New Illustration: Happy 9th Anniversary, Sean 💖

It's a sunny but chilly autumn day here at Studio Mikarts 🍁🍂 I only have a little time to dedicate to studio work before I go help my sister move into a lovely new apartment, so I thought I would use it to share this illustration I finished last month. It was my 9th wedding anniversary gift to my husband 💖

ink, marker, colored pencil, collage, and glitter on marker paper
4x6 inches
19 September 2025

It took about eight hours to create this. Like most of my work, it involved a big mashup of media and techniques. To start, I took a photo of us from our recent vegan cruise vacation and digitally collaged some wolf and fox ears on—it's been my thing for ages to make myself a wolf and Sean a fox 🐺❤️🦊 I also added some willow branches, because willow is one of the 9th anniversary symbols, representing the flexibility and strength necessary for a marriage to last so long.

Once the digital collage was complete, I printed the image and traced it onto a sheet of marker paper using black ink. I used alcohol marker, colored pencil, and white ink to add color and texture. The final step was more collage, this time using physical media. I cut out a red paper heart and pasted it on, then finished the piece off with some red glitter paint (the glitter effect doesn't come through in the digital space, unfortunately).

Studio Mikarts ★ 9th Wedding Anniversary Present, Part 1 ★ Live Art by Denise みか Hutchins

I livestreamed the entirety of this piece on Twitch. It's one of the last pieces to be so documented, as I decided a couple weeks ago to take an indefinite hiatus from livestreaming. The video above is part one of three. If there is greater interest in seeing my art made live sometime in the future, I may return to livestreaming, but for now, I hope you'll enjoy this and the hundreds of hours of artmaking footage going all the way back to 2018 on my YouTube channel 📺

That's all for me today. Thank you for reading about my most recent illustration! Until next time, may you remain happy, healthy, and safe 💖

Public Art: Creative Routes Sharrow Press

Just a quick post today, sharing some old news! I'm updating my website to be more focused on my book projects, so I'm taking down certain pages. One was my press & publications page, which only ever had my bike lane sharrow project on it. If you're ever on the Boise State University campus, my Mario Kart-inspired sharrow design is still there as of this post! Go check it out and get a boost! 

Boise State News article, 7 May 2021: Creative Routes 2021 student artwork chosen

Art meets infrastructure with new bike path installations. #BoiseState’s Creative Routes program includes opportunities for students to submit designs for cycling pathways art around campus.
🚲 https://t.co/dn2EUIAae8 @BSUPublicSafety #BroncosRide #BicycleFriendly pic.twitter.com/FdeG9pmf7T

— Boise State University (@BoiseState) July 22, 2021

2025 September Charity Fundraising Results

I had been hoping to get this post done last week, but it didn't happen, so I ended the last couple days' artstreams early to allow myself time to tackle it. It's October, which means it's time to announce September's charity fundraising results 🎉✨

Our charity of the month was Best Friends Animal Society. I always choose them for September because that was the month in 2022 when my husband and I first stayed at the vegan and pet-centric Best Friends Roadhouse, spent a couple days volunteering at the original Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, and adopted Kumo, Chappie, and Aoife 🥰

My husband and I with Chappie & Aoife during a lakeside stop on our roadtrip home 💖

My donation formula is $0.10 USD per unique Twitch viewer that month, minimum $10 and maximum $100. I only streamed during the last couple weeks in September, since I was out of town enjoying an epic vegan cruise vacation 🛳️✨

Still, twelve unique viewers watched my streams, which means a $10 donation to Best Friends Animal Society! As always, I opted to cover the transaction fee, too 😉

Please make your own donation to Best Friends, to help them help the animals! And if you can't donate, come on over to my Twitch channel, and bring your friends! Let's get that unique viewers count so high that we reach the 101 milestone; that will be the first time I donate more than $10.

Above is the recording of the last stream of September—during which I worked on my Hallowed Sun project—so you can get an idea of what my channel is like. I hope you'll join me this month; let's have fun getting creative and raising money for a good cause together!

That's all for September's report. Thank you reading all the way until the end, and for supporting Studio Mikarts and our featured charities 💖 Until next time, may you stay happy, healthy, and safe!