About me, Ashley Rose

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. A day trip into San Francisco was a common occurance while growing up. For all of my childhood, my father worked at Pixar Animaton Studios as an animator. This exposure to the filmmaking process has made me want to participate in something like that, whether it be animated films or something else. While family would joke about me following in my father's footsteps, I have found my passion to be in illustration. Both my parents have encouraged me to pursue what I enjoy, and that has been art. After graduating from Hercules High School in 2014, I attended Diablo Valley College for my general education. In 2018, I was accepted into and transfered to San Jose State University where I will be getting my BFA in Digital Media Art in December 2020.

I am an interdisciplinary artist. My prefered media are digital painting and watercolor. I explore various media in order to better my own ability to create narratives. The works on this website represent these explorations. These pieces allow me to explore other ways to think about my art. My interests include video games, costume creation, writing, and watercolor painting. I use each of these alongside video and net art to better my personal art.

In most of my practice, I create work that gives my characters faces as well as create a world for them to live in. I find reference material for clothing, body types, and other features to more accurately represent my ideas of the characters I create. Normally I work with pencil to sketch. My art can also include additions in colored pencil, marker, watercolor, or other colored media. I include writing on the page to explain my thought process not only to help myself later on, but also for others who would like to know more about my intentions for a character. The works can include both pages or just the right page, mostly dependent on the character I am working on that day. Whether I am working on a main character or simply an idea for a character, I approach each with the world they would inhabit in mind. There are even notes I keep as guidelines, rules, or ideas related to the story. I feel there are ideas my hands cannot draw yet, but I am always looking to improve and will keep the notes and references for the day I am happy with what I have drawn. I hope to use it to create a world other people can immerse themselves in, though I am not yet sure what form the final product will take.

I enjoy listening to music while I work, sometimes finding my flow. I can work for hours this way, simply in the moment of creating. I often find that I work best while listening to music. The music choice often comes down to what I feel like making. The speed, key, mood, and genre do not really matter to me as long as it helps me focus. Often, I find inspiration in the video games that I play and the novels I read. Some inspirations for me have been Anne Mccaffery and her Dragons of Pern, Blizzard Entertainment, and The Witcher games and novels.