Minature - Nicole Wong ""Busy Bee"

Watercolour and Graphite 9x6cm

Signed and inscribed on reverse

"I was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, with both parents in the arts—my dad was a designer and painter, and my mom was a fashion illustrator and art teacher.  So when I was a kid I never thought of becoming anything except an illustrator.  I drew constantly as a girl—including on the walls behind furniture, where my mom would find drawings years later. I received my first freelance illustration job when I was 12. As I grew up I wanted to learn more, and graduated from RISD with a BFA in illustration. I still take art classes to explore different media and techniques, like collage, photography, egg tempera painting, and etc. Now, I’m happily a full-time illustrator of magazines, children’s educational and trade books. I continue to live in Fall River with my husband, our daughter, our mean kitty, and happy pup.

I once thought I’d make a good anthropologist. I’m a constant observer—nothing is as pleasurable to me as the process of studying, processing, and recording the way people and animals reach out and interact. As an illustrator who loves a good narrative, I collect these details, funny and whimsical notes, and use them as my medium to communicate with and entertain an audience. Animals in particular are wonderful to watch.  Spend enough time following them and you find their hours full of small moments of drama, comedy, intrigue, and wonder—all the stuff of great storytelling. I want my paintings to be like fleeting captured moments taken from a larger whole, little pieces of narrative that imply a wider story. I prefer to paint on a small and intimate scale that reflects the subjects and these moments, using everything from oil to pen and ink to watercolor. The size of the paintings almost asks the audience to lean in closer to see it all, so they can enter the image and imagine the rest of that story themselves." - Nicole Wong