About the Artist ~ Valerie A. Ryan
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Hello everyone! My name is Valerie Ryan and I've been a freelance online cartoon & graphic artist for quite some time now. I am 28 years old and have been happily married to my husband Mathew Ryan for 8 years with whom I have the unimaginable "Perfect Life". We don't have children but we do have an adorable miniature schnauzer who goes by the name of "Kiko". I was born and raised in Montreal, QC but I now live in beautiful British Columbia (Canada).
My interests are drawing (of course!), swimming, biking, camping, hiking, tennis & reading. Although techno is my favorite musical genre, my favorite musical artist (Pink Floyd) isn't a techno musician. If you've browsed my galleries you can probably tell my favorite color is blue and my least favorite is red. In the past I was a huge MMORPG Video Game fan and played both Everquest and World of Warcraft. I also enjoy playing PS2 mostly the Final Fantasy games.
As a youngin' in school I used to always get in trouble for having sketches all over my notes. My teachers would bust me for drawing instead of paying attention. I would create characters and stories and dream of one day seeing these characters in a comic book or an anime series. I have always been eager to draw. One of my first subjects of obsession was Ariel from The Little Mermaid. I've spent a lot my free time in my youth drawing Disney characters. When I first saw the anime show "Sailor Moon" I was instantly captured! Taking a huge interest in the anime style, I've been teaching myself through a lot of practice and since I started commissioning I feel that I have improved a great deal.
I have no artistic schooling behind me as of yet, but I will be attending Vancouver College of Designs '3D Modelling, Animation Art and Design' course from July 2010 up until January 2012. I have enjoyed working freelance because the work is always different and I have met many people. I have had only good experiences in my years working as a freelance artist online and I believe I owe some thanks to all my great customers for that!
Being as self-analytical as possible, I would have to say that my personality is still hard to capture in words. I am overly friendly and many people tell me I have a knack for making people around me feel comfortable. I am organized and I have an obsession with efficiency & perfection which sometimes makes me a bit stressed but I am proud to say I handle stress like a champ! I am honest to a fault and dislike dishonesty in others. I am also known for having a bit of a stubborn streak and I am extremely competitive!
As for spoken languages, I speak both English and French though English is my mother tongue. I have to admit my typing in French is pretty laughable, and I haven't spoken it in years but I am sure I could still hold a full conversation.
So you see I have a fairly interesting job as everything I do is always changing. Every new person whom I work for is helping me sharpen my skills and learn new styles or showing me what others deem important in a piece of art. It’s taken me a while to learn to use the tools I have (Adobe Photoshop for example) to their fullest especially without training or schooling. But I think I am finally at a point where I can say that I am satisfied with my work. I still have a few things to learn about creating homepages, which I am planning to learn in the next year or so, but overall I am happy with the outcome of my dedication to perfecting my homepage, artwork and service.