Other times it comes from one of my favorite movies.
And sometimes, well, it comes from an internet-famous raccoon.
Over the last week or so I found myself smiling every time another video of Jimothy the raccoon appeared in my feed. Like so many others, I immediately fell in love with his determination. Jimothy gets around a little differently than most raccoons, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. He simply scoots through life, exploring the world with the same curiosity as any other raccoon.
That confidence inspired my latest painting, Living His Best Life.
I didn’t want to focus on what makes Jimothy different. I wanted to paint him exactly as he seems to see himself: a raccoon with somewhere to be. No fanfare, no self-pity, just putting one foot in front of the other and carrying on despite what might limit him. Isn’t that what we all should be doing?
Maybe that’s why so many people have fallen in love with him. Jimothy isn’t trying to inspire or impress anyone. He’s just living his life, and somehow that has inspired millions of people anyway.
I hope this painting captures even a small part of the joy Jimothy has brought to so many of us over the past few days. I had so much fun painting him. ❤️
When I first started painting, I painted whatever caught my attention that day.
One week it might be a landscape. The next week a flower. Then a still life, a sunset, or an abstract piece. While I enjoyed experimenting, my artwork didn’t always feel connected. If you laid ten paintings side by side, it wasn’t always obvious they came from the same artist.
As I painted more, I realized I was drawn to recurring themes rather than isolated subjects. Instead of creating unrelated pieces, I found myself building bodies of work connected by a shared idea.
That shift changed the way I think about my work.
Start with a theme, not a subject
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that a collection doesn’t have to be about painting the same thing over and over.
Instead, think about a common thread that connects your work.
For me, those threads became literature, cinema, nature, and marine life. Each collection explores a different source of inspiration, but they all share a similar visual language.
Having a theme gives every new painting a purpose. Instead of asking, “What should I paint today?” I ask, “What belongs in this collection?”
Let your style do the talking
A cohesive collection isn’t just about subject matter.
It’s also about consistency in how you paint.
Over time, I found myself drawn to minimalist compositions with generous negative space, soft shadows, and restrained color palettes. Those choices became just as recognizable as the subjects themselves.
Your style doesn’t have to develop overnight. In fact, it usually doesn’t. It grows through repetition and by paying attention to what feels most natural to you.
Give yourself creative boundaries
At first, limiting yourself can feel restrictive.
In reality, I found the opposite to be true.
When I decided my Literary and Cinema Collections would focus on symbolic objects instead of characters, every painting became a creative puzzle. Instead of wondering what to paint, I could spend my energy deciding which object best represented a story.
Those kinds of boundaries often lead to more creative solutions because they encourage deeper thinking instead of endless options.
Don’t be afraid to say no
One of the hardest parts of building a cohesive body of work is deciding what doesn’t belong.
Not every idea has to become a painting.
I’ve had plenty of ideas that I liked, but they simply didn’t fit the direction I wanted my collections to take. Saying no to a good idea often creates room for a better one.
Your portfolio becomes stronger when every piece feels like it belongs.
Collections evolve over time
One thing I’ve learned is that collections are never really finished.
They grow slowly, one painting at a time.
Some ideas stay in a sketchbook for months before they become a finished piece. Others come together almost immediately. I’ve also found that one painting often inspires the next, leading me in directions I never expected.
Looking back, I can see how my collections have become more focused and more consistent over time. That didn’t happen because I planned every detail from the beginning. It happened because I kept paying attention to what felt authentic to me.
Final Thoughts
If you’re an artist trying to find your own style, don’t worry about creating a perfect collection right away.
Start by looking for the themes, colors, and compositions you naturally return to. Those repeated choices are often the beginning of your artistic voice.
For me, building collections has made painting more meaningful. Instead of creating isolated pieces, I’m creating bodies of work that grow together, tell a larger story, and continue to evolve with every new painting.
If you’ve followed my artwork over the years, you may have noticed that something has changed.
For a long time, I painted primarily large-scale oil paintings. I loved the process of building layers of paint across a big canvas and watching an image slowly come to life. At the time, I couldn’t have imagined painting anything as small as an ACEO (2.5 x 3.5 Artist Trading Card) or a bookmark.
Then I discovered watercolor.
Somewhere along the way, my perspective began to shift. I found myself enjoying the challenge of working smaller. Watercolor taught me to slow down, simplify, and pay closer attention to the little details. Later, I discovered gouache, and I loved that it offered the same intimacy while allowing me to build richer layers and softer textures.
