After Thoughts with Illustrator Alana Fletcher

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Alana Fletcher

From the Grand Rapids Magazine April 2018 issue. Available on newsstands now or via subscription.

Award-winning illustrator and local design student Alana Fletcher is taking her artistic talents to new heights.

Alana Fletcher has been intrigued by art as long as she can remember.

“While I was preschool, we would have little themed tea parties once a month, and one (theme) that always stuck with me was inspired by (Claude) Monet’s Water Lilies series,” Fletcher recalled. “I remember creating little paper lilies for the floor and loving the painting a lot.”

As time went on, the Richland native began taking art more seriously, taking figure drawing classes at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, learning to draw digitally using photoshop and dabbling in animation along the way.

Paean of the Cathedral by Alana Fletcher
“Cathedral of the Deep” by Alana Fletcher

And her dedication to the craft certainly hasn’t gone to waste.

At the start of the year, Fletcher, who is now studying game design and digital animation at Ferris State University, was selected as a winner in the international Illustrators of the Future Contest, earning herself a cash prize and a trip to Hollywood for a weeklong intensive workshop, as well as a shot at winning the contest’s coveted Golden Brush Award, which will be announced April 8.

Fletcher’s winning illustrations, “Cathedral of the Deep,” “Nephelae” and “Humming Temple,” also will be published in the contest’s annual book, “L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 34.”

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CREATIVE OUTLET? Digitally painting, as well as making low-poly models to texture.

WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?I find inspiration a lot in medieval history, as well as folklore for my designs. I also draw inspiration for my shape language from caricaturing nature.

MORNING OR NIGHT PERSON? Definitely a morning person, as I get the most done if I wake up before 8 a.m. I get grouchy at night.

DREAM JOB?My dream job would be a senior concept artist or environment artist at an AA or AAA firm.

IF YOU COULD MEET ANYONE, WHO WOULD IT BE? I would love to meet an Aztec citizen to learn more about their mythos than we know now, as well as understand their history and architecture that was lost to time and colonial invasions.

FAVORITE WAY TO SPEND A SATURDAY IN GR? I love going out to eat. My favorite places would be Maru, Sushi Yama, Fish Lads in the Downtown Market and Pho Soc Trang.

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