Born in London, Ontario, Alicia grew up with her Mom and Grandparents, making several stops along the way calling Winnipeg, Manitoba and Barrie, Ontario home. During that time, two constants had remained in her life - a love for animals and art.
She has always been drawn to animals over the years owning all kinds of fish, cats and has been a dog-mom to Bailey, Molly and Beans...as well as the mother of dragons (bearded ones anyway) Pick and Chickpea. The duties of motherhood to so many animals does not stop there. Alicia also watches over her flock of tortoises Tortellini, Mango and Waffles, the Sulcata Tortoise (currently weighing in at over 100 pounds). In past years, Alicia even has worked for a Reptile Centre, donated her time and talents to help save whales and other sea-life, and also works in a pet store too! Alicia's exposure to art started at a young age. The usual suspects of crayons and pencils adorned her creativity - but her phase of building things out of cardboard also upped her art-game. In these early years, Alicia developed a passion for cartoons. Both watching, and creating... A connection grew to the medium and she fell in love with the wild adventures of Bugs Bunny to the downtrodden life of Garfield the cat . Learning about the characters and the people who created them was just as fascinating for Alicia. She reveled in knowing the complete history of Chuck Jones and his Warner Brothers' crew...to everything about Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield. This passion to want to create, pushed her to apply and be accepted into the prestigious Sheridan College in hopes of being an animator. During that time, she developed her art skills and made the tough decision that the world of animation wasn't the cup of tea she was searching for. Then taking her talents to graduate from the Graphic Design program of Georgian College. Shortly after, she worked in television at a local station as a Graphic Artist, where she met her husband, Steve. Alicia's path took a new turn in 2006 when she decided to get into painting animals, in a colourful, fun and vibrant new way. Her first piece was called Rooster and was a bright interesting image of a rooster in a spotlight. She produced several more pieces that year under the theme of the "Spotlight Collection" and they were a hit. Alicia has since branched out to do over 300 original pieces with more to come. When Alicia isn't painting, she loves to spend time with friends in the Ottawa region and enjoys reading comics (everything Squirrel Girl and Ms. Marvel), playing lego video games, listening to some of her favourite bands like Motley Crue and Weezer. She also likes going on various walk-a-bouts to search and find interesting things! |