About Monica Leigh

My subject matter is nature, whether it is a traditional landscape or a bird and flower painting. I use traditional materials – graphite, pen and ink, colored pencils, watercolors, and acrylic paints to capture the textures, colors, and values of flowers, insects, fish, and animals.
My pressed flower art allows me to capture the beauty of flowers-their shape, size, colors, and textures- even better than before, and for longer. I like to move each piece of the artwork around the page or glass, designing different visually appealing patterns, before deciding on a final symmetrical composition.

Biography

I am a contemporary illustrator and designer who has been living and working in Charleston, West Virginia for the past several months. Originally from a very small community near Helvetia, Wv, I moved to the state’s capitol city to get a new outlook on life and return to creating the art that I love with a new passion to succeed.A former professionally trained Pre-K through Adult Visual Arts Teacher, I have taught students in Randolph and Upshur County for the past decade. However, dedicating my time skill and expertise to public school students drastically cut down on my own time for creative expression. Therefore, this past fall, I decided to take a break from teaching others to refine and practice my own skills. This journey started by completely filling five sketchbooks in 4 months with flora and fauna illustrations. Some of these sketches go on to become their own prints, others are the beginning of paintings, and some are the inspiration for my new pressed floral arrangements. I feel that my love for all things that grow in nature and the outdoors is evident in my work.”You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.”