December Days & Holiday Making

Slowing Down for the Season ❄️✨

December always slows me down in the best way.The air feels softer. The days feel shorter. And suddenly everything I’m making feels a little more sentimental, a little more intentional. This season has been about gifts, details, and quiet progress.

A Wedding Gift in the Works 💍🖌️

I just finished a wedding gift painting this week, and since the recipient isn’t on the newsletter, I’m sharing a little sneak peek here. I just need to make a few adjustments to this piece before I send it off. I’ve been painting more people lately, and I can feel myself getting better each time. There’s something intimate about painting someone for such a meaningful moment in their life.

The Monster Painting That Keeps Growing 👀🎨

My large monster piece has also been evolving in the background. It’s one of those paintings that keeps revealing itself layer by layer. I’ve been adding details using oil pastels over the acrylic base—tiny textures and playful moments that make the whole scene feel alive. One of the monsters now wears a little apron. There’s coffee involved. Macarons too. It’s cozy and weird and exactly where I want it to be. More to come on this one soon.

Birthday Tattoos & Tiny Art Moments 🖋️✨

Lately, my designs have been traveling in unexpected ways. I turned a few into tattoos and got two new ones on my birthday. Like all my other tattoos, they’re my own designs, small pieces of art I get to carry with me. There’s something really grounding about that.

Holiday Making & Mixed Traditions 🎁🕎🎄

With the holidays here, it’s also officially gift-making season. I grew up celebrating Hanukkah with my mom and Christmas with my dad, so December has always been about mixing traditions and making meaningful presents. Homemade gifts are my favorite kind— the ones that take time, intention, and thoughtfulness. I even had to include a special Mooncake-approved card for Chandler this year. She supervised closely.

What’s Coming Next 🌈🛹

Looking ahead, there’s more in the works: progress on the custom skate decks, another upcoming commission that brings my psychedelic style back into the picture, and more painting time waiting on the other side of the holidays. I was supposed to attend a wedding this past weekend but ended up on cat duty since Mooncake had to go to the hospital and get surgery. She’s doing great now — thankfully — even though she somehow managed to eat something she definitely shouldn’t have, and is currently waddling around in a bright orange cone that makes her look like a very cute fruit.

I’m heading to Savannah next week and won’t be on my laptop much, so the next newsletter will land in the new year, 2026. It feels nice to pause, reflect, and step into the next chapter with fresh eyes.

Thank You for Being Here 🤍

Thank you for being here this year, for reading, supporting, and following along. I’ll see you in the new year, with new work, new stories, and plenty more to create and share! 🤍

With love and color,

 Rosalie

 🎨@rosaliearttt

Rosalie’s Art Career: A Year in the Making 🎨✨

Turning 25 today, and I wanted to let you into a small part of my journey…

How It All Started 🌱

A year and a half ago, I graduated with absolutely no idea what would come next.

I moved into my mom’s home in Venice Beach, California, because after living in Shanghai, I knew Los Angeles was where I needed to be. I applied for international relations jobs. I refreshed my inbox. I waited. And every time something came close, it never quite felt right.

My resume was filled with creative experience. Art followed me everywhere. And even though I kept telling myself that being an artist would be too hard, too uncertain, too unrealistic, I kept ending up back in the art world anyway.

That summer, a few commissions came in. Nothing huge. Nothing guaranteed. But enough that I decided to give art a real chance. The job market was terrible anyway, so I figured, why not follow my dreams?

Since then, I’ve launched my LLC, built my business piece by piece, and moved into my perfect little bungalow just one mile from my mom. Life feels smaller in some ways—and much bigger in others.

Looking back, it’s rewarding. Living it is hard.

Some weeks, I have commissions but no inspiration. Other weeks, I have inspiration but no idea what comes next. Being my own boss means everything depends on me. The good days, the slow days, the quiet days, they’re all mine.

But my art is not just a job.

It’s my personality on canvas.It’s the world I crave.It keeps me grounded, inspired, and connected to myself.

What I Accomplished This Year 🎉🖌️

When I pause and really look at what this year held, I’m proud. Here’s what I built:

• Completed 50+ original pieces of art

• Redesigned and relaunched my entire website

• Opened an online shop

• Started a weekly newsletter

• Officially registered my LLC

• Completed my first mural

• Sold artwork in local Venice shops

• Shipped paintings across multiple states and internationally

• Created my own stationery, calendars, and other products

None of it happened overnight. All of it happened because I kept showing up.

What I’m Working On Right Now ✍️🌙

Right now feels full, but in a quiet, evolving way.

