My lifelong passion for drawing and painting developed into a career as a graphic designer. After finishing my undergraduate degree in graphic design at Southern Connecticut State University, I started working for my family’s business in Old Saybrook. In 2015, my cousin and I started our own apparel company, Stark Originals, where the creativity was based on craft beer-inspired designs. For the past decade my primary creative outlet had been using a digital medium, and painting projects became less of a focus. In the early days of the pandemic, when everyone was adapting to life at home, a group of friends and I were inspired to start a weekly art challenge. Every week we would create work based on a different prompt and would share and provide feedback to one another. It was during that time I truly fell in love with watercolor and started to develop my style, finding a balance between my background as a designer and as an artist. I strive to create work with visually striking compositions with beautiful colors inspired by nature and things that bring me happiness.