Big Paintings, Venice Nights & Shanghai Days 🦆✈️

🌺 My Biggest Canvas Yet

This past week, I completed my large-scale commission and officially painted the biggest canvas I have ever worked on! The piece is a whopping 5 by 6 feet and is headed to Hollywood as soon as we can figure out how to actually get it there.

I quickly realized after purchasing the

canvas from Blick that it did not fit in my Jeep or my boyfriend’s car. Thankfully, I was not the first person to face this dilemma. Blick had the number for a mover posted on the wall, so I called him up and managed to get the canvas delivered to my house right before the store closed.

The problem now is that I cannot find his number, and the building where the painting is headed is also on the hunt for someone with a truck or van. No luck so far, but they’re keeping me posted! For now, the piece takes up about a third of my art studio, so I’ll be hanging out nice and close to it.

I posted photos of the finished piece a few days ago, and almost everyone I’ve seen in LA since has said the same two things:

One, I love the piece.Two, it doesn’t seem like your usual style.

And I totally understand what they mean. It isn’t necessarily cutesy, but it is still whimsical, and I think it feels like a natural evolution of my work. I don’t say that to diminish my current style in any way because I still love the colorful, playful world I’ve created. If anything, this piece proved to me, and hopefully to others, that I can take my artistic voice and adapt it to so many different spaces. Whether I’m creating something for a personal home, a gallery, or a corporate space, I can still find a way to make it feel like me.

🦆 Art Crawling Through the Venice Canals

I live just a few blocks away from the Venice Canals. Not the ones in Italy, the canals of Venice Beach, California! They’re absolutely beautiful, lined with some of the most unique houses in every style imaginable and, of course, filled with lots of ducks.

Last Thursday, the canals hosted an art

crawl featuring local artists and bands. It was so much fun weaving around the different canals and stepping inside homes I’ve admired for so long to see the art displayed inside.

I did, in fact, love all of the art, but I will admit that I was equally excited to finally get a peek inside these insanely cool homes. And the interiors did not disappoint. Every house participating in the crawl had its own art, snacks, wine, and people coming in and out throughout the night.

More than anything, it was such a nice reminder that all of these creative people are my neighbors. I feel incredibly lucky to live in such an artistic little pocket of LA, especially one where my boyfriend can mix up delicious margaritas, pour them into cups, and we can spend the night wandering the canals, looking at art, listening to great music, and meeting very cool people. Pretty dreamy if you ask me.

🎨 More Art Is Coming...

As for everything else I’ve been creating, I promise there is a lot more to share. Unfortunately, there are a few things I still can’t reveal quite yet, but hopefully by my next newsletter I’ll finally be able to show you what I’ve been working on.

Stay tuned!

✈️ Back to My Home Away From Home

I’m hoping my next newsletter will still make it out on its planned date of September 7th, although I’ll be overseas on my last big trip of the year!

I’m finally returning to my forever home away from home, Shanghai, while also venturing somewhere new with stops in Shenzhen and Malaysia. I’m beyond excited to return to a place that has influenced me and my art so deeply, especially now that I’m going back with an entirely different perspective on my own work.

And yes, I know. I have traveled a lot this year! But every trip seems to leave me with new colors, objects, ideas, people, and little moments that eventually find their way into my art. I have a feeling this one will be no different. 💗

With love and color,

Rosalie 

🌈 Back from Peru & Seeing the World a Little Differently 💚

Hi friends!

A little update before I dive in. Going forward, this newsletter is going to become biweekly! I realized it's hard to capture everything in just one week, and honestly, I have so much more to share when I give life a little more time to happen. I think this will make these letters feel more meaningful.

✈️ The Journey to the Andes

I landed back in Los Angeles around 7 a.m. yesterday morning and wow... what a journey it was to get home. Every long flight and sleepless airport hour was completely worth it.

We flew from Los Angeles to Lima, survived a not so quick six hour layover, then boarded a 4 a.m. flight to Cusco. From there, we explored the city of Cusco, wandered through the Sacred Valley, trekked the Inca Trail all the way to Machu Picchu, and climbed what everyone lovingly called the Monkey Steps. Let me tell you, they earned that name. I don't think my legs have ever questioned my life choices quite so much.Reaching the Sun Gate and looking down over Machu Picchu was one of those moments that makes everything else disappear. It felt surreal.

