is one that I purposefully took months to read. If you're a writer, or have dreams of becoming one, this is a must-read book! Check out my StoryGraph review for more details:

hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0 ⭐

It's hard to decide where to begin or what to include in my review. I have so many glowing remarks swirling inside me, I think I may end up saying less than I could, just because remarking upon all the individual points that make this book so informative and valuable would take too long! I think every writer should read this book, and just as is recommended in the book itself, they should read it slowly, while engaging in their writing practice. When I read that part, it convinced me to finally settle into a purposeful writing routine, with this book as my daily warmup. It is no exaggeration to say that the thousands of words I've added to my manuscript this year are hugely due to the constant, gentle encouragement this book provided. It didn't matter if the advice was relevant to what I was writing at the time. I absolutely filled the book with written sticky notes, marking things I want to remember later, things that I'll need when I finally get to that point in the process, things to be reminded of when I'm starting my next project, and things that are just good advice for any creative professional engaging in long-term projects.

I just happened to come across this book when shopping at Barnes & Noble one day, looking to use a coupon. The title caught my eye because it had already been years since I started my current novel and I still hadn't finished chapter one of my first draft. Who knew it would become my favorite book on writing, a paper teacher, encouraging and informing, and a magic talisman, spurring me on through darkness and doubt? It may sound overdramatic, but that's really the feeling I have toward this book. You can bet I will be reading it again and again throughout my writing career.

📺 Show of the Month 📺
X-Men on Disney+

For the past couple months, my husband and I have been watching the 90s X-Men cartoon on Disney+ (to avoid spoilers, I'll just say that the final episode of a certain new show inspired us!). I had seen a random episode here and there when the show was still airing for the first time, but never before now have I sat down and watched it all, start to finish. We're in the middle of season three, so we're only about halfway done with the series, but I already want to feature it here because it's surprisingly good!

While giving it concessions for the period it was made in (early 1990s) and its intended viewing platform (standard definition television) the show's pacing and storytelling still holds up today. I even found myself emotionally moved during several climactic moments! The show has also reaffirmed my love for Wolverine. I always liked him on those rare occasions I saw this cartoon as a kid, and of course Hugh Jackman's performance in 2000's X-Men made me fall totally in love. Seeing cartoon Wolverine again now, even though I've grown up and changed in so many ways, I'm very happy to confirm that he's exactly how I remembered 🥰

🎮 Game of the Month 🎮
Duolingo

August's recommended game is a bit different from usual. Duolingo is primarily a learning tool, but they've gamified it such that you can consider it just as much a game as anything else, it's just one where your real life skills level up as you progress!

Plush Duo: Specially released for Duolingo's 10th anniversary this year!

The reason I chose Duolingo for my roundup this time is because the annual Duocon took place in August. I attended virtually last year, and I couldn't help getting excited to do it again this year! I got all dressed up in my Duolingo shirt with matching makeup, and even Sora joined me in its green-accented flyper!

A bird on each shoulder. Which one is real? (The pigeon is real.)

Duocon isn't the only reason I'm shining my spotlight on Duolingo. Unlike any other game, Duolingo is something I do EVERY day. I practice my Japanese with at least one lesson per day, often doing two or three when Duolingo's game elements and encouragement from mascot Duo prompt me to keep going. I have an 827-day streak (about to become 828 once I finish up this blog post!) and I can't credit the platform enough with helping me advance and hone my Japanese language skills. I truly love Duolingo and recommended it to everyone wanting to learn a language!

🎧 Music of the Month 🎧
To The Opera! by Hans Zimmer

I've been listening to the Stephen Fry-narrated Sherlock Holmes audiobook for the past couple months, often while eating lunch and when working on illustration. It is phenomenal and it will certainly make an appearance in a future blog post after I finish it. That audiobook inspired me to feature here one of my favorite songs from the soundtrack of one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes adaptations:

Oooo, this part just gives me such chills, it's so powerfully moving, so exciting, so much darkness. The web of Moriarty is fully deployed, and our heroes are absolutely confounded by it. How can they possibly rise triumphant?! Goodness, I have riled myself up so much, I may have to rewatch these Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law movies again during my vacation next week 🤩

And, at last, that is all for my August roundup! The sun is shining terribly brightly this morning. I'm keeping my curtains closed against it. You wouldn't know that autumn weather has been sneaking its way in, blessing us with cloudy days and thunderstorms and cool mornings. I love it. I love the time of year that's on the way ❤️ Thank you for joining me again this month. I hope you enjoyed the ride! See you again in a couple weeks!

