Now residing in Berkeley, California, Olivia was born in Taiwan and moved to Toronto, Canada at the age of fourteen.  She received her first BFA in Architecture from Ryerson University and her 2nd BFA in Fine Art Painting and Drawing in 2012 at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. She has been in group shows with Pacific Art League in Palo Alto, STUDIO Gallery in San Francisco and Garden Gallery in Half Moon Bay.  She also received a "Specialty Award" from the Academy of Art University and will be featured in North Light Book's competition Strokes of Genius 5 : Best of Drawing / Composition, 2013.

www.oliviachenart.com

John Chun Chiu Lee started working at Pixar Animation Studios in 2006 as an animator on “Ratatouille.” Since then he has animated on many award-winning feature films including “WALL-E,” “Up,” “Toy Story 3,” “Brave,” “Monster’s University,” “The Good Dinosaur,” “Inside Out,” “Finding Dory,” and most recently “Coco.”  He is a two time Annie Award nominee for “Monsters University” and “CoCo” and received the Annie Award for Outstanding Animation in a Feature Film for his work on “CoCo”.  

Prior to joining Pixar, Lee attended Sheridan College for 2D and 3D animation and worked on several film, television and commercial projects in Toronto Canada.

I paint and I teach. 

I paint people, I paint landscapes and I paint anything that inspires me to mix colours and brush them on canvasses.
Galleries, private collectors and commisioned clients are those to whom my paintings went.

I teach drawing, I teach painting and I teach anything that my students like to share with me. Many years I have taught, and still I am teaching--full time--Academy of Art University --San Francisco.
I've seen energetic students, I've seen sleepy students, life is delicious--as long as one's happy.

About me? My shoulder hurts, my throat's sore--because

I paint and I teach.

Ho-Jun is from Seoul, Korea, and earned his BFA and MFA from the School of Fine Art at the Academy of Art University.

He has been teaching numerous figurative painting and drawing classes at the Academy since 2007.

He continues his artistic journey in San Francisco, where he has met great teachers and artists.

Mildred Hankinson is a figurative artist and instructor. She studied fine art and illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and has been teaching since 2013.

Oliver Sin graduated from Academy of Art University in Illustration dept in 1996 and he has been teaching at Academy of Art University since year 2001. Sin was born in Hong Kong and has been living in San Francisco since 1990, he began working as a computer games concept artist upon graduating and has more than four years of experience at world-renowned computer games companies, such as Lucas Arts and 3DO. Sin has valuable knowledge and experience in many aspects as 2D animator, concept designer, background and layout artist and he has an excellent breadth of drawing and traditional animation skills and conception art skills. Sin is deeply inspired by fine artists Nicolai Fechin, John Sargent and Jose Roko, among others. Sin employs the influences of renowned artists and mentors Zhao Ming Wu and Henry Yan. The results are works of precise composition and evocative color harmonies in figurative portraits.

For more information, please visit : OliverSin (@oliversin) • Instagram photos and videos

Jennifer Linderman is a mixed media artist living in Oakland with her family and pets who give her daily inspiration for her work. She has owned her own business, Origami Mami, since 2010 and has been bringing her popular after school program to local Elementary Schools, including Piedmont, Walnut Creek, Orinda, and Oakland areas. She is a featured artist on Sktchy (an online artist community which offers online art classes and reference photos for drawing/painting). She has shown her work as a guest artist for Open Studios annually for the past several years at Norton Factory Studios in Oakland. Some of her current portraiture works are on display at Grand Lake Kitchen, a restaurant in the Dimond district in Oakland.

Alex Combs is an artist and educator from Asheville, North Carolina, currently based in the SF Bay Area. Alex uses comics to create honest, vulnerable, and educational narratives with a dash of humor, that will resonate with readers from a variety of backgrounds. He is a recent graduate of the MFA in Comics program at California College of the Arts and he enjoys sharing his love of visual storytelling through teaching workshops on comics creation and other forms of narrative art.

Lauren Davis is a cartoonist, writer, and editor living in Berkeley, California. She holds a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center and an MFA from the California College of the Arts. She worked for several years as a contributor and associate editor at the science and science fiction site io9, and she has many opinions about Star Wars.

Lauren is a co-writer for Debian Perl, Digital Detective, a middle-grade graphic novel that uses a futuristic detective story to teach computing concepts. She co-created Debian Perl with Melanie Hilario and Katie Longua.

Lauren likes to make comics about weird history, gross science stuff, and US law. She will not shut up about webcomics, even if you ask politely.

