April Delights and Last Months Highlights!

Some of my Favorite things in April including Book Reviews, Stickers, and New Artwork

Another month in 2025 has come and gone. April was a whirlwind. We started the month off with our spring break week and a trip to Italy where we visited my husband’s childhood home in Vicenza which we discovered was recently demolished. But we had so much fun and so much good food!

I’m not going to go into too much detail about our trip but I’ll just mention the cities we visited in case you are curious: Lake Konstanz, Germany + Rheinland Falls, Switzerland + Lichtenstein (the country) + Chur, Switzerland + Lugano, Switzerland + Milan, Italy + Genoa, Italy + Porto Venere, Italy + Lucce, Italy + Pisa, Italy + Florence, Italy + Bologna, Italy + Padova, Italy + Venice, Italy + Vicenza, Italy.

It was a lot and it was fun and beautiful and delicious! But we definitely needed a vacation from our vacation when we got home.

Now onto April Favorites, New Art, Books and all the things:

Favorites

I actually only have two favorites for this month - I just didn’t have a lot of time to devote to really geeking out about any one thing in particular as I am usually wont to do. I am kind of between hyper-fixations at the moment. But my two favorites this month both happen to be art classes!

1. Specifically this color mixing chart technique I learned from Dylan M.’s new skillshare course “Sketchbook Filler’s Club”

This little triangle where you mix three colors and see how they blend and effect each other felt pretty ground breaking to me. Now I want to do this with every art supply! I believe Dylan’s course on skillshare just became a staff pick and I highly recommend it! (not sponsored of course!*)

2. This “Make Art That Sells” course called Character Bootcamp.

   

   It’s a course that focuses on character design for both children’s books and games. Pictured is what I came up for a little social-emotional matching game as one of the assignments. It was so fun and definitely not something I had ever even thought about before. (My illustration for the children’s book part of the course will be included later in this post!).

   I’ve definitely felt like I’m learning and growing as an artist through this course. There are still two months left of learning. I think the course is offered once per year so I think I would recommend it for next year if you’re interested! (also not sponsored)

All the Books I Read in April

I didn’t read as much in April as I wanted to but it was for a good reason - we were just so busy! But here is what I did get to:

1. What I Ate in One Year by Stanley Tucci: I had this audiobook in my library for months but I was saving it specifically to read while we were in Italy and it did not disappoint. It was basically a one year memoir from Stanley Tucci through food. Four Stars.

2. Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli: I was waiting for the second half of this duology after reading the first (heartless hunter) last year. The first one ended on such a cliff hanger so I was very excited to find out the second book would be coming out only a year later. (side note: I can’t believe how quickly authors are putting out books these days). It was very quick paced and kept my attention. The only thing that frustrated me in this story was most of the plot tension at least in the first half of the book relied on deliberate miscommunication which I hate. But it still gets 5 stars since I almost couldn’t put it down.

3. Wild Eyes: I’m not going to go into too much detail here but this was a cute little romance between a Taylor Swift type singer taking a break from the big city in a small town and falling for a classic cowboy type Horse Trainer. It was nice to take a break and read an easy contemporary romance for a minute. I did enjoy the story but this one had too much spice for my comfort. I did a lot of skimming over certain parts, haha. Four Stars.

4. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop: This is a book I picked up at a little English bookstore in Lucce, Italy. I really enjoy purchasing a book as a memory of a place that I was. This was a delightful short story about a girl who recovers from an early life crisis by staying above her uncle’s second hand bookstore in Tokyo, Japan. It was a very cozy, bookish reflective read and I really enjoyed it. 5 stars.

5. Nimona by Noelle Stevenson: Last but not least I’ve continued my graphic novel exploration this year with Nimona. My son read this and really liked it so I figured I would give it a try. As I have discovered with many graphic novels the pacing is very quick. The story was interesting. The heroine was very sassy and confident. Four stars.

New Sticker Collections

Last month I released four new sticker collections with my distribution partner: Lauren Phelps Designs. I got to include the cute little Sam character (Girl in the yellow Dress) as a sticker sheet and I am in love! Here are the collections:

1. Sam is Short for Samantha

2. Love Notes

3. Garden Geese

4. Spring Set (Updated Re-Release)

New Artwork

I did a lot of sketching last week (patrons get a full breakdown of every sketchbook page each month). But I wanted to take a minute to share the fully rendered pieces I finished this month:

1. Another children’s book spread for my grandma’s “little red hen” poem. This was created using a combination of traditional and digital painting:

   

2. The Girl the Fox and the Moon. I created this illustration as my submission for the SCBWI art prompt for April which was: astronomy. The moon has always been a favorite for me. Created using gouache, colored pencil and digital painting.

   

3. This cute little mouse character sheet I created for the MATS Character Bootcamp course. She’s adorable and I am planning to add her to my professional portfolio this weekend!

4. I randomly digitally painted this mermaid and turned it into a greeting card style illustration. I’m planning on sharing it this month on Instagram for MerMay.

5. And lastly, my patreon monthly illustrations. Our theme for April was “spring reading” which was perfection. These are all available as downloadable images over in our Cozy Club on Patreon.

   

That’s it for this month’s April Wrap up! I am still right in the middle of reaching out to potential literary agents for my Children’s Book journey. I’m hoping to start hearing back from a few of them this month. Thank you so much for reading if you made it to the end! 🫶

🤍 Amber

*my skillshare link does give you and me a free month of skillshare if you sign up under it. Otherwise nothing else in this post is affiliated or sponsored.