Before I knew it, I was filling my sketchbooks and eventually my art desk, with tiny paintings.
One of the things I enjoy most about creating small artwork is that it doesn’t ask much from the person who brings it home. It doesn’t need a large empty wall or an elaborate display. A miniature painting can sit on a bookshelf beside a favorite novel, brighten a work desk, add character to a reading nook, or become part of a cozy corner that already feels like home.
I’ve also come to appreciate how approachable small original art can be. Not everyone has the space or the budget for a large painting, but a small piece can still bring warmth, personality, and a sense of connection to a space. Original art doesn’t have to be oversized or break the bank to make a difference.
As my work has evolved, so has the variety of things I create. My Etsy shop now includes original 5×7 paintings, ACEOs, bookmarks, magnets, and notecards. While they’re different products, they all grew from the same realization: art doesn’t have to be large to be meaningful.
Looking back, I’m grateful that I didn’t stay in one place as an artist. I still admire large paintings, and maybe one day I’ll return to them. But for now, I’m enjoying this season of creating smaller pieces that invite people to slow down, look a little closer, and find a place for original art in their everyday life.
Sometimes the smallest paintings leave the biggest impression.
When I was in college at UGA, I was only a few classes away from completing a second major in Comparative Literature. My degree ultimately remained in journalism and magazines, but Comparative Literature became one of the most influential parts of my education.
I took every Comparative Literature course I could fit into my schedule. Children’s Literature, Literature and Cinema, Chinese Literature and Film, Literature and Medicine, Myth and Oral Tradition, Modernism and Postmodernism, Literature and Philosophy, Romantic European Literature, Jewish Literature, World Literature. Looking back, I realize that those classes shaped the way I think about stories, art, and creativity more than almost anything else.
What I loved most about Comparative Literature was that it was never really about studying a single book.
It was about studying connections.
We examined how the same ideas travel across cultures, languages, centuries, and artistic forms. A theme might begin in a poem, reappear in a novel, find new expression in a film, and then emerge again in a painting, sculpture, dance performance, or piece of music. The story changed, but the underlying ideas endured.
One of my favorite papers I wrote compared Peter Pan to Dante’s Inferno. At first glance, the two works seem completely unrelated. One is a beloved children’s story and the other is a medieval epic poem about the afterlife. Yet the more closely I looked, the more parallels I found. Peter guides the Darling children through a series of encounters that resemble a journey through different levels of an afterlife. Captain Hook functions as a devil-like figure waiting at the end of that journey. Peter Pan, like Virgil, a guide. Whether intentional or not, the comparison revealed how stories often echo one another across centuries.
Another concept that fascinated me was intertextuality.
Intertextuality is the idea that no story exists in complete isolation. Every text is influenced by other texts that came before it, and every reader brings memories of other stories into the reading experience. Meaning is created not only by the author but also by the connections we make.
I even wrote about this concept through an unexpected example: Family Guy. Much of its humor depends on references, allusions, and shared cultural knowledge. The show assumes that viewers recognize the stories, films, and ideas being referenced. Without those connections, many of the jokes simply would not work.
The same principle appears throughout art history.
Rodin’s The Gates of Hellwas directly inspired by Dante’s Inferno. The sculpture becomes richer when viewed alongside the literary work that influenced it. The literature informs the art, and the art invites us back to the literature.
For years, I thought these ideas belonged to my academic life.
Then I started painting.
When I began creating my Literary Art Series, I realized I was returning to many of the same questions that fascinated me in those classes.
Why do certain images stay with us long after we finish a book?
Why do we remember a green light, a button, a rose, a hallway, or a pair of shoes?
Why do some objects come to represent an entire story?
My paintings rarely depict characters or scenes. Instead, they focus on symbolism. The button from Coraline. The green light from The Great Gatsby. The rose from The Picture of Dorian Gray. The hallway and carpet from The Shining. Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. The yellow wallpaper itself.
These objects carry meaning beyond their physical form. They become shorthand for larger ideas: identity, obsession, hope, temptation, childhood, fear, freedom, memory.
Without the stories, the paintings would not exist.
In that sense, every piece in the Literary Art Series is intertextual. Each painting exists in conversation with the book that inspired it. The artwork depends on the story, while the story gives additional meaning to the artwork.