Jennifer Jang is known for her dark and expressive paintings. Exploring the brokenness of man and the brevity of life are key themes in her work. Her artwork is composed of mixed media; oil, charcoal, water color, and collage on wood.
Based in the Bay Area, Jennifer studied at the Academy of Art University and received her BFA in Fine Art in 2012. Her work was featured at the Napa Art Museum, 111 Minna Gallery, Artspace Warehouse, and others. She was also honored with Artist of the Year Award by RAW Artists in 2014.


I'm Muru Zhou, a passionate visual artist and a Ph.D. holder in polymer science and engineering. I am currently pursuing an MFA in Visual Development at the Academy of Art University.

I began drawing at a young age and developed a strong interest in figure drawing during my time in art school. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to learn figure drawing from several accomplished masters, including Oliver Sin, Henry Yan, and Adam Caldwell. The profound knowledge I gained from these masters inspired me to teach other artists who seek inspiration and wish to build a solid foundation in figure drawing. Additionally, I have a keen interest in oil painting, digital art, and scientific illustrations.
If you wish to learn more about me, please visit: https://muruzhou.myportfolio.com/

Hello! My name is Louixelle Marcelin, though most know me as, Millie. I am a Miami-born Haitian-American illustrator, painter, character designer, and visual development artist. I recently graduated with a MFA in Visual Development from Academy of Art University, and I currently work in San Francisco as an assistant manager at a bakery, freelance artist, occasional art model and part-time teacher all while on a journey to break into the animation industry. I have also been working on building my brand through social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and learning the ins and outs of being an artist in those spaces. I love working both digitally and traditionally to tell compelling stories, and create interesting characters and illustrations. To learn more about me and see more of my work visit my portfolio site: https://www.louixellemart.com/

Daniel Segrove is a recent graduate in multidisciplinary mixed media with a BFA from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. Daniel currently lives and works in California, and has shown his work in the United States and internationally. Daniel’s explorations of traditional subjects such as portraits and the human form are unconventional. Daniel explores the use of paper in an active role, as a concept and a way of self- expression, rather than as simply a passive surface on which to draw. Experimentation and intuition create dynamic figurative works of art, juxtaposing traditional figurative realism with abstraction and minimalism, in visual and psychological contrast. Segrove's work incorporates mixed media including charcoal, graphite, oil paint, acrylic, pastel and collage, and mixed visual disciplines.

Mei Mei Everson has a Bachelor Degree in Fine Art with a major in Illustration. She is an artist who is passionate about storytelling through her art. Her choice of mediums ranges from acrylic and watercolors for illustration & painting to puppets and mechanical props for stop motion animation. She has won an award for her stop motion film, shown in art galleries and is currently collaborating with other artists on various projects.


She is a featured instructor at the Arts with Elder program. She worked with both adults and children for over 10 years, she feels that working with senior communities has been of her most rewarding teaching experiences. She sees art classes benefit the community outwardly, bringing joy and connection to elders and their loved ones. Online art classes have been especially beneficial and a fun way to connect with people while still finding a creative outlet during these difficult times. She hopes to continue to serve more communities and bring this valuable resource to more people.

Biography:


A quiet voice in contemporary art, Siner’s paintings are held in special esteem for their enduring qualities: a perfect sense of fleeting time, exquisite clarity of light, bold brushwork, fine tuning of color, delicately balanced structure, and the captured moment of absolute recognition. Her subject matter ranges from the intimate to the monumental, from the everyday to whimsical combinations of objects, with surprise, intelligence and a sensual mastery of traditional media.


Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Siner began her studies at the Art Students League of New York in 1968, graduated from Boston University (BFA) in 1973 and from American University (MFA) in 1976. She has lived for extended periods in France, Italy and China. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums for four decades and is in hundreds of collections around the world.


Siner’s work is classically derived yet contemporary; an almost abstract expressionist handling belies the strong underlying structure. She is sensitive to the slightest nuance of color and edge and through this, light, atmosphere and form are evoked in their finest changes. A miracle of resolution occurs as one steps back from her small abstract painting and it suddenly resolves into a stunning moment of real life. This is the moment of perception revealed.


Working exclusively from life, she is one of a small number of artists using direct visual perception to translate human experience into material form. Her years in China fostered the calligraphic quality of her brushwork, so active and yet so accurate, as it re-enacts the choreography of coming into being. While she eschews narrative as story-telling, she finds it in the unusual juxtaposition of objects, and in the gradual unfolding of meaning which follows from immediate perception.


As her eyes roam the visual world subject matter is almost incidental as it could be anything from the commonplace to the bizarre, whatever appears in the visual field to tempt. Usually the motive to paint is a rare configuration of shapes and relationships that collide to provoke new meaning. Her figures are touching, powerful and alive, still-lives are anything but still and any small corner of nature becomes important from her attending to it.


