My grand-daughter is a very girly girl with a pink bedroom. Since she was born in June, I thought I could do something with her name, namesake, and birth month and flower.

I took a class about lettering and messed around with fancy Ms and fancy Marys but ended up deciding to use a block M filled with roses on trellises, with a Miraculous Medal at the v point. In the space underneath, I'm going to do a little ocean scene with a big pearl inside an open oyster.

I work primarily with watercolor pencils, with final details done in colored pencil. The roses will obviously be pink and the rest of the colors will have to work with that choice.

I have all of my pencils swatched, but I plan to do a specific swatch test for this project alone. One of the other teachers mentioned doing this and it sounded like a really good plan.