Katy Dance is an illustrative artist based in Northern California. She is known for creating captivating visual narratives by blending traditional mediums such as watercolor and colored pencil to create a fantasy world where animals do everyday things. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for storytelling, Katy’s work explores animals doing mundane things, such as sitting on the beach or making a snowman. She often incorporates buildings and forests into her scenes to help make her characters and their environments come to life.

Inspired by classical artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet and traditional animation artists such as Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. What Katy loves about Van Gogh and Monet is their vivid expression of color and use of brush strokes to help create movement with their paintings. Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas are some of the original animators at the Walt Disney Company. They helped shape animation into what it is today. They worked on movies such as Bambi and Lady and the Tramp. Katy was initially fascinated by animation and how these artists were able to bring their drawings to life. Katy tries to incorporate bright colors, brush strokes, and animation-like movement into her pieces to help get them to life.

Whether creating for personal projects or commissioned work, Katy remains committed to pushing the boundaries of her artistic expression and always seeking to inspire and connect with others through the power of illustration.