Siner is also a devoted teacher who has influenced a generation of painters. She has been on the faculty of l’Institute d’Universités Américaines and Lacoste School of Art in France (Cleveland Institute of Art), a visiting professor at Xiamen University in China, Artist-in-Residence at Savannah College of Art and Design, Dean of Faculty at the Washington Studio School and teaches workshops and master classes in the USA and abroad. She is a frequent guest artist and public speaker appreciated for her revealing lectures on art history and the internal workings of painting. She is currently compiling a book and video on the painter’s secret geometry.


In 1976 she moved to France, taught painting and art history at European university programs and exhibited in Aix-en-Provence, Paris and Marseilles. She also studied medicine at the Faculté de Médicine and frequently performed as a singer and musician. In the 1980’s she taught anatomy at Georgetown Medical School and completed facial reconstructions for law enforcement. She is well known for her expertise in artistic anatomy and human movement, evident in her figurative sculpture. In 1991 she visited and lectured in China’s six major art academies, and then taught several years at Xiamen University. Her visits to Italy have been numerous, both for the study of Italian painting and for her own work. Since 2008 she has been in Venice, enamored of that city’s ever-changing surfaces. She is represented by many galleries (see: www.maggiesiner.com)

Felicia Forte is a representational oil painter based in Detroit, Michigan. She has exhibited and worked full time as an artist since 2010, and has been featured in many publications and podcasts. Felicia is also a sought after instructor of painting having taught at various institutions including The de Young Museum of Fine Art, The Walt Disney Family Museum. She travels internationally to teach workshops. In December, 2013 she was awarded a residency at The de Young Museum of Fine Art in San Francisco. In 2014 she participated as faculty at the Plein Air Convention and Expo in Monterey, California. In 2015 and 2016 Felicia's Self Portrait exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London for The BP Portrait Award. In 2017 she has been resident and grant recipient at the "Redbull House of Art" project in Detroit. Felicia maintains a studio in Detroit, where she works and offers instruction to private students both in person and online.

“Color has emotional weight and is related to the shape of space. Drawing or painting, for me, means to look at the thing and transmit its vitality to the canvas.”

Aimee Erickson is a representational oil painter. Born in Paris (1967) and raised in Sunnyvale, California, she started oil painting at the age of eight. After earning a BFA in Visual Communication Design/Illustration, she developed a warm, inviting pictorial voice grounded in traditional realism, informed by the principles of design, and inspired by nature and human experience. She has also studied with a number of prominent painters. Her approach to painting tends to be very direct and experimental, without a set routine, and leans toward the abstract; she uses brushes mostly, palette knives frequently, and sometimes a bigger scraper or straightedge.

Aimee teaches painting, drawing, and color theory at venues nationwide and overseas. She has a particular interest in what enables or inhibits artistic progress. How do we learn to see what we cannot yet see? How does expectation influence our ability to perceive?

One of the winningest painters in the plein air world, Aimee took home Best of Show and Artists' Choice at this year's Plein Air Easton; she has also won Best of Show at Laguna, Olmsted, Carmel, Sonoma, and Pacific Northwest Plein Air. She was a finalist at the Portrait Society of America, is a signature member with multiple awards from Oil Painters of America, and won Best of Show at an American Women Artists national show. In 1997 she painted the official gubernatorial portrait of Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts. She has recently travelled to China and Russia to paint and is an inaugural member of En Train Air. Aimee lives in Portland, Oregon, and carries a sketchbook.

Irenka Pareto is a printmaker and illustrator specializing in relief printmaking . Born and raised in Barcelona, Spain, Irenka came to the USA in 2006 for graduate school, completing her Ph.D. in Education in 2011. After decades of a very fulfilling and successful career as an educator, social scientist, and writer, art came to her life like a revolution and happily took over. Now, as The Wonderstruck Printmaker, Irenka creates original, hand-carved, and hand-printed linocut relief prints celebrating the wonders and beauty of those small ordinary moments that make life worth living. Working mostly with linoleum, Irenka is drawn to graphic and illustrative styles, endlessly fascinated by the storytelling possibilities of composition and by mark making as a way to create tone, texture, and feeling. You can find her work at Builders Bookstore in 4th Street Berkeley, on her online shop , or at the many local Craft Fairs and Markets she loves to be part of (For more go to www.thewonderstruckprintmaker.com or on IG: @the_wonderstruck_printmaker).

