Creative Wins From the Art Toolkit Team

The end of the year is a great time to reflect, and this year, we asked the Art Toolkit team to share some creative wins. We are defining a creative win as something created, dreamed up, practiced, or produced that you are proud of! It can look like trying a new approach to painting, completing an art challenge, building something with your hands, or setting an intention that has impacted your creative expression. Read on to hear from our team.

Renée Baribault

A hand holds a sketchbook open to a drawing of Mount Katahdin, with a landscape featuring a calm lake and mountains in the background. Art supplies are visible beside the sketchbook. — Mt. Katahdin at Baxter State Park by Renée Baribault.

Since joining the Art Toolkit team in 2021, I have committed to carrying my Art Toolkit with me everywhere! The result has been that I take pauses in the places I wander to observe, reflect, and capture the essence of what I see and how I feel. Recently, I returned to the Maine coast, where I had spent time as a child. Pausing to sit and sketch allowed me to drop into my childhood memories while seeing the place anew through my adult lens.

Cole Morreale

A sketchbook page featuring two illustrations: one scene shows a café interior with three people at a table, and the other depicts a park with two individuals playing volleyball and a dog nearby. Various pens and a pencil case are also visible. — Sketches of times with friends…

A watercolor illustration of a dog lying on grass covered with autumn leaves. The dog has a fluffy coat and a red collar, looking content as it rests with its back turned. In the background, there is a blue bench and hints of trees. The image is accompanied by handwritten notes. — … and puppies! By Cole Morreale.

I am really proud of the sketchbook I started this year. When I started at Art Toolkit, I was really shy to sketch in front of people, as it was really hard and I was never happy with how my sketches looked. Now, I am more than happy to let people flip through things I’ve observed and jotted down, I’ve found a way to sketch that works for me, and I’m having a lot of fun with it! It’s easy when I have a really inspiring team to sketch with, too.

Chelsea Heron

Two pieces of translucent art featuring pressed flowers in various colors. The top piece showcases red and yellow flowers, while the bottom displays green and light yellow blooms. Both pieces have a soft, hazy appearance. — Eco-prints of coreopsis and other flowers.

It has been a lot of fun exploring what is possible with eco-printing over the past year. I’ve taken a liking to collaging some of my favorite poems or book excerpts onto these unique prints of things I grew during the summer months. It has become my favorite gift to give to my friends and family! I have yet to dive into printing on fabric, but I will do so in due time.

Justin Lesser

A collection of colorful robot figures is displayed on a green cutting mat. The left robot is painted in red, blue, and gray, holding a tool. The middle features smaller robots in various poses and colors, with one hooked to a blue object. The right robot stands upright in yellow with green and black accents, holding a device. — Robot figurines made of found scraps by Justin Lesser.

My creative wins for the year are making and then filling an art/junk journal and making a robot from scratch from plastic parts I have found/collected, from start to finish! I’ve never completed a sketchbook, so it’s pretty exciting to actually complete one, and I have many robots that I have started that are waiting to be finished, but I actually got one finished this year!

Kim Kopetz

A round, inverted letterpress set-up.

A collection of poetry materials featuring W.S. Merwin's book "The Shadow of Sirius" alongside a circular poem printed on white paper, with the text arranged in a circular pattern. The background is a wooden table surface. — A printed piece on square paper by Kim Kopetz.

This winter, I participated in a Poetry + Letterpress workshop and took the opportunity to “print in the round,” otherwise known as daredevil typesetting, for the first time, marking a notable stepping stone in my letterpress learning.

Maria Coryell-Martin

Sailboats float peacefully on a calm water surface under a cloudy sky, with a backdrop of lush green trees. — Port Townsend bay direct watercolor sketch by Maria Coryell-Martin.

A woman with curly hair is sitting on a wooden dock by the water, painting with watercolors. She wears a light sweater with blue stripes and has sandals on her feet. The calm water and cloudy sky create a serene backdrop. — Maria sketches on the dock downtown.

