HELLO ALL! My name is Anna Zhuo ( 卓安娜 )! In case you are curious, I am Chinese (Cantonese) and both my parents were from China! I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and moved to Mobile, Alabama in 2011! Art has always been a passion of mine, but I did not start doing it professionally until a few years ago (2015).
I am a freelance artist who does both digital and traditional illustrations. To many people’s surprise, I am a self-taught artist. You can learn so much just through the internet. Deviant Art, YouTube, and google were my best-est friends when it came to learning. Being an artist as a career choice has always been frowned upon when I was growing up, that is why I never sought to further chase that dream. In fact, I even got rejected from an art school (La Guardia High School of Arts)! During college, I went through so many changes in my major. I finally landed on one I really liked because I enjoyed my work as a group leader for an after-school program. That was when I was set to want to become a teacher. At that point in my life, I have moved down South and continued my studies to become an elementary teacher.
Along the way, I met tons of great people that were very supportive of the arts. That is when I started to draw again, eventually picking up watercolor. Because of drastic changes in my life, one of my mentors sat me down and had a talk with me. That was when I realized art WAS my calling. I had dropped everything and started pursuing my dream of being a professional artist. I was always told I would never make it. Here I am, constantly proving them wrong. Even the richest people can be miserable. I love what I do and I hope to inspire many others to chase their dreams. No one said it will be easy!
Currently, I am traveling from convention to convention selling my artwork, meeting new people, sharing the wealth of information I have about getting into the professional world, teaching others about different mediums, and etc. At the same time, I am working closely with local comic stores to publish more variant covers for people’s favorite comic books! Even now, I still consider myself as an amateur artist and I am nowhere near where I want to be! There are still tons to learn and tons of goals to achieve! Never stop learning! Never stop chasing your dreams!
