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January 2026 I have been thinking a lot lately about how much I love books. Which I'm sure is no surprise to you pen pal, since I do talk about books quite a lot. Most of my time these days is heavily dedicated to them in some way or another. I’m either working on my own book, the chapter books or the picture books. Or I’m working on a book for someone else, doing a read for a friend or a cover for a client or illustrations for a client. Or I’m working at the used and new bookstore in town, talking to customers about what we’ve been reading lately. Or… I’m reading. I have never counted how many books I read in a year before. I know that 2025 was a very reading heavy year. I managed 55 books (I read a few more after sending my last newsletter), and that’s a lot! I’m sure I was reading only 12 a year or less for most of my life. Especially when I was in school still. It’s hard to imagine that for more than a third of my life I really was not that interested in reading, and I didn’t start branching out of my silly little YA Fantasy corner until I was nearly 30. I didn’t decide to focus my energy on storytelling and illustrating until 2018. It’s amazing how something can go from being on the sidelines to being your whole world! I remember distinctly the first books that made me actually want to read. (Granted, my dad read the Lord of the Rings aloud to my brother and I at least twice in my childhood, but I didn’t totally pay attention most of the time.) In grade school my classroom had a tiny book a bout the life of Annie Oakley, and for some reason I read that repeatedly. That’s the only book I remember caring about. I was entirely disinterested until I was nearly 12, and I was give two Advance Reader Copies by my grandmother. One was book 2 in the original Warrior Cats series by Erin Hunter, and the other was The Treekeepers by Susan McGee Britton. I usually didn’t even read the books I was given, but for some reason this time I did, and I think it was because of the cover art. I really, really liked both—both the cover art and the story within. I then was recommended the Black Cauldron series by my older brother and I DEVOURED it. And then the doors opened to me and I actually wanted to read. I got lost in the weeds a bit with my teenage years, falling prey to the Twilight fandom. But I kept my head above water with other gems like Gunnerkrigg Court, all the Tamora Pierce books, finding Jane Austen charming, and eventually creeping farther and farther afield. I still prefer to read fantasy and scifi, but I’ve read a much wider range than ever before. Books are just amazing. They can take you places and teach you things and hold you safely when the world is too much but also take you out into it at the same time. They can be sacred or ridiculous. Humans can do a lot of weird and uncool stuff but MAN did we get it right with books. And books lead to libraries! And how magical and amazing are libraries, am I right?  Well, anyway. All that to say I’ve got a BOOK RELEASE COMING UP SOON! More of a re-release. A project I didn't plan on starting and COMPLETING in 2025, but hey, when inspiration strikes, I go with the flow! In about two months, I have updated Be Kind to Me to match my current skill as an artist, and I will finally have it available, cheaper and easier, through Barnes & Noble! No more overpriced copies only on Etsy or at shows, oh no. It will even be for sale at my local bookstore. Expect a launch email coming soon! I have been wracking my brain for how I can offer some kind of bonus to all those who’ve already purchased the book. I’m really sorry to say I can’t think of a good way to do anything, other than to say THANK YOU and I hope you’ve enjoyed it and I hope you aren’t too mad at me for not just making it really good to begin with. It was my first ever self published book and I went small on purpose. I have grown, and the new Be Kind to Me is a beautiful reflection of that.  I recently learned that this is a real thing that your brain really will do to you. We are wired to seek out what is familiar, and to associate that with “normal” and “safe” even if what you’ve lived with most of your life is a house on fire. I’d heard of this and thought it sounded ridiculous, even performative. Surely these people know better and are just… looking for attention or something. They’re somehow doing it on purpose. Right? ...Right? My personal never ending demon has been my self hatred. Its been present and noisy and non stop since I was very little. It put me in a never ending state of distress and freeze and anxiety. Thanks to LOTS of teachers and hard work and hard lessons and therapy and brainspotting, I don’t feel that way so much anymore. In fact I feel a significant amount of affection and care towards myself. This is VERY new