We also visited Huilloc, a small Quechua weaving community where we reached the highest altitude of our trip at over 12,000 feet above sea level. The people there continue many traditions of the Inca civilization. They speak Quechua, the most widely spoken Indigenous language family in the Americas, wear traditional clothing, weave beautiful textiles by hand, grow crops on mountain terraces, and care for alpacas and llamas just as generations before them did.

🌎 Pachamama & A New Perspective

One of the most inspiring things I brought home wasn't something I could pack in my suitcase.

It was Pachamama.

Many of the Peruvians we met spoke so lovingly about Pachamama, or Mother Earth, and I found myself completely captivated by the way they see the world.

In Quechua, pacha means world, universe, or time, and mama means mother. Pachamama is the living source that sustains all life. She represents nature, fertility, time, and space. The relationship isn't about taking from the earth. It's about caring for it because it cares for us.

With climate change becoming impossible to ignore, I couldn't help but think they might have figured something out long before the rest of us. Take care of the land, and the land takes care of you.It gives us air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and endless beauty if we choose to notice it.

🌈 Why I Can't Stop Thinking About Color

Another thing I absolutely loved was how much they celebrated color.

Rainbows are everywhere. They symbolize happiness, and while they also represent fertility in Andean culture, what stayed with me most was their belief that color has the power to bring joy.

I don't think I've ever needed an excuse to love color.If you've followed my work for a while, you already know it's probably my biggest source of inspiration. Sometimes I joke that I look at color the way a cat stares at something fascinating in the dark, completely locked in with huge dilated eyes. I can sit and study the natural pinks of a sunset, the impossible greens of the mountains, or every bright woven thread in a textile for what feels like forever.

I've always felt like I experience color a little differently. Maybe that's why I paint the way I do.

This trip reminded me that color isn't just something beautiful to look at. Across cultures, it carries history, hope, celebration, and connection. It has the ability to make people feel something before a single word is spoken.

I think that's exactly what I've been chasing all along.

See you in two weeks. 💛🎨

With love and color,

Rosalie 

Books, Clay & The Beautiful Balance of Making

⚽ A New Team to Cheer For

As I'm writing this, the World Cup final is about to begin... let's go Spain!

I was originally cheering for Switzerland, but after Argentina knocked them out, I had to choose a new favorite. Truthfully, I probably would've ended up rooting for Spain anyway, so apologies to any Argentina fans reading this. By the time this newsletter lands in your inbox, we'll already know who won, so here's hoping the best team came out on top. 

🍋 My First Painting on Gift Wrap

I can finally share one of my newest commissions, which also happens to be the very first painting I've completed on craft paper.

This isn't ordinary paper either. It's beautiful lemon-patterned gift wrap that's normally meant for wrapping presents. I've used this type of paper for pastel drawings before, but painting on it with acrylics was an entirely different experience. The paint interacts with the paper in such an interesting way, and because the lemon pattern stays so flat, the book I painted almost looks like it's sitting right on top of the page. I love when the material itself becomes part of the artwork.The little details painted onto the book cover also tell the story of the person receiving the piece.

🌿 Switching Between Clay & Paint

Last week wasn't my most productive week, and honestly, I think I needed it. This week I'm feeling much more excited to jump back into making.

I've started a new mixed media piece for my portfolio that combines acrylic paint with clay. I didn't get very far on it last week, but working on it sparked an idea that found its way into my newest commission.

I'm currently painting a home for someone who absolutely loves their plants. As someone who's equally attached to mine, I completely understood what to do. Instead of simply painting the plants, I sculpted them from clay so they actually stand out from the surface of the painting.

One of my favorite parts about working this way is how different each medium feels. Clay lets me build real dimensions with my hands, while painting asks me to create the illusion of depth using color, light, and shadow. I love switching back and forth between the two because it keeps both my hands and my brain thinking in completely different ways.

🎨 What's Coming Next

Alongside finishing the house commission, I'll be starting a large-scale commission for a leasing office here in Los Angeles. I'll be getting more direction on the project this week, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

I'm also patiently waiting for a Levi's jean jacket to arrive because I'll be illustrating directly onto the fabric. Drawing on clothing feels surprisingly similar to digital illustration. It's flatter, a little more graphic, and lets me focus on linework in a way that's completely different from painting.

I love that no two weeks in the studio ever look the same, and I have a feeling this one is going to be full of new experiments.

With love and color,

Rosalie