Terra Dawson

I am a Santa Cruz based artist/illustrator with a passion the outdoors and all things wild. I earned my B.A. at the University of California Santa Cruz in 2011. In 2013 I discovered the Scientific Illustration graduate program at California State University Monterey Bay. The artwork I saw displayed on the computer screen as I was reading about the program was breathtaking. I knew then and there that I would do everything I could to attend the following year and emerge primed and ready to begin my professional art career. To my delight, I was accepted in to the program in 2013 graduated with my Scientific Illustration certificate in 2014. After completing school I spent the summer of 2014 in Cork, Ireland as an illustrator intern with the Coastal and Marine Research Centre. I returned to the U.S. with a new appreciation for the lush green rolling hills I had come from in Cork, however I desperately missed the fog of the Central California coastline and the redwood forests I've learned to call home. Since then I have been working locally on commissions and personal artwork from my lovely home, nestled happily between the sea and the forest. In my life I've worked many different jobs. I've invented and reinvented myself more than once, but the indescribable joy I feel when I am alone in nature has never left me. The deep and unwavering need to create has remained a constant in my life. And for that, I am forever grateful.