
Rama Hughes
Two truths and a lie about Rama Hughes:
Rama Hughes is an art teacher and an illustrator.
He lives with his wife and son in Los Angeles, CA.
He was the star of the 1980 cinema flop, Pumaman.
You can see Rama’s work at ramahughes.com, visit flickr to peek in on his classes, or trade portraits through his ongoing portrait party!
* * * * *

Mati Rose McDonough
Mati Rose McDonough lives in San Francisco where unlike her hipster counterparts she regularly encounters elephants, talking birds and a mysterious girl who always wears feathers in her hair. These creatures of mystery and grace remind Mati daily that no one is too old for magic or too young for beauty, so she paints their stories with paint, fabric and found paper.
After a persistent dream to become an artist and illustrator, Mati went back to school 5 years ago at age 29 to the California College of the Arts (CCA). Since then, Mati has had numerous shows and illustrations on cds, board games, shirts and necklaces. Mati is newly repped by Lilla Rogers Studio in illustration and surface design. In addition to illustration work she’s inspired by teaching painting classes in far away lands like Italy and Utah and close to home in Santa Cruz. On a daily basis Mati can be found painting in her studio behind her home in the sunny Mission district shared with 8 other artists and her talented illustrator husband Hugh D’Andrade. When she’s not covered in paint you can find her biking to the ocean, drinking tea and searching for colorful baubles of inspiration to share with you here.
* * * * *

Fernanda Cohen & Manolo M.
Fernanda is a NY-based illustrator, she teaches at SVA, runs a lecture series at the Society of Illustrators of NY, writes for American Illustration’s Dart and Argentine magazine 90+10, art directs Terrorismo Grafico, is the vice president of the illustration conference ICON6, an advisor to 3×3 magazine and works on commercial and personal art projects, including mostly advertising, fashion, merchandising, windows and some editorial.
Manolo is a self taught painter, musician, animator, video artist, writer and comic artist. He designed and animated a short film that screened at the Sundance and TriBeCa Film Festivals, has exhibited his paintings in quite a few NY indie group shows and has blogged and written Web content for longer he can remember.
Fernanda is a workaholic who speaks her mind loud and clear, whereas Manolo is a soft-spoken, patient listener whose hard work, passion and loyalty are hard to match. This is how and why they complement each other and manage not to clash while working together on restaurant murals, Fernanda’s studio projects and such.
* * * * *

Susan Schwake
Susan Schwake has been a full time artist and instructor for the past 20 years. She is co owner of artstream studios and gallery with her creative husband Rainer and good friend Mary-Jo. Her own work has been exhibited and sold around the world and some of her illustrations have appeared in ON magazine and in United Airlines inflight pulications as well as a book cover for Boreal Editions, Quebec. She draws every day and enjoys curating engaging exhibits at artstream for the past 7 years. Her home is in New Hampshire, but her heart loves to travel the world. She shares her life with two creative children and her husband Rainer.
* * * * *

Steve Mack
Steve Mack grew up a prairie boy on Canada’s Great Plains and has drawn for as long as he can remember. His first lessons in art were taught to him by watching his grandfather do paint-by-numbers at the summer cottage. Later on in life his mother would bring home reams of dot matrix printout paper from her job as a data processor. Steve would then flip over onto the unprinted side and draw for hours upon hours. He took every drawing class he could find at the local community center and spent every hour of math class sharpening his drawing skills.
After graduating from college as a Visual Communications know-it-all, he instead turned from graphic design back to his roots as an illustrator. Steve started freelancing in the year 2000 and has had a steady climb upwards since that time. Steve has worked with major clients such as Target, Walgreens, Hallmark, Sterling Publishing, Scholastic, Harcourt, Chronicle Books, and recently spent a year in Ohio working directly with American Greetings illustrating greeting cards.
Steve has made a return to Canada where he lives peacefully on a lake with his wife and two small children. Steve still loves to illustrate, but now thinks fishing holds a close second place.
Visit Steve’s personal art blog here.
* * * * *

Melanie Ford Wilson
Melanie Ford Wilson is a designer and illustrator with a passion for pencils and paintbrushes, words and stories, blooms and beasties. When not toiling behind her Mac or her drawing board, she can be found wandering the Canadian wilds with her floppy-eared, dog-shaped shadow, Finnegan Jane. Not surprisingly, Melanie counts nature as her biggest inspiration (closely followed by music and chocolate). Her personal art attempts to explore the emotional connection between mind and nature within a kind of fairy tale context where anything is possible. She is besotted with fancy adjectives, Phthalo blue, the color green, Klimt, and all things arty and unexpected.
She has illustrated several children’s books, including two books about dinosaurs for the world renown Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. Design clients include Target, Aveeno, Loreal, and Johnson & Johnson.
* * * * *

Amanda Woodward
Amanda Woodward is a Canadian designer, illustrator, and artist. She heads her own design studio, Woodward Design, with her husband, Dana.
While she has worked on everything from ad campaigns to visual identities, her passion for illustration often touches her work. Her illustration client list includes Alberta Milk, Cricket Magazine, Miami Children’s Museum, Scholastic, Target, among others. She has exhibited her art in both Canada and the United States. Her paintings are informed by simple life experiences and personal relationships. The sometimes small and seemingly insignificant moments, like growing tomato plants, feeling sand between the toes, laughing, and loving.
When she isn’t drawing she can be found happily snapping photographs, knitting scarves or baking a pie.
* * * * *

Colin Dullaghan
Colin has been writing words to accompany art and design for more than ten years now, for clients around the U.S., in print, online and broadcast media.
His other connection to the visual arts is that he is married to a fairly prominent illustrator (you may be familiar with her work), so that helps too.
He is a new dad, a big dork and endlessly curious. He has a weakness for typography and infographics and takes extremely hit-or-miss pictures with a borrowed Holga camera.
* * * * *

Brianna Privett
Brianna is the lead developer for Utopian.net. She maintains about a million URLs, foremost among them her personal playground Brianna.org.
* * * * *

Penelope Dullaghan
Penelope Dullaghan is a co-founder of Illustration Friday along with her partner Brianna Privett. Penelope is an award-winning illustrator and fine artist who began her freelance career after a five-year stint as an art director. She chronicles her artistic development at her website, penelopeillustration.com. Clients include Starbucks, Target, United Airlines, New York Times, LA Times Book Review, SF Chronicle, and the Oprah Magazine.
* * * * *