It's a lovely cloudy morning as I begin writing this. The summer sun is valiantly glowing through the hazy cover, but I'd be happy if the clouds thickened a bit more~ Google says it probably won't rain today, but I can always hope! To be honest, I'm finding it a bit difficult to start this month's roundup post. I'm feeling relatively well today, but about a week ago, we had to say the big goodbye to our 15-year-old fur baby, Sun. It was a sudden and shocking event, and I have been in a state of grief ever since. In my Sun-boy's honor, I'm including a celebration section at the end of this post 😊

July Patreon Rewards

It was actually Sun's 15th birthday in July, so I livestreamed a chibi caricature of him and made the end result into Patreon rewards! Patrons who have been with me since July 2021 now have two birthday Sun rewards, since I did the same thing last year 💌

First livestream session: ink complete!

Second livestream session: all done!

The sleepy Sun-dog poses with his portrait~🧡

Rewards away! Sun lives on in Studio Mikarts member collections 🤍

Click here to join Studio Mikarts on Patreon and get either a handwritten postcard, three blank postcards, a full-size print, or three postcards AND a print, all featuring my newest illustration work, every month.

Art Livestreaming

I put myself on vacation mode for obvious reasons last week, but until then, art livestreaming proceeded smoothly in July. I completed two Lucky Dip pieces (which is where I choose four art supplies at random and make a drawing or painting with them) and two chibi caricatures (Sun, my dog, and Deku from My Hero Academia, whose birthday was also in July!). My streaming schedule remains the same this month: Wednesday and Friday afternoons, 15:00 - 17:00 MDT (GMT-6). You can check for schedule updates and subscribe for livestream notifications by visiting my channel here. 

Thank you to everyone who joined me for these streams! Especially those of you who helped the time pass pleasantly by chatting with me while I worked 🗨️❤️

Lucky Dip XII, made with acrylic, watercolor, and ink.

Chibi Deku part 1, ink complete, marker started.

Lucky Dip XIII, graphite and metallic ink.

Chibi Deku part 2, complete!

I am unfortunately behind in uploading my art streams to YouTube, but I've got everything queued up and nearly ready to share, so there will be some new videos this month! Click here to visit my channel and subscribe to get notified when those videos debut 😉

Gryphia Progress

As with everything else in July, I wasn't productive in writing during the last week, but I had already reached a total of 2,734 words for my chapter four first draft, so I feel satisfied with my progress. There will always be ups and downs in any long-term project; what's important is keeping the work flowing, even if it's only a trickle!

Added over 600 words to chapter four today. I already know this section will need editing later but that's ok; my only concern right now is solidifying my ideas through writing! #WIP #Writing #Novel #Fantasy #Gryphons #Freewrite pic.twitter.com/x2em1Wc1DZ

— Studio Mikarts (@StudioMikarts) July 15, 2022

My goal for August is to finish chapter four and start chapter five. I'd be super happy if I could finish chapter five within the month, but I have learned from long experience that setting goals too high ends up with my lamenting what I didn't accomplish, rather than celebrating what I did (which is usually still a lot!).

deviantART

I'm making progress in catching up my deviantART account! This was one thing that actually benefited from my week of rest at the end of July. I wasn't very motivated most of the time, but I realized that I had uploaded neither my most recent Sun chibi, nor the one from last year! So now my 14th birthday Sun and another chibi dog caricature have joined the other 19 years of art on my account 😊

Happy 14th Birthday, Sun!

Monthly Recommendations

Now it's time to have fun with my monthly recommendations! In every roundup post, I like to share things that I've really enjoyed and hope that you will enjoy, too 😄 Here we go!

📕 Book of the Month📕
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

I wrote a huge review for this book on The StoryGraph last week, so I'll just let that speak for me!

 adventurous challenging emotional funny fast-paced

    Plot- or character-driven? A mix
    Strong character development? Yes
    Loveable characters? Yes

5.0 ⭐

It's been over a decade since I last read this book. I remembered loving it at the time, so much so that I preordered all the sequels as they came available, but after the fourth book, life got busy and I never finished reading the series, even though I owned it. Well, this year, with many recent disappointments while trying to discover new fantasy books, and after hearing about the rerelease of the Temeraire series in a set of beautiful, matching trade paperback covers, I was inspired to read His Majesty's Dragon again.

