Farah Aria

Farah Aria is an artist, illustrator and author specializing multicultural and whimsical words and images for children. She celebrates multicultural diversity in her rich colorful paintings of children from many cultures. Farah also loves to use fun pastel colors and play with texture in gouache and acrylic paints to create a happy palette for kids.

Farah is a graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and has a degree in Illustration. Farah also has a background of Early Childhood Education from Cal State LA and spent 17 years teaching young children. She also ran her own children’s art studio for 3 years.

Farah hometown is Pasadena, California, and now lives in a beautiful seaside village on the Central Coast of California. She has a grown son who is the joy of her life! Keeping her company now that her nest is empty are her son’s childhood buddies, a cockatiel named Birdy and Kirby the Labradoodle, and added to the family last year, Pip, the blue bossy parrotlet and Finley the black and white “Oreo cookies and cream” Labradoodle with three black spots on his back. All of them are goofy and bring much joy!

Farah spent 15 years doing commissioned freelance illustration for the children’s market mostly using a combination of traditional and digital mediums, or purely digital for efficiency while raising a young child, using a Wacom tablet and pen, a computer, and the Adobe Photoshop program. Her editorial illustration has been published in many magazines for women and children. She has illustrated seven educational picture books and also illustrated and authored an educational picture book. Her art has been used for posters, greeting cards, apparel, and animations etc…She now works in Procreate as well as tradition mediums.

Farah is currently accepting jobs in freelance illustration, while editing her picture book manuscripts and  books dummies, and working on her paranormal mystery YA thriller. Farah is also exploring mixed media painting on wood canvas and paper for a personal project: "A Memory of Elephants" to raise awareness about Elephants. She is enjoying the artistic community around her. You can find her in her studio or by the shore with paint on her fingers and sand on her toes!