Reflecting on 2024, one standout creative win for me was the Direct Watercolor Challenge in June. This event sparked a delightful series of plein sketches that I kept up throughout the summer. As an avid swimmer, I often carved out time to paint the sea and sky before my swims, using broad, gestural brush strokes. Some mornings, my kiddo would join me before school for sunrise, and we’d drink tea and make art together on a driftwood log. On other days, a friend might join me, and we’d feel nourished by creativity and company. I particularly enjoyed painting the same scene repeatedly, observing it through the changing light and weather. The series inspired me to create my Cloudscapes Workshop!

I carried a dedicated A5 Art Toolkit for the project, with a Hahnemühle 100% Cotton Watercolor Book (landscape), a Folio Palette, and a Rosemary & Co R28 Red Dot Mop (formally R3).

Darin Reid

Sketches in a notebook showing various designs for a storefront and product packaging. Notes include ideas for materials and features like “OPEN” signs and an art tool list. — Darin’s open sketchbook, showing design inspiration for retail signage.

We’re working on new signage outside our retail shop, and I’ve enjoyed the process of sketching out ideas in pencil in my MD Notebook from Midori. This is the first time I’ve worked with an outside designer on any Art Toolkit assets, and I’m so excited to see our ideas as real world objects!

Morgan Terry

A person sits on the floor in a spacious, brightly lit room with exposed brick walls. They are smiling and holding a small child beside them. Clothes are scattered on the floor, and a radiator is visible in the background. — Morgan and daughter Sloan seated in a studio space.

My creative win this year was prioritizing my art practice with realistic expectations. This allowed me to keep momentum during a period when I had very little creative art-making time. I could watercolor for 30 minutes or stitch for 15 minutes and make slow, incremental progress. I also rented a beautiful art studio, which I have spent very little time in, but it’s ready for me when I have a moment.

Nakaia Macomber-Millman

A watercolor palette and brushes rest on a rocky surface surrounded by lush greenery and plants. — Rainy hike sketching on the Coromandel.

Watercolor illustration featuring scenic landscapes and a café setting. The top half depicts a serene mountain view at sunset with vibrant colors. The middle section showcases a café table with a slice of cake, coffee, and tableware. The bottom portion displays rolling green hills and a lush landscape. — Sketches by Nakaia Macomber-Millman: The Pinnacles at sunrise, Café Melba in Auckland, and northern farmland.

This year, I dedicated a sketchbook to capturing my surroundings while visiting the north island of Aotearoa (New Zealand) with family. It was the first time I filled a whole book on one trip, and it has become a treasured keepsake that I use to recount and relive my travels with people who are curious!

Ron Ransom

My recent creative win is a poster project that I am currently working on. Most of my commercial artwork is done on the computer; however, for this project, I have incorporated traditional media into my workflow. I am pitching six different poster designs for this project. Five are traditional drawings and paintings, and one is a photo composition where I set up a photo shoot with models and props. Due to my NDA I can’t share any of the images just yet but I am very happy with the progress so far.

Meshell Whittaker

A cluttered workspace filled with various sketchbooks and artwork, including landscapes, people, and colorful palettes, all surrounded by jars of paintbrushes and a red lamp. Natural light streams in from a window nearby. — Meshell Whittaker’s studio desk, crowded with sketchbooks and pages of her art.

I’d have to say that since I started working at Art Toolkit, I have become inspired to create more, learn more, and try more mediums. I’m grateful to be around so many creatives; it has opened my artistic inquiry to a whole other level and unlocked something inside me.

Jenna Frank

A hand holding a yellow pencil is sketching on a piece of paper, featuring whimsical illustrations of flowers, animals, and foliage. Next to it, a colored drawing of a bird perched on a branch with pinecones is visible, labeled "Artist-Loaded". — Wilderness doodles by Jenna Frank.

My typical creative tools are an Apple pen and tablet, but my creative win happened when I ditched those fancy gadgets and grabbed a good ol’ No. 2 pencil to doodle my heart out, showing that sometimes the best ideas come from just having fun with the basics!

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We hope that our creative wins inspire you to reflect on the variety of ways we practice our creativity and the joy of sharing those practices with others. Best wishes for 2025!