I was afraid my memories of loving the book (I remembered nothing but my feelings about it; everything else had completely evaporated from my mind) might end up being rose-tinted relics of the past. That actually happened to me with a gryphon book series earlier this year; in an odd way, being disappointed by an old favorite is heartbreaking. So I was half expecting to be let down when I flipped to the first page of His Majesty's Dragon this time. Imagine, then, my elation when I was desperately taken by the story from the very first line! And how much pleasure I experienced when, every time I opened the book to continue reading, I felt just as excited by the plot and as enamored with the characters, as I had the last time I set the book down ❤️

Naomi Novik's storytelling has done nothing less than restore my faith in fantasy. My entire life, this genre has been my absolute favorite, but for many years now, I just haven't encountered anything satisfying outside my frequent rereads of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and the Harry Potter series. I was legitimately questioning, when I picked up His Majesty's Dragon again, whether my tastes had actually changed as I've aged, and that the only fantasy I still liked were my childhood favorites. I am so grateful to feel completely reassured that I do indeed love fantasy books! I just need to be a little more selective when I give new books a try; from now on, if I don't feel gripped after reading the first page, I'll move on. I've spent too much time in recent years, trying to force myself to like a book, slogging through page after page, chapter after chapter, telling myself that I just need to give it more of a chance, perhaps reminding myself of how much other people have said they love it. As odd as it may sound, Temeraire has given me the confidence to respect my own tastes and opinions.

To get at last to talking about the contents of His Majesty's Dragon, I think my favorite part of the book is the deep, loving relationship between Laurence and Temeraire. There were so many moments that just touched my heart, and reminded me of my own feelings toward my non-human companions. I think, perhaps, the only reason I can write this review right now, is because of this heartwarming friendship. The reason being, just hours after I finished reading the book, my dog of 15 years passed away. I am still in the throes of grief as I write this, but rather than feeling like writing a book review is at odds with my feelings of loss and loneliness, instead I feel glad to finally have the motivation to put my ideas into words. The relationship between the principle captain and dragon in this story is so similar to those of us humans and our non-human friends, full of understanding, loyalty, love, comfort, and camaraderie that spans the boundaries of species (and confuses those who have not the pleasure of such a relationship).

But the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire isn't the only thing carrying this book. There is so much depth in the characters, different captains who have different relationships with their dragons (even entering the painful, heartbreaking realm of abuse and neglect), complex relationships between humans (mothers, fathers, daughters, lovers, commanders, subordinates, etc.), and of course the myriad of dragons who have varying levels of intelligence, sizes, features, desires, personalities, etc. The writing itself is so good that all of these things are very well presented, so that I was never confused about which dragon can do what, or why something was happening, or where the story was going next. I will say, however, that my love for late 19th and early 20th century British and French writing is probably a boon for me; if you're not good with the original Sherlock Holmes stories or the English translation of The Count of Monte Cristo, for example, you might find this writing style challenging. It is so akin to older such writing (at least that which I'm familiar with) I actually took a moment to see whether the author was British herself (nope, she's a fellow American 😊). After the characters and writing, the plot is the next feature I'd like to highlight. I remember when I first read this book, I had no interest in history whatsoever. The idea of Napoleonic Wars-era dragons was wacky and wild, which is why I gave it a shot, but I didn't expect to actually enjoy the historical aspects, which I did, both then and again this time! Just goes to show that well-written fantasy can make everything it's associated with awesome 😄

Something I liked about the end of this book is the excerpts from the "sketchbook of Sir Edward Howe". It's a very fun addition to the world of Temeraire and a nice way to ease the reader off the high of the final, exciting chapters of the story. The inclusion, as well, of an excerpt from the next volume in the series was also a great way to get readers excited about continuing their adventures with Temeraire. Well, for this reader, it's not just exciting but worrying! I want Laurence and Temeraire to be happy! I need to get reading Throne of Jade right away, so that the versions of that pair who live in my mind can overcome the challenge that has been set before them by this final teaser!

It may not be surprising to know that I am currently over 50% done reading Throne of Jade 🤓📖

🎧 Music of the Month 🎧
Imagine by John Lennon

The music I'd like to feature this month is one of those rare old songs that seems ageless. It was written about 15 years before I was born, but I didn't really begin to appreciate it until I was an adult, when the harsh realities of life were starting to sink in, conflicting with my bright vision for the future. My favorite lines are these:

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

It wasn't always so, but these days, Imagine is my favorite song. I don't know if I've ever heard a more bold and encouraging proposition than that which it offers. It gives me hope for the future and makes me feel like I'm not alone ❤️

📺 Show of the Month 📺
Raya and the Last Dragon by Disney

We've been having a weekly movie night at my house for about two months now and I enjoyed all the movies we watched in July. It was tough to pick just one, but ultimately, Raya and the Last Dragon is my featured feature 😉 I had no idea what to expect from it other than humans and dragons doing stuff together (wow, humans and dragons is a bit of a theme for July!) but that mystery paid off in the form of a touching, humorous fantasy adventure that I'd love to watch again!