I’m finishing a holiday gift painting that I’ll be sharing after the season. I’m starting a new commission involving three custom skate decks (which feels very Venice and very fun). I’ve been traveling more this month, which has limited my painting time, but expanded my perspective.

I’m also in conversations for another upcoming commission and working on a large-scale painting based on a drawing I made years ago. I’m reconnecting with my old work, my monsters, and the characters that first pulled me into this world. It feels like revisiting an old friend.

Looking Ahead to 2026 🌅🗓️

Next year, I want to stretch.

I plan to reach out to more galleries and additional shops. I want to seek out collaborations that feel thoughtful and aligned. And I’m beginning to shape a new series. It’s one that explores China through the eyes of an American, blending memory, place, and the versions of myself that lived there.

I don’t have everything figured out. But I’ve learned that I don’t need to.

I just need to keep creating.Keep following what feels honest.And keep building a world I want to live in, one painting at a time.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me. 💛

With love and color,

 Rosalie

 🎨 @Rosaliearttt

Mooncake: The Tiny Muse Who Runs My Life 🐾

How It All Started ✨

There are certain characters who walk (or… nap) into your life and quietly rearrange it. For me, that character was Mooncake.

I met her in Shanghai’s Xuhui district, tucked inside the former French Concessions, a neighborhood of tree-lined streets, lane houses, old bicycles, aunties hanging laundry from balconies, and everyday magic. I lived in a shikumen lane house then: brick and wood, and two stories high.

My front door faced a longtang alleyway where life unfolded in small, familiar rituals. Neighbors swept the steps, the men met for smoke breaks, and the women met for their daily Mahjong games. I was one of only two foreigners in the alley, but somehow, I felt completely at home.

The Window Cat Who Charmed Me 😴

Along that alleyway was a tiny shop that mostly sold birds and miscellaneous pet supplies. One day, seemingly out of nowhere, the owner got a litter of British Shorthair kittens.

And that’s where Mooncake comes in.

Every morning on my way to the metro, and every afternoon on my way to the grocery store, the print shop, the nail salon, or whatever random errand I was running, I’d walk past the shop window. And every single time, there she was: asleep. Curled like a little croissant. A deeply committed napper.

Something about that softness, that laziness, that quiet little presence greeting me through the glass… I couldn’t stop looking at her.

The Impulse Adoption That Changed Everything 💛

I grew up with Rottweilers and was honestly a little afraid of cats. But one day I walked into the shop on a whim — truly on a whim — and walked out with Mooncake.

I had no plan. No supplies. No clue what came next. But she was warm and tiny and unbelievably soft. She melted into my arms in this gentle, trusting way that made me feel like I’d accidentally made the right decision.

Pretty quickly, I learned she was hypoallergenic, which felt like winning the lottery. Later, I learned she also has dwarfism. As she grew, her little legs didn’t. I only realized this when I brought her back to the shop to get her nails clipped. Her brother was still there, standing on standard-issue cat legs. Hers stayed small.

And yes, dwarfism in cats is a real spontaneous genetic occurrence. Mooncake is just uniquely herself.

Lockdown, Escape, and Our First Big Adventures ✈️

We lived in that lane house through 2021 and moved to a new apartment in early 2022. Then came the spring lockdown — Shanghai’s strictest since 2020. Life had been completely normal until then. And suddenly, it wasn’t. Vets were closed, streets were silent, and uncertainty hung in the air.

Mooncake and I needed to get out. After some very creatively obtained documents, we did. A few weeks later, we were wheels-up to Venice, then eventually to Charlotte. She even joined me for a semester abroad in Tel Aviv, then New York City, and finally — full circle — back to China for my last year of school.

She handled every flight like a seasoned traveler, always calm, always curled up in her carrier like it was her personal studio apartment.

Cross-Country Living With a Tiny Cat 🚗🌎

After graduation, we headed back to North Carolina, climbed into my yellow Jeep, and made our way across the entire country to Los Angeles.

Let’s just say Mooncake prefers airplanes to long road trips. She saw more states than most people do in a year, tolerated my playlist choices, and even posed for a photo at Four Corners. A tiny cat in a very big world.

Where We Are Now 🌼

Now we’re here in Venice, in a bungalow filled with sunlight and paintbrushes and the soft thump of Mooncake hopping onto the couch. She’s my studio assistant, my muse, and my quiet little companion who has followed me across continents and through so many versions of myself.

She may be small, but she has made my life wonderfully, impossibly big.

And yes — she still takes her naps just as seriously.

My forever travel buddy. 🐾✈️💛

With love and color,

Rosalie

 🎨@rosaliearttt