for me, like, it really shifted in early December. It is almost surreal. So surreal, in fact, that I found myself struggling with *intrusive thoughts* almost immediately after. A big thing I’d been concerned about finally worked out, and I was suddenly faced with NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. Everything going on (in my immediate personal circle) was quite manageable or even just good. I felt calm and grounded and safe and cool with myself and… that was the most alien feeling to my nervous system. Still IS alien. So what did it do? It started reaching for SOMETHING, ANYTHING to freak out about. Imagining accidentally cutting my fingers off with scissors, telling me my electric blanket was going to electrocute me, fixating on scary news stories about people getting attacked and telling me to be hyperventilate at bedtime, giving me the stomach-drop sensation, especially when I was trying to eat. When I described this to my therapist she actually laughed. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “You’ve been so disregulated your whole life that being regulated too weird.” She assured me it will level out, and the grounded safe feeling will become normal to me and my body won’t chase the high of anxiety to feel the old “normal” again. I just have to give it time, and in the meantime make comics about the old me so I can meet its hunger for PANIC with humor and compassion. I am grateful for my growth, but man, human beings are strange indeed.  My word for the year finally came to me. I know it’s the trendy thing to do right now, to pick a word that’s your mantra or theme for the year. I wasn’t going to bother, but I had one jump out at me. I’ve been OBSESSED with the music of Doe Paoro, and one of her albums is titled Soft Power. I like that concept a lot. To me, that means being like a cat. Obviously literally soft. But also cuddly, sweet, patient, all the wonderful soft things cats are. But cats are also deadly. They are the models of boundaries. They tolerate no nonsense. That’s the energy I want to bring into 2026. Not to be overbearing and domineering with power, but soft, willing to stand up for myself, independent but loving. Soft power.  Are you taking my advice from my last newsletter? Are you giving yourself a time of rest? I hope that you are. I hope you’re letting winter be winter (if you’re a northern hemisphere dweller like myself) and that you are allowing for as much hibernation as you can get away with in this crazy western capitalist culture we live in. (And don’t forget, if you didn’t get a chance to read the last newsletter, you can find it on my website in the blog section.)
I recommended reading lots of books and playing Animal Crossing. Hoping you are well and warm, Lara Jean
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Farewell, 2025! I’d like to invite you to join me in participating in the new year very differently than the typical modern western culture demands. Instead of racing into the start of 2026 like a gun has gone off and now you have to RUN, as if this is the time to push push push! Resolutions! Pressure to be your perfect self! In the darkest coldest part of the year, start doing ALL THE THINGS BETTER!—I have a different suggestion, hear me out... Maybe we should take a clue from ALL OF NATURE AROUND US and treat the new year like EVERYTHING ELSE ON (our half of) THE PLANET does in winter. Release and rest. This is a time for reflection and letting go of things that no longer serve us. Don’t overwhelm yourself with new habits, don’t start a thousand new projects. Give yourself an opportunity to rest. Shed your old tired leaves, lay down your burdens, reflect on what you’ve managed to achieve and whether through in the spring and summer and autumn that we’ve just left behind. Celebrate wins, learn from losses, and TAKE A BREAK. You can still do a little dreaming, think about what you’d like to start fresh with when the weather shifts to spring. SPRING is the time for starting new habits. We have the energy of the earth behind us. (Assuming you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, if you’re not, reverse accordingly lol). This isn't my idea alone, I have seen a lot of people starting to talk about this. It's such a good idea. In the spirit of this, I’m going to reflect on how 2025 went for me with no pressure to set intentions for 2026 that I start blasting away at January 1st.  