Movie night this week: Raya and the Last Dragon 🐉💚💕 It was a funny, beautiful movie with a powerful message of hope. Would watch again 😊 pic.twitter.com/pVpzrUH2r4

— Studio Mikarts (@StudioMikarts) July 9, 2022

🎮 Game of the Month 🎮
Olympia Soirée for Nintendo Switch

I'm still playing Olympia Soirée! It's my featured game again because, other than fitness games, I haven't played anything else, ha ha. Like most Otomate titles, it's a very long visual novel. According to my Switch console, I've already logged over 55 hours of play time, and that's including the fact that I skip read text on all but the final route 😅 I'm now on the second-to-last route and I'm very glad that the order I wanted to play these final characters in is actually the only way the game allows!

Finished Yosuga's route last week, now at the beginning of Himuka's ♡ Went from the least to the most shy of characters~ #OtomeArmada #OlympiaSoiree #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/xtYeXt2Nfk

— Studio Mikarts (@StudioMikarts) August 2, 2022

Without repeating too much of what I said about this game last month, I would like to reiterate that it is a shining example of an otome visual novel, complete with gorgeous art, music, and voice acting, and driven by a complex, engaging story that deals with some very tricky and timely real-world social issues. It's a game that really makes you think, but still doesn't skimp on the adventure, romance, and fantasy.

👟 Workout of the Month 👟
Garage DDR

My featured workout this month is a fairly rare undertaking, I assume. Every Saturday, I slip on my athletic shoes, walk into the garage, and play an hour of intense Dance Dance Revolution! Just this year, my awesome husband drove all the way to Utah to pick up some homemade arcade style dance pads. We started playing DDR in our garage last year (after a multi-year hiatus) but all of our old dance pads were worn out, with buttons that didn't always work, or they slid around so much that we'd start missing arrows because the buttons had physically moved under our feet. With the new setup, it's like playing DDR at an arcade, but even better because we don't have to keep feeding the machine money, nor do we have to share with strangers, and we can play dozens of console and PC DDR games, making for days (weeks??) worth of songs to choose from 🤩

Believe it or not, this dancing game is what first set me upon the path of lifelong fitness, over twenty years ago. Until that point in my teens, I always thought I hated exercise. In fact, at one point in my childhood, my mom even used exercise as corporal punishment! No wonder I hated it! But then, during a visit to family in Southern California, my sister and I discovered DDR in a video game arcade that was, I think, part of a mini golf place 🤔 Of course, we totally sucked the first time, and failed out in the first song, but it didn't matter. My fate was sealed. My interest in the game grew, thanks to my parents gifting me a PS2 DDR game complete with foldable plastic dance pad, and when I was old enough to get a job, one of the first things I invested in was a sturdy metal dance pad set that lasted me all the way until last year! DDR taught me that exercise can be fun and these days, I even do squats and pushups, and all the calisthenics that were once used as punishment, just for the fun and satisfaction of a good workout!

🍽️ Vegan Victuals of the Month 🍽️
Field Roast Stadium Dogs

My featured vegan food this month is another example of a childhood favorite that's kinder to our animal cousins and better for the planet 💚 Good ol' classic hot dogs! I've tried and enjoyed many vegan hot dog options, but these Stadium Dogs are exactly like the quick lunch and backyard BBQ fare I grew up with. They grill, pan fry, and even microwave just as you'd expect, and have the precise texture and flavor a former meat-eater will remember. The only negative is, they are made with pea protein, but oddly, although I have a mild allergy to the ingredient, I've never had a reaction to these dogs 🤔 (Maybe it's because I always eat them after cooking to a high temperature?) Of course, if you don't have pea or peanut allergies, you will be good to go! It's the middle of summer here right now, so it's just the perfect time to grill up some vegan dogs and enjoy the dog days! 🌭🌞

💸 Charity of the Month 💸
The Peregrine Fund

For July, I designated The Peregrine Fund as my featured charity. They work to conserve birds of prey and their habitats across the globe, and I consider myself fortunate to live in the same city as their public face, The World Center for Birds of Prey 🦅🦉💕 This is now the second month of my new charity fundraising system in which I use my monthly unique viewer count on Twitch to determine my final donation amount. The formula is $0.10 USD per unique viewer, with a minimum of $10 and a max of $100. Here's how viewership stood in July:

Of course, the number was negatively impacted by my unexpected week off at the end of the month, but if we divide the existing number of viewers by three to get an average per week, then add that number as an estimate of what that missing week might have added, and round up for good measure, that's about 27 unique viewers for July 🎉 Accordingly, I have made a $10 USD donation to The Peregrine Fund 🤎

Just so you know, my favorite raptor is actually this charity's namesake, the peregrine falcon!

