The Authors Quill Illustrator April Solomon second hour Author Marianne Xenos

April Solomon was born in 1983 and raised in Laguna Beach, California. Since she was a small child, April has had a talent for drawing and painting. She would draw anything and everything that came into her imagination. Of all things, she drew dragons the most! Thankfully, her loving and encouraging family inspired her to embrace her love for the arts.
She grew up around art. Her father’s art studio was filled with all the delights a child could indulge. His bookshelves held stacks of art books containing illustrations from the old masters, the golden age illustrators, and even some fantasy art from the TSRs Dungeons and Dragons. Inspiration came in many forms. Fortunately it was everywhere! and so her career as a young artist began.
Today April is an illustrator and fine artist who has earned her bachelor’s degree in illustration at the Laguna College of Art and Design. April’s passion for learning the old masterful techniques of traditional drawing and painting are precisely what inspires her work.
Among her love for the fine arts is her unique appreciation for whimsical fantasy, which adorns every image of her portfolio. April’s meticulous creature designs aim for what is known as “fantastic realism.” A clever, concise understanding of anatomy, plants, and mysterious textures weave their way into her illustrations, leaving the viewer guessing at origins, influences, and ancestry. April’s work allows the viewer to dive imaginatively deeper, and reconsider whether dragons might be real or whether werewolves exist to stalk the streets at night.
When not illustrating, April attends garage sales to unearth buried treasures, runs and lifts weights, or braves as many haunted attractions as possible during the month of October.

Find out more about April here,... AprilSolomonArt.com Marianne Xenos is a writer and visual artist living in western Massachusetts. She works with mixed-media, photography, and fiction. She's a member of an artist-run gallery and creates artwork with a strong sense of fantasy and narrative. Although she's been writing since she first learned to read, Marianne only began sending out her stories for publication in the past year and a half.

Marianne grew up in a blue-collar family outside of Boston. Her childhood was full of immigrants, builders, and working-class heroes-people who inspire the characters in her stories. Her father was a heavy-equipment operator who moved to Key West to look for gold, with only moderate success. He introduced her to treasure hunters, conchs, and deep-sea fishing. Marianne's mother, who never left New England if she could help it, taught her to dance as soon as she could walk--everything from Greek line dances to the cha-cha.

Find out more about Marianne here,... MarianneXenos.com