At the start of 2025 I had set a couple of goals for myself (like a fool, ignoring the fact that it was winter and I was not going to want to do anything for months and months, and then Unexpected Things would happen and I’d end up going on a path unplanned). I wanted to: 1. Finish all the illustrations for Little Faun 1 2. Finish writing Little Faun 3 3. Make progress on illustrations for a new kids book 4. Be able to do 1 unassisted pull up 5. Travel to Europe to visit a friend in France I achieved 0 of these goals. YAY!!! I still have 3 or 4 unfinished Faun 1 illustrations. Faun 3 has been in rewrite purgatory all year and I’ve REALLY struggled with it. And I didn’t do squat on my own kid’s book… actually I remember now that I started an illustration and it’s like… 25% done, tucked away somewhere. Pullups are really heckin difficult, and some days I still can't do it unassisted. My passport has not been touched since I got it 3 years ago or whatever it’s been, and my France travel money fund has been raided multiple times for things that were definitely not traveling to France. Most recently, going to cut a Christmas tree. Those things are expensive? If you’ve been reading my newsletters you know that a lot of 2025 felt icky and heavy for me. I had an awful heartfelt struggle with some big grief and despair at the state of the world. The spring was non stop rain, the summer oppressively hot, humid, buggy. September and October were the ONLY months of good weather we had all year, not an exaggeration. I felt Seasonally Depressed all summer. Not the concoction for Getting Things Done. There were a lot of events I overreacted to, handled with not a speck of grace, or panicked about needlessly. Old habits haunted me. When I could have gone with the flow I flailed. When I could have been working on things I read books or spaced out or sulked in my chair. I watched too much tv—and not even anything NEW. I just rewatched Star Trek for the upteenth time.  THAT SAID, I count this year as a big win. Why? Well, first off, I CAN do one unassisted pull up. Sometimes. In fact, at one point I was able to do 3 in a row! I have it on film lol. But fun fact, fitness isn’t linear for me, and if I don’t sleep well or the sun isn’t out I am not as strong. However I have consistently maintained my routine of working out! I show up every week, I am enjoying it and it’s good for my body. WIN. Second, I may not have made the progress I’d hoped on my books, but I DID make progress. Faun 1 only needs 4 more illustrations to be done. At the start of the year I had only 3 illustrations finished out of 15! And I know that Faun 3 is going to be so much better than it was when I finally sort out this rewrite. It needed it. And these things take time. Faun 2 is written and edited and I’m really happy with it. Progress was made, WIN. Though I didn’t make a new kid’s book, I did finally get to celebrate the release of the book I made with my friend Rebekah. I was able to put Wake Up Herbert on Barnes & Noble. I started reworking illustrations from Be Kind to Me for an update version coming… soon? I made a grand total of 15 pet portraits, along with quite a few other pieces for clients, and I’m starting work on a new kid’s book for a client this month! I successfully participated in Artober and along the way felt like I saw improvement in my digital art that I’m excited to bring to future projects. AND LOOK AT ALL THESE PAINTINGS I MADE JUST FOR FUN   I see growth in these compared to what I was making in 2024! Two of these originals are sold and three of them I'm so proud of I'm not willing to sell them (yet). I mostly busted out art at the start of the year, but that’s okay! Life is waves, life is seasons, life is up and down and rest and then rush. It’s all alright. I had some really great shows and a couple kinda lame ones. I know that though I might not have been as productive as I’d hoped, I still made progress. Win. I read a total of 45 books so far this year. (I also want to note that I read my own books several times over in the editing process, so I feel comfortable rounding that up to 50.) I’ve never actually counted how many books I read in a given amount of time, but I think I read more this year than I ever have before in my life. Helped along considerably by being an employee at the local used and new bookstore. It was so good to have a safe place to escape to in the middle of all the crazyness this year. And some of them were really incredible books that have become new favorites.  I’m currently in the middle of reading The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers, and I’d guess I’ll finish at least that before the year is out. I went a little nuts with collecting books this year, thanks to my bookstore job and the discovery of Thriftbooks. I could not be happier. Here are my favorite reads from this year! NOT in order of appreciation, these are all pretty tied. 1. Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers (This one I do want to note that I reread the whole Wayfarers Series and it is in my top ten most favorite book serieseseses of all time.) 2. Guards, Guards! by Terry Pratchett 3. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune 4. Gentle Chaos by Tyler Gaca 5. Leech by Hiron Ennis Gosh, I just love books SO MUCH. I was also lucky enough to get to see the Blue Ridge Mountains, visit Ashville NC, and I stood for a moment in 3 states at once (Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma). So technically I went to 4 states I’d never been to before. I’m up to 16/50! Kinda cool, even if a few of those I barely saw (standing with a toe in Oklahoma for 30 seconds doesn’t really count). Maybe in 2026 I’ll finally make it to the West Coast. Did I make it to France? Obviously not. I’ve still never been overseas, or really seen the ocean. But I still traveled! How lucky! Even trips to dumpy weird places can be eye opening. I had a lot of little local adventures with my friends, too. I spent a weekend in a treehouse with two of my favorite people. What could be better than that?  Best of all, I think this year I made some big steps to becoming a better friend to myself. I’ve been fortunate in having the help of some really wonderful people (therapists lol) and something has shifted. It’s subtle, but I think I like little Lara a whole lot more than I used to. What an incredible win. I spent plenty of days pouring sadness into my journal, lost and in the dark. Feeling hurt by all the things going HAYWIRE in the world. What a time to be alive. Pretty sure humans have been saying that since we could say anything to each other. I see so much happening that makes me want to become panicked and hateful, but that’s the very thing I’m seeing happen that’s causing all this madness. So I stay whimsical! I stay hopeful! And yeah, sometimes I’m very sad. But I get to share that sadness with friends who feel with me, and I get to use it to fuel my desire to lift up others with some cute little art. New music I fell in love with this year: Bonny Light Horsemen Golden Sun Revival by Trilling Dragons I do have hopes for 2026. I’m going to spend the next few months daydreaming about them and eating lots of soup. When the time is right, things will start happening. What’s meant to be will be! And wouldn’t it be great if Little Faun 1 could finally be published? And Be Kind to Me Revised could be released? And maybe I could finally see a tide pool, do a mural, or something so wonderful I haven’t even though to dream about it? What can you release that didn’t go like you’d hoped? What unexpected joys can you celebrate? What goals were achieved that you can enjoy the fruits of with gratitude? What flopped that you’ve learned from? This is what winter is for. Now tuck yourself in with a good read or a good game and I’ll see you in 2026. Be well and be warm my dear pen pals, thank you for being with me, Lara Jean p.s. Another goal I had for this year: finish this work in progress in time for my newsletter. Oh, well. It will happen in its own time.  Welcome November! 2025 Hello my darling digital snail mail pals! I hope you have a nice big cup of a warm drink and you’re feeling cozy. October has come and gone! In Tennessee this time of year is when the color is at its peak, and I’m looking out my window at a brilliant yellow maple as I type this. I have pumpkins on my front porch and hot tea in my mug. And a blanket over my shoulders and a heating pad under my butt, because old houses with beautiful big windows are not very warm when the temperature goes below 60F. As much as I look forward to walks in the silent, leafless woods in the coming weeks, I do dread the endless chill. But each season has its perks, and the awesome thing about this time of year is I sleep GREAT. I could sleep from sunset to well after sunrise. After a summer of restless tossing in our warm drafty house (75F is not an ideal sleeping temperature) I am a baby bug in a rug. Snug. Under 5 blankets. I made a lot of little doodles this month! As I said in my last newsletter, I decided I’d do another drawing prompt list challenge. I didn’t try and do every single day, and I skipped quite a few towards the end because I was busy with commissions. It was fun! I made some pieces I really enjoyed, and I feel like it was good practice with the medium that is Procreate. I found some new ways to approach how I make my digital art. Practice is like… really helpful? So here it is, the full collection of Artober drawings! I now have a whole section in my website dedicated to artober art! Click the button to go browse! To any of my artsy pen pals who did not do artober in any way or did a couple and then got overwhelmed and feel disappointed or ashamed: please be kind to yourself. In fact, if you were feeling overwhelmed or disinterested or stressed and you listened and you backed off and let go and did the pressing things instead, you should be so proud of yourself. Learning to listen to your body and know when something is too much is a valuable skill. Sometimes just doing the adulting and resting is all you can do. It’s really okay