Celebrating the Life of Sun Liu Shennaimu Hu

To close this post, I'd like to remember my beloved doggy with some written memories, photos, and artwork 🤍 I first adopted Sun (which is pronounced 'soon' like the Chinese surname) in 2008. It came about because my coworker--who had just learned of my deep affection for the shiba inu after showing her its entry in a dog breed encyclopedia when we were on a lunch break bookshop trip--noticed an ad in the paper from someone wanting to rehome their shiba inu and Yorkshire terrier due to divorce. I jumped on the chance, and 8-month-old Koda soon became Sun Liu Shennaimu Hu.

My first photo of Sun, taken during our first meeting.

If you're wondering about the length of his name, there was a good reason for it! It made no difference to whether I wanted him, but it turned out he was a pedigree-holding descendant of champions! Pedigree animals are generally given long names to ensure no two animals are registered under the same name. Since I wasn't interested in breeding or showing Sun (I just wanted an awesome shiba inu buddy!) I defied convention--which often has the pedigree name containing the kennel name and maybe some play off the parent dogs' names, and is rarely the dog's real name--by giving Sun a long string of real names. Sun and Liu are Chinese surnames, and I took them from a couple of my favorite characters in the Dynasty Warriors video game series. The next name, Shennaimu, was my attempt at converting another favorite character's Japanese name, that is Kaminogi Soryuu from the Ace Attorney series, into Chinese. Finally Hu is the Chinese word for fox 🦊

Sun's pedigree; he had some amusingly named ancestors 😅

For the first few months, Sun lived with my dad because I was right in the middle of buying and moving into my first house. I still remember introducing Sun to my other dog, Kenshi, who was also living with my dad. I was full of trepidation. I wanted them to get along but I didn't know how long it would take for them to become friends. Would it be a long warming up period? Would they get into a fight at first? I needn't have worried. They were fast friends from the first moment, and stayed that way for the rest of Kenshi's life ❤️

Sun & Kenshi, BFF 💖

Once we were all settled in my new house, I realize now, Sun was with me for every major event in my adult life. My mom's death; meeting the man who would become my husband; adopting our cats Kiki and Kiba; my Oma Jan's death; seeing a mental health counselor for the first time; making my marriage proposal (and getting the yes!); losing my job; getting married; Kenshi's death; starting my Patreon; running my first 5K race, my first 10K, and my first half-marathon; buying a bigger house with a proper yard for Sun to play in; the deaths of four more grandparents, and that of our cats, Bear and Kiba; rescuing our pigeon Sora; graduating with my Illustration degree...a perfectly bittersweet mix of life that was always better thanks to Sun being by my side.

Sun, one year old, at our new house, enjoying the grass and sunshine~

Sun made his way into my artwork frequently. Even when it wasn't Sun specifically, I drew and sketched him so much, the shiba inu silhouette is now my default when I think about drawing a dog from memory 🐶 I won't post all of my drawings of him, but here are a few examples of his many appearances:

In 2011, he joined chibi Bear on an ACEO.

In 2014, I made a simple sketch of him enjoying a day outside.

In 2019, he joined me for a tea party in one of my first illustration class assignments.

Although I am grateful for the many, many years I got to spend with Sun, I feel greedy. I wish he was still with me. I know this is such a tired line, but it truly describes my feelings: there's a Sun-shaped hole in my heart, and nothing has been able to fill it 😢 Perhaps for now, it doesn't need to be filled. Time heals all wounds, albeit slowly. Until then, I'll savor my happy memories, and smile every time Sun's photos pop up on the Google kitchen display and my phone charging screen.

The 15-year-old birthday boy, enjoying a delicious peanut butter bowl 🐶✨

It's now been a week since I started drafting this blog entry. My work progresses slowly as I adapt to my new normal. It's hot and cloudy again today, but my wish came true: the clouds thickened up and it even rained a bit this morning!

Thank you for joining me for July's roundup post, especially if you read the entire thing! I appreciate the opportunity to share my professional and personal life with you through this blog ❤️ I hope you'll stick around and look forward to finding out what happens next!