What I find most rewarding is that viewers often bring their own experiences to the paintings. Someone who has never read Coraline may simply see a button and a strand of red thread. Someone who knows the story immediately sees something else entirely. The meaning expands through the viewer’s relationship with the text.
Years ago, I studied how literature becomes film, how stories become sculpture, and how ideas move across artistic forms.
Today, I find myself participating in that same process.
The books I loved became symbols. The symbols became paintings. The paintings become part of an ongoing conversation that began long before I picked up a paintbrush.
Comparative Literature taught me that stories are never truly isolated. They continue to evolve as they move through different mediums, different cultures, and different generations.
My Literary Art Series is simply my contribution to that conversation.
When I started creating my literary-inspired paintings, I realized I wasn’t interested in painting famous characters or scenes from books. What I loved most were the objects and symbols that stayed with me long after I finished reading.
For me, a single object can sometimes say more than an entire scene.
A green light can instantly bring to mind The Great Gatsby. A rose under glass can remind us of The Little Prince. A worn hat and feather can call up memories of Peter Pan. These symbols become part of the story itself.
I like the challenge of reducing a book to one meaningful image. It forces me to think about what truly captures the feeling of a story. Not the plot. Not the characters. The feeling.
I also love that symbols leave room for interpretation. Someone who recognizes the reference sees one thing. Someone who doesn’t may simply enjoy the artwork for what it is. Both experiences are valid.
As I continue expanding my literary series, I’ll keep looking for those small details that linger in our minds long after the final page. Sometimes the most memorable part of a story isn’t a character at all. Sometimes it’s a rose, a green light, a button, or a key.
Books have always been a source of inspiration for me.
Like many readers, there are certain stories that stay with me long after I’ve finished the final page. Sometimes it’s a character. Sometimes it’s a setting. More often, it’s a feeling or a symbol that lingers in my mind for years.
Recently, I began exploring a new series of gouache paintings inspired by some of my favorite books.
As I started planning the collection, I found myself asking an important question: Should I paint the characters and scenes that everyone already recognizes, or should I focus on something more subtle?
I chose the second approach.
Rather than creating illustrations of famous literary moments, I wanted to create paintings that capture the mood, symbolism, and atmosphere of a story. My goal is not to retell the book through art, but to create a visual interpretation of what makes that story memorable.
My love of literature extends beyond my personal reading life. While attending the University of Georgia, I completed so many Comparative Literature courses that I was only two classes shy of earning a double major in Journalism and Comparative Literature. Some of my favorite classes explored children’s literature, symbolism, character development, conflict, theme, and perspective.
Those courses changed the way I read. They also changed the way I look at life. They taught me to look beyond plot and pay attention to the symbols, imagery, and themes that give stories their deeper meaning. Looking back, it’s not surprising that those same elements are what inspire me most as an artist.
The first piece in the collection was inspired by one of my favorite books, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
If you’ve read the novel, you probably know the image that immediately came to mind: a tiny green light shining across the water.
That small green light becomes a powerful symbol throughout the story. It represents hope, longing, ambition, and the pursuit of something that always seems just out of reach. Instead of painting Gatsby, I painted the night sky, the water, distant shoreline lights, and that single green light reflected across the bay.
For me, that image captures the spirit of the novel more than a portrait ever could.
One of the things I love most about literature is that every reader brings their own experiences and interpretations to a story. I hope these paintings encourage people to do the same.
This collection is still in its early stages, but I already have plans for additional pieces inspired by some of my favorite classics, likely including The Picture of Dorian Gray, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men,In Cold Blood, The Yellow Wallpaper, Brave New World, and A Separate Peace, and more. Each painting will focus on the symbols, settings, and emotions that make those stories unforgettable.
While the collection is beginning with classic literature for adults, I also hope to eventually explore some of my favorite children’s books and young adult novels in future pieces. Stories such as The Little Prince, Peter Pan, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charlotte’s Web, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Outsiders, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower have left a lasting impression on me and offer rich symbolism and imagery to draw from.
Just as with the classics, I won’t be focusing on illustrating characters or scenes. Instead, I hope to capture the objects, settings, and symbols that make these stories so memorable. My goal is to create paintings that evoke the feeling of a beloved book while leaving room for personal interpretation and nostalgia.
I look forward to sharing more as the collection grows.
Thank you for following along on this creative journey.