if you didn’t have the energy to draw every day. I didn’t either. Even I felt a little ashamed of myself seeing the artists who actually made a real paper and paint painting EVERY SINGLE DAY, but that’s when I pull out the old phrase “nobody ever grew or healed from shame” and focused instead on what I DID manage to do. Like the laundry and the dishes and my job. I’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to The Glaze Project. Because of Glaze I could post my work without feeling sick about it. What is Glaze? It’s a program that applies an invisible filter to your artwork. What we see isn’t changed, but what AI sees ends up like tv static. It means my work can’t be ground up and spat out and recreated without my consent by AI. It’s completely free, too! There are people out there fighting the good fight, friends. Don’t lose hope. I also had the chance to make a LOT of pet portraits! THANK YOU for your commission purchases! I adore all of your pets. I know I say this every time but I just LOVE painting pet portraits. And if you want one for a gift, I’ve got openings and there’s still time! I can even do digital and Animal Crossing style portraits. (On that note, who else is feeling a resurgence of Animal Crossing yearning with the announcement of the update???) I can FINALLY share with you that a project I did last year is available in print! I illustrated a book for a client, and it’s now out on Barnes & Noble. This was my first ever full picture book client, and it was a blast to work on. How could a Halloween themed book not be fun?   Happy highlights of the month: Tybalt falling out of the cat tree because he was having Too Much Fun. Twice. (unharmed). Tybalt bringing me the BIGGEST praying mantis I have ever seen (also unharmed). Mimsy getting very demanding for snuggles because of her tiny chilly toe beans. Lots of small gratitude for sunshine and blue skies and good friends, and therapy. Rewatching the BBC Narnia series that I watched probably a million times as a child but hadn’t seen in 20+ years. WHAT A HOOT.
Big highlight: I got an immense amount of smug satisfaction out of canceling my Spotify subscribtion. Mwahahaha. The app I switched to is called Qobuz, and I have zero complaints! They pay their musicians, they have great streaming quality, everything I listen to is there, and the subscription price was actually cheaper than Spotify. And the CEO is not currently a… well, you know. There’s even a feature in the app where you can pay $5 one time and it transfers over all your playlists and liked songs for you. THE POWER. You actually don’t have to give money to monsters. I know that the days are not only getting shorter and darker literally, but also feel that way emotionally too. It’s really hard to have the right words to say about it. And I do want to keep my newsletter a bright relief from the relentless negativity and fear out there. So I’ll say just this: Consider doing something very small and very local if you are feeling icky but able. Something like a food donation or even $10 to a local food bank. I've seen my local community doing a lot of this kind of thing and it makes me hopeful. It can be a text to a friend. Maybe host a dinner party. Ask for help, and be willing to accept it. We build community both by giving AND accepting help. If we always refuse to take help, we isolate and alienate. Nobody needs that right now. Tell your friends you love them and see how they’re doing. You might not be able to hold the whole world together, but you can definitely help hold up those closest to you. That’s HUGE. What’s your library up to? When’s the last time you went and took some things off the shelves? Fun fact, they get funding based on use, and use counts as: they had to put a book back on the shelf for you (so just take random books down and put them in the return cart), you used the wifi (you can bring your laptop and do your homework or scroll through tumblr), you reserved a room (for free) and had a club meeting (for book club, silent reading, a craft day, a parallel play date, a writing group critique, D&D, etc), you took out a book and took it home and returned it (even if you didn’t read it), you rented a movie or a game or a tv show, you used their services to get an audio book. Did I mention it’s all free? Pretty small stuff with a huge impact. Not overwhelming, no need to strap a sword to your belt and rush out into the fray. Small deeds are really great, actually. So if you’re able and doing them, thank you. You’re my hero. Until next time, hoping you are well and warm, Lara Jean My last blog entry was October of last year, which is ironic because that was literally a few weeks before I made some very drastic changes to my life. The blog was an introduction to myself and my life, and then a week after it I made that information very inaccurate.