Heather Ihn Martin, a fine artist raised in rural Michigan, has been creating artwork since she could hold a pencil. Her passion for art was so clear and unwavering, that after graduating high school she found herself leaving her hometown in Michigan to earn her BFA in Illustration at the Ringling School of Art and Design (now named the Ringling College of Art and Design) in Florida. 

Once receiving her degree, she spent years working as an illustrator, followed by nearly a decade as a game artist in the mobile gaming industry. In 2016, Heather was reintroduced to traditional media, and fell head over heels in love with painting from life and plein air painting. Despite working a full time job, having a long commute, and a ridiculously large family of animals, Heather spent every spare minute towards building a fine art career and working to be a better artist. 

During this time, Heather discovered her new favorite medium of all time, gouache (also known as “opaque watercolor”). With gouache, she is able to capture the fleeting light and essence of a scene, while maintaining a crucial sense of spontaneity and energy. She has a passion for painting a range of subjects from life, from plein-air painting, portraiture, interiors, and still lifes.

In 2018, Heather made the decision to depart from the gaming industry to pursue a fine art career. Within the past two years, she has received numerous awards and global recognition for her work. Heather currently resides in the foothills of Northern California. 

Jamie Firenze is an artist that does cute anime style art for a living. Working at anime conventions, selling her own merchandise and taking on the spot commissions. She has worked in the convention scene for almost 10 years. Jamie has been in charge of an after school art club for over 4 years and loves to teach anyone who is excited to learn anime style art.

Linktr.ee

Hadas Tal is a fine art painter born in Israel in 1975, raised in Fair Lawn, NJ

Studied Painting at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Studied drawing and painting at Rutgers University, New York Academy of Art, and the Art Students League of New York


Exhibited her work at the Annual Spring Show at the Academy of Art in 2011 and 2012.
Named Top Ten Artists to Watch in 2012 by California Home & Design Magazine, April Issue.
Chosen to participate in the Young Generation Matter Showcase at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, April 2012. 

Nominated for the 2012 SECA Art Award by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Hadas Tal has recently been featured in the SF Chronicle debuting her first Solo Show at
Paul Thiebaud Gallery - San Francisco, CA.
 

Born in South Korea in 1985, Sung Eun Kim has been studying and creating art since he was very young. After he graduated from Daejeon Art High School in South Korea, he came to United State to pursue his study of painting, and finished his BFA at the California College of the Arts in 2010. After graduation, he worked as a freelance illustrator of children’s books for two years. Then, because of his enthusiasm and passion for painting, he began his MFA program at the Academy of Art University in 2012 and has continued developing his artistic style.

With just a pair of scissors, I create intricate, hand cut collages which reflect my Victorian obsession with faeries, flora and fauna. From my large collection of books, prints and pages that are antique, forgotten and foxed with age, I cut out images, categorize them and then eventually piece them together like a complex paper jigsaw. My collages are places where beauty is strange, creatures are curious and a sense of wonder prevails.

The female face is central to much of my artwork and often acts as a reflection of the natural and sometimes magical world. She can be surrounded by birds, fish and butterflies or submerged in a dense wallpaper pattern which either represents her prison or her liberation.

I have recently found that my collages are becoming more orderly and methodical - neatly arranged, strange objects fill the page like rows of paper microscope slides or specimens in a tiny cabinet of curiosity. My need to obsessively cut can sometimes outweigh the composition of the piece, so I am often left with piles of abandoned cuttings - lost bones, moths, fungi, feathers, coral, shells and butterfly wings. Eventually these too will find a place to reside......

​Katie McCann is an English collage artist currently living and working in Berkeley, California.

Born in the city of Trollhattan on the west coast of Sweden, Björklund’s biography is full of interesting experiences. Starting as a veterinary student, he worked as a psychiatric nurse and a prison night guard which profoundly influenced his oil paintings and watercolors. Finding inspiration in everyday life and things that surround him, of the great importance is his simple way of living in a modest, two centuries old farm house which he shares with his muse, Great Dane Solomon, and different mammals, such as rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, and rats. His paintings reflect the moods and characters of his animal friends, trying to remain his compositions simplistic in their expression. Mostly representing his pets and family members, he often uses the live study, but sometimes also employs the combination of photographs and memories. Painting exclusively figurative works, his pieces possess the certain physical and emotional tension visible through his almost surreal narratives emphasized by abstracted light and darts of color[1]. Creating reflections of his own emotions through the depictions of the people and animals that surround him, Björklund’s figurative artworks cross the borders of the usual portrait, achieving the surreal dimensions. Trying different ways to apply paint, the painter has found brushes as the most convenient for his creative expression, and beside them, sometimes only uses the razor blade to scratch the paint off in certain places.

