Meet visual and fine artist, curator and soon-to-be published author Alexandria Bonner. She grew up surrounded by trees and a few cornfields in Carlisle, PA about an hour away from Lancaster, where she currently resides. Growing up, she lived with her mother and two younger siblings while visiting her father every other weekend. She would visit her grandparents frequently. Alexandria began drawing as a small child. In fact, ever since she was able to hold a writing implement she has been creating art. However, it wasn’t until high school that it dawned on her to pursue a career being what she already was: an artist.
During her years in high school she drew six to eight comic books in her leisurely time to share with friends. She enjoyed it so much that becoming an illustrator became one of her goals while studying at Pennsylvania College of Art & Design (PCAD), where she majored in Fine Art. Tears of joy streamed down the faces of her family as she won “Valedictorian” and “Best Fine Artist” awards upon graduating in 2016. Besides being some of her biggest supporters, her family and friends have always been her number one influences, too. Alexandria shared with us that Da Vinci, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schiele artwork influence her thought process while drawing and her fascination of theoretical physics, specifically magnetism, time, gravity and nonlinear time remains relentless.
Alexandria’s artwork aims to convey constant learning and evolving through how she processes the world best: her art. As she so eloquently put, “the successful art captures the essence of an object or person by using them as a reference, without being bound to a hyper-realistic depiction. It’s life through my unique filter. I want it to convey knowledge, trust and honesty”. Her favorite mediums to work with are first, a ballpoint pen with archival ink, pastels and lastly, acrylic paint. We asked her what one of her favorite pieces she created is and she responded with, “I love the alligator drawings, because they absolutely fascinate me”.
Alexandria is excited to announce that she is planning to have her first book, Ember, available for purchase February 2019 through Amazon. The gestation of her idea of creating a book began back in 2016, in her senior year of college when taking a children’s book class. She connected with publishers in late 2017 and arranged to completely redraw in 2018 before publishing. She describes her book as “playful, imaginative, and nonlinear”. Ember is a children’s picture book (but let’s be honest, a book for people of all ages) that will leave its viewers enthralled by the magic of our own imaginations and wonders of life’s endless possibilities.
Throughout her college education and succeeding, she gained knowledge learning the basics of programs from the Adobe Suite. She uses Photoshop for creating digital art while working for local photographers performing photo retouching as well as creating digital art. We asked her if she had a preference between digital and traditional art. She told us, “I trust drawing with traditional art supplies more. There was always enough extra paper and pens/colored pencils around the house to draw with. We didn’t have the money to buy high-end technology. I experiment with digital art a little now. It’s a faster process, equally as interesting, but not my first choice.”
When we asked her what one of the most challenging aspects of being an artist is, she responded with, “the most difficult part of being an artist has been learning how to do taxes as someone who counts as “Self Employed” by the government. It wasn’t taught during my education, yet is something that would have been very useful”. Alexandria said some of the most rewarding facets about being an artist include “being able to choose my own projects and schedule is incredibly rewarding. In addition, knowing I went after what I believed in. That’s priceless”.
In her spare time, Alexandria enjoys dancing, traveling, volunteering and learning foreign languages. Most recently, French. This will be incredibly useful when she travels to Paris next month to see an immersive Gustav Klimt exhibition. She has fun volunteering with her creative partner, Kevin Mancuso, transforming PCAD classrooms into different themes such as, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, Magic Treehouse, and Wild West. You can also catch her working with her other creative partner, Erich Bell once a week. A few of her future goals include: winning a Caldecott Award, having a solo show, progressing in character design and concept art. She has a new website coming soon (check back for the link!) and is making purchasing original artwork easier than ever before. She is now offering customizable orders. To create yours, simply go to Redbubble.com, type in “Alexandria Bonner” in the search bar and you will be redirected to her profile where you can view and select her artwork to make prints. And not only paper prints but you can have her artwork printed on tote bags, pillows, pins, mugs, smartphone cases and so much more! Be sure to check back for more designs she will have available in the future. To stay up-to-date with her latest projects, check out her Instagram account @Alexandria.Bonner and get ready to hit that ♡ button.