So let's try this again! (And let's not have previous events be the trend. Please.) Hi! My name is Lara, I'm a writer and an illustrator. Currently I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I work for a sign making company that provides "wayfinding" for offices/hospitals/airports/etc. (The Pentagon and Netflix, to namedrop.) I do customer service, production floor assistance, and I'm being trained to do technical drawings! It's a heckin nice gig, I'm very lucky. As my friend would say, it's a unicorn job. When I'm not doing that, yes, I am still an illustrator and a writer! I'm unable to be a full time artist for now, but I still squeeze it in whenever I can. I've self published one book, Be Kind to Me, which you can get from my Etsy shop! I'm constantly jotting down new ideas and make time for them wherever I can. I'm excessively proud to say that I'm a Self Sufficient One Woman Show these days. About damn time. Couldn't have gotten here without overwhelming support from friends, family, and... you guys! (One Woman Show is kind of a lie, nothing can survive in isolation. But you get what I mean.) Things are pretty great right now! I mentioned in my last (first) blog that I've battled anxiety and PMDD, and I seem to have managed to discover the root cause of both and in one fell swoop I pulled that out last October. It was a long time coming and so much self examination and WORK went into hitting that point, but once I realized what I had to do there was no going back. It's been a battle and a journey and a joyride since then, I can't express my amazement and gratitude. This is a state of being that I never thought I'd get to experience, and every day is beautiful because of the weights I've shed. Even the days that are hard, challenging, borderline bad, it never feels as bad as it used to. I want to take a moment to sincerely thank everyone who commissioned me last fall. I had to leave my home, my life, I was new to supporting myself and I needed work, desperately. The commissions bridged the gap between jobs. SO much gratitude. I will try not to be disgustingly mushy. THANK YOU. I never cease to be amazed by the overwhelming support I receive when I need it. As someone constantly afraid I'm not worthy of things, it's a lot to fit into my heart. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Enough with the sappy stuff though. Things that are new in relation to lara jean doodles: Commission prices are going up! THANK YOU so much for all the interest in and support of my work. I never want to make myself inaccessible to my lovely supporters, and I'm doing my best to always keep prices low. However I've realized recently that I was undercharging for the amount of time and energy I was putting into commissions (I wasn't even making $10 an hour on them anymore lol), and it had been more than 5 years since I last revisited what I charge. It was time. My prints and mugs are still the same price! And as always, if you want something custom, something mini, please let me know and I'll be happy to work with you and your budget. My standard commission prices are all listed for color images, but I can do black and white for less! There's always an option, so let's talk. I want to make something for you! That said, I also now work a full time day job. Thankfully I work with excellent people at a job that suits me, so I'm not drained to zombie level functionality by the time I get home, however it takes up most of my day most of my week. This severely hampers how much commission work I can take on and how fast I can get it done. I'm always willing to put you onto the waitlist, and I do my best to keep you in the loop about where I'm at in the queue and share updates as your project progresses. Again, don't hesitate to get in touch! Let's talk! If you're thinking about getting a portrait for a holiday gift (I can't believe I'm saying this) you might want to ask for it... NOW. My slots at holiday time fill up SO FAST and if I want to guarantee shipping in time, it's never too early. You know what to do: go to my contact page and send me an email! I'm sending out a lot of sunshiny vibes to you all, Lara Jean One of my friends featured me as an artist for her art classes, and so I wrote up some facts about myself for her. I've decided to expand on that list a little and share it here, in case any of you are curious about who I am and what I like and where I've been! (I reserve the right to change my mind about my favorites in the future lol)
A Bit About My Life:
Hello everyone!
I'm starting a blog! I have a very specific topic I want to address soon, and that is... self publishing! I've been learning a lot and I want to share some of what I've learned. I'm still in that process, but soon I'll have some solid stuff I can tell you about! I can't wait! I often enjoy writing about things that I like, things that insprie me, and things that I hope will help you and maybe you can learn something from! So keep an eye out and soon I'll have some fun and hopefully educational content for you folks. I hope eveyone is staying well and sane and if you're in the US you're registered to vote, Be in touch soon! Lara |
AuthorI'm Lara, illustrator and writer behind Lara Jean Doodles! Archives
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