Jennifer Xiao Q: Introduce yourself a little bit. Where are you from/where do you live? How old are you? Do you introduce yourself as an illustrator, an artist, none of those? Jennifer: I’m Jennifer Xiao! I grew up in North Carolina and for now I’m based in Jersey City. I’m currently 22 years old. I usually think of myself as an illustrator. Q: How did you get into art? Jennifer: I always really loved drawing and grew up watching a lot of cartoon shows and staring at picture books. I spent a lot of my free time making things, but it was really after I taught myself Photoshop in middle school when I realized I could do art as a career. I just graduated from RISD this year where I majored in illustration!
24 — (renewal)
Q: Are you pursuing art full-time? If so, did you ever consider pursuing something else? Jennifer: Yeah I am! I pretty much always wanted to do something visual arts related full time, but for a brief period in high school I really wanted to be a TV writer. I can draw better than I can write, so it’s for the best I didn’t try doing that. Q: What are your main mediums? Is your work done all digitally? Jennifer: My work is basically all digital. I do most things just using the default hard round brush in Photoshop, but I also draw a lot in my sketchbooks with markers. I used to screen print a lot in school which I would love to do more of if I had the space for it.
