Mea'eshana PhoenixFire

Founder, CEO at Weird Dreams Ink, Creator of Sketchfest

Gender: Female, Age: Old enough to know better, Young enough to still do it anyway.

Lives in Adelaide, South Australia

Studied Bachelor of Visual Arts at University of South Australia

I'm an easy-going, fun loving person who can have childish moments of delight in everything around me, or completely adult stress-filled angry moments just like everyone else. I prefer the childish me over everything else, I think everyone needs to forget their worries and see things through innocent eyes sometimes.

I love anime, art, movies, music and a lot of internet related stuff. I'm trying to get my own business up and running (Weird Dreams Ink), where I can work from home in my own hours, and do exactly what I love; creating art, images, and websites. Sharing knowledge and making new friends are two of my favourite things to do, and family is an important part of my life.

Sketchfest is my monthly way to push myself into creating better art and to spend a weekend enjoying what I love best, making images that make others happy. Any money I earn in the process is really just a bonus. The amount of strong friendships I've earned through doing this since December 2009 trumphs anything else. I can see how I've improved throughout that time, but really it's about socialising with friends, making new ones, and sharing the art.... and the love.

Primarily I create Furry-themed art during Sketchfest weekend as Furs are a large part of my commissioners as well as my friendship group. As you can see by my artist picture up there, I'm a furry myself... this just means that I identify myself with an animal soul and enjoy creating and looking at Anthropomorpic artworks. I think there is beauty in Anthro that allows a view to connect with an animal and see that animal in a different light; giving it human traits defines it as more then -just- an animal, but makes it into a creature with thoughts, feelings, emotions, needs, and wants. This is something that I strongly believe and something I think too many people lose sight off too easily.

The world around us has a life of it's own and when we ignore that we miss the beauty that exists all around us.

That said, Anthro is not the only type of art that I enjoy drawing. I do human pictures in both anime and realistic style, as well as creating realisting animals in their natural settings. I just don't get much of a chance to do it.

I work a job in Administration that's full of paperwork and typing that gets mind-numbingly repetative, but it pays the bills and keeps me with a roof over my head and food in my stomach. For this reason I love exploring the fantasy aspect of art, thinking up creatures that don't exist but by all rights should.

Forgotten Dragons, lost Gryphons, ignored Gargoyles... you name it, I would love to draw it for you.