About Annie
I’m an artist and illustrator with 20+ years experience in digital painting, photo manipulation, illustration, and collage.
I've always liked to draw unicorns and magical creatures. My childhood bedroom was painted purple, and I had pages and pages of my imaginary stories and drawings taped to the wall. When I wasn't busy indoors writing new fairy tales, I was out running in the woods behind our house pretending I was a character in one of the stories I was writing. If you came to my house to play, you'd end up becoming a fairy pirate warrior queen, maybe befriend some benevolent witches, and then we'd make a daring escape from an evil sorcerer's tower. I'd probably let you borrow my sword.
I learned about illustration, digital art, and web design at Massachusetts College of Art - which sort of looks like an evil sorcerer's tower now that I think about it. It's a really great place to learn about design, though, and eventually I escaped with a BFA and my imagination mostly intact. In the years since I've worked as an art teacher, a freelance designer, a content writer, a craftsperson, a marketer, and various other enterprises which have added up to an interesting and adventurous life.
I always come back to creating art and stories. Digital art is a wondrous thing; if you'd ever told my young self that someday I'd be making illustrations out of light and electricity, with a magical pencil, on a tablet that works like an enchanted book... well, honestly I'd have believed you since I was a pretty savvy little kid and I've always been good with computers.
Most of my artwork is done on an iPad with an Apple Pencil, working from sketches and reference photos I've collected. Sometimes I draw and paint on paper and then import those into a piece, or I use photos I've taken (or hoarded, like a jealous dragon) and collage everything together. More often I sketch right in the drawing program and build up layers of color, texture, and intricate details. I strive to capture a single moment in a story, or create a sense that there is more to tell; even if the piece is a portrait or a simple drawing of a unicorn I try to make it feel as though something magical is unfurling.
When I'm not making art, I'm busy in my garden fussing over my plants, listening to lots of chill music in my studio, in my kitchen inventing recipes with local ingredients, or obsessing over books and stories and art that other people have created.
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