Book 1: Being Grace – Making the ordinary extraordinary!
Raffi Antounian
Based in Los Angeles, Raffi is an illustrator and story artist. After receiving a BFA in Animation, he worked as a freelance visual artist with small businesses, writers, and filmmakers. With that experience, he discovered the value of having expertise in various production art areas, including graphic design, conceptual development, and illustrative commercial art. Since 2008, he also gained experience in the animation industry, and he became a founding partner of R.A.T. Studio, an animation/film partnership that produces original content and collaborates with independent and major productions. In 2014, his years of experience in the visual arts gave him the opportunity to work in “Themed Entertainment.” He contracted with several companies, including Walt Disney Imagineering, to work on numerous attractions, shows, and facility designs for theme parks in Asia and Dubai. In 2019, he extended his creativity to visual storytelling, working as an illustrator of children’s books. Being Grace is his second children’s book, and his artwork can be seen on his website: www.raffiantounian.weebly.com.
Currently, Raffi is a caricaturist at the Los Angeles Zoo on Saturdays. You can find examples of his caricatures on his instagram page: Roughy_Cartoonian.
Book 2: Being Grace – Bunnies on a Trolley
Angela Alvarenga
Angela Alvarenga is a freelance illustrator and fine arts painter. She received a dual Bachelor of Fine Arts in Entertainment Arts and Illustration from California State University, Fullerton. After graduating in 2005, she began working as a digital illustrator. Her favorite subject matters to illustrate are silly, childlike subjects that capture joy and personality. She pulls her inspiration from her wonderfully imaginative sons who are always on an adventure. She was a co-artist for the children’s book titled, It Starts with A Raindrop, and has been an art editor for other children’s books. In 2009, she moved to Pasadena and began practicing Fine Art because of the city’s rich architecture and beautiful scenic foothills. Throughout her various illustrations and paintings, one will see that she has a deep admiration for color theory and utilizes rich colors to capture mood. Her objective is to capture the rich, natural colors that have become muted by the naked eye. She enjoys all mediums of illustration from ink to digital. Her favorite painting medium is watercolor because of its unpredictable, organic process. However, she also enjoys experimenting with other mediums to accommodate her range of subject matters. She pulls her inspiration for paintings from a wide range of various environments and classical artists. Growing up in a small desert community, she naturally gravitated to painting open skies with colorful sunsets and large cloud formations. In addition, her childhood home introduced her to Classical Chinese brush paintings, oil paintings, and intricately designed furniture with the traditional emphasis on the storytelling of the “Four Seasons.” Lastly, some of her favorite artists are Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, and John Singer Sargent, the grandfathers of American Illustration, because of their line-work, brushwork, and passion for storytelling. When she is not creating art, she is a member of the board of the Verdugo Hills Art Association and a member of Watercolor West.