San Francisco Bay Area artist Erin McCluskey Wheeler is known for her bright colored works that employ a meticulous assemblage of found and painted papers. With both an abstract and graphic style, Wheeler's works are sometimes symbolic or whimsical, and play with ideas of nostalgia and visual memories in a narrative context. Erin sources found materials and creates her own painted paper collage material to create densely layered paintings full of light and space. Wheeler has a BA in studio art, and a BA in art history (magna cum laude) from Beloit College, and an MFA from California College of the Arts.

Erin is represented by Jen Tough Gallery and Roaring Artist Gallery and her paintings are licensed and sold through West Elm, Minted, and Samsung. She was the artist in residence for the El Cerrito Recycling Center in 2018-2019.

Ellie Welsh Ferreyra is a multidisciplinary artist based in Berkeley, California. They specialize in abstract watercolor painting, but also enjoy sculpture - including mixed-media and ceramic - drawing, and design. Ellie worked at Blick Art Materials for three years and developed a strong working knowledge of most art mediums, which is something they love to share with others. They received a BA from Mills College in 2022 and currently work as a preschool teacher.

Nicolás Uribe is a painter born in Madison, WI, currently based in Bogotá, Colombia. He graduated with Honors as an Illustration Major from School of Visual Arts in NY. Nicolás has had numerous solo exhibitions both in the US and South America, and has exhibited his work in Mexico, Spain, Egypt, among other countries. He splits his time between preparing works for upcoming projects and teaching Life Drawing and Painting at the Fine Arts Faculty of the Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá. Nicolás is also part of the team at Blank Atelier in Bogotá, where he teaches workshops privately.

Born in Bulgaria in 1972, Kalvachev moved to the US in his 20s to begin a career in the entertainment industry that led him to work on almost every major children IP from Micky Mouse Clubhouse and Blue’s Clues, to Spiderman and The Incredibles.

With more than 20 years of experience, Kalvachev considers himself a “visual storyteller.” His career has taken him across the globe and extended his range from art production, graphic novel creator, graphic designer, UIX designer, chief creative officer and freelancer with notable clients such as Disney, Pixar, Steven Spielberg, Hasbro and Nickelodeon. 

Kalvachev is the recipient of the Best Downloadable Game of the Year Award, several Betsy Awards (for education products), the Bologna Children’s Game Award and more. He was also nominated for two Eisner awards for his cover and color work on the comic book series Blue Estate. He has had several solo exhibitions and taken part of many group shows around the world.

Viktor Kalvachev is mostly known for his graphic novels PHERONE and Blue Estate, as well as his work on comic book titles such as Batman Beyond, Men of War, B.P.R.D. and DMZ. His latest art book INSPIRE was successfully funded through Kickstarter and made its debut at SDCC 2018. 

Kalvachev has his M.F.A. degree from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Georege graduated from Academy of Art University San Francisco in 2009.  He is now a freelance illustrator and instructor at Ringling College in Sarasota Florida.

For more information, please visit: https://www.georgedrawing.com/

Neubert attended Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, and the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming. He graduated in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in art education. At that point he moved to Douglas, Wyoming, to pursue work as an elementary school art teacher. After a year teaching, he abandoned that field and relocated to Ft. Collins, Colorado, to focus on his artwork.

Neubert was accepted into the "Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale"[1] as the youngest artist ever to participate. Neubert’s work was featured in the “Out West: The Great American Landscape” art show that traveled China.[2] As part of this art show his work then toured much of China, showing at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, The Ürümqi Art Museum in Ürümqi, Shanxi Art Museum in Xi’an, the Shanghai Art Museum and the Shanghai Painting Institute in Shanghai, the Qingdao Modern Art Centre in Qingdao, and the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre in Hong Kong. One of Neubert's pieces featured in these shows, Bull Rider and the Cody Nite Rodeo, is notable in that it takes a step beyond his traditional use of Impressionism and reaches toward Expressionism. His Kandinsky-esque use of color and line emphasizes the feeling of being on a bull and makes it possible for the viewer to imagine actually being in the place of the bull rider.

Neubert has also completed murals for the University of Wyoming, Budweiser, and the City of Fort Collins and many businesses throughout Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana. He also is a participating artist in the "Richard Schmid Art Show."

...but, you probably know him as the master of horror art and subversion with his immensely satisfying scrape off paintings. Proving yet again, the world is a fantastic dark place just under the surface. You have probably ran into Blake's work as featured on BUZZFEED, YOUTUBE,  VIRALNOVA, and INKEDMAG. 

Blake Neubert paints exclusively with Gamblin paints, draws with Prismacolor Nupastels to bring your nightmares to life.