Raised in a rural part of Michigan, artist Heather Ihn Martin has been creating art since she can remember. She attended the Ringling School of Art and Design in 2001, obtaining her BFA in Illustration. While her dreams of being a Disney artist never came to fruition (like almost every other child that saw behind the scenes shots from Lion King), she did find herself in the mobile gaming industry for a decade before leaving to pursue fine art.

Never shying from a good challenge, Heather’s work is almost exclusively painted directly from life. She finds it crucial to be immersed in the environment, and works hard to capture the moment through her eyes. Landscapes, still-lifes, interiors, architecture, portraits, animals, there is no subject that she won’t attempt and approach with equal curiosity and excitement.

You’ll often find Heather lugging a backpack twice her size near her home in the hills of Northern California to paint en plein air. If not outdoors, she’s hogging a surprising amount of space indoors to paint still-lifes in a house shared with her husband, two dogs, and two cats (the ducks and chickens in the yard).