I was born November 14th, 1987, in a little rodeo town nestled in the Eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains of Washington. I have lived in the same house for most of my life, except for 8 months when I attended "art school" in Phoenix. I hated it, I learned nothing I could apply to my art, so I packed up and came home. I am just about entirely self-taught. I picked up a few tips while taking classes, but I have always done better experimenting on my own.

I have drawn for as long as I can remember, but I won't pretend that my doodles as a 5 year old qualify as artwork. I always believed that faeries/fairies are real, not necessarily as I paint them, but as the spirits of plants and animals, and I obsessed over finding one I could see and drawing a picture of it. After all, everyone knows taking a photo of a faerie never turns out. So I set off with my hi-lighters, a tablet meant for taking down phone messages and a pencil box into the Wenatchee National Forest that surrounds my home. I would usually be found several hours later, curled up between hay bales or stacks of wood, sound asleep.

As I got older I forgot about faeries. Other children made fun of me for drawing them and for the back brace I had to wear to correct my scoliosis. The back brace didn't work, so at age 11 I had to undergo a very traumatic spinal surgery to try and fix my spine. I could almost swear that there were faeries there with me. It might have been the massive amounts of morphine pumping through my veins, but I don't feel that it matters. They brought me some comfort in one of the darkest times of my life, and I have never forgotten about them since. Whether they are angels, faeries, spirits or some sort of otherworldly guardian, they have always comforted me and as I grew older it seemed as if I was just meant to share that comfort with other people.

I began portraying the faeries I saw in my dreams after my surgery, first with digital tools, and then more recently with watercolor. I dropped out of high school when I was 16, but immediately obtained my GED. My life experiences set me so far apart from the other kids at my school that I couldn't relate to anyone, and the classes were so far behind where I was at in my life, that it didn't make sense to me to waste two more years there. Immediately art opportunities began to fall into my lap, and when I was 17 I sold my art at the local street fair. I was amazed to see that the locals loved my art enough to want to hang so much of it on their walls, and it inspired me to build a website and continue doing this. I get to meet so many wonderful people, some who have had to struggle through diversity and physical disability like I have, but still try. It's been an amazing journey, and I don't regret a single step I have taken on my way.

I hope that my faeries inspire you, comfort you, and bring light into the dark hours of your life as they have mine!

xoxo,
Tiffany Allison

My Tools

My collection of tools is strange and varied, probably because I am self-taught. My tools seem random, mismatched and often times strange, but they are all things I've found I really like to use through my experiments.

Brushes: I have lots of different brushes, some sable but mostly synthetic. My favorites are Robert Simmons oval wash and liners from the sapphire series, and filberts from the titanium, sienna and sapphire series.
Paints: I use lots of different paints, most by Yarka St. Petersburg, but a few from Pelikan and some from Winsor and Newton.
Papers: This really varies. I generally prefer smooth or hot press papers, though.
Pencils: I love the Inktense watercolor pencils from Derwent, and regular watercolor pencils from Derwent for more transparent application.
Other Stuff: I use some iridescent medium from Winsor and Newton, masking fluid from Winsor and Newton, glitter, metallic, and shimmer paints.

As for digital art, I have a fairly new Mac Pro that I paint my digital paintings on, using Photoshop CS, Corel Painter 9.5, and a Wacom Intuos 3 Tablet.