ABOUT
My name is Mary Withers Kirkland, and I'm a junior studying illustration and concept design at Savannah College of Art and Design. I'm 20 and from Charlotte, North Carolina. I've been drawing digitally since seventh grade and professionally since tenth grade, when I decided to invest in art as a career path.
My main medium is digital - I use a 2017 iPad Pro and a first generation Apple pencil. I use the app Procreate.
I focus mostly on character design, but there is almost always a story and a world behind it. My style of art can be defined as lineless and semi-cartoonish.
My goal is to one day support myself doing freelance work; a smaller, personal goal is to work for a big name company, such as Dreamworks or Pixar. I hope to work as a concept artist.
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
I got my start scribbling on paper, just as any other artist might tell you - but what really got my ball rolling was the 2002 animated movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. The content of the movie started me on horseback riding for the next decade, but it was the bonus feature on the disc of James Baxter teaching the audience how to draw the main character that propelled me into real drawing.
For the next several years, all I drew was horses and cats, and thought myself very high and mighty because of it. In middle school, I started to explore drawing people, and by sophomore year of high school, decided it was high time I make a career choice. Art was my only passion that I could focus on - my diagnosis of ADHD early in elementary school saw to it as my hyperfixation.
Convinced that it would be the only field I could succeed in, I thoroughly alarmed my parents by telling them I wanted to go to art school. SCAD became my one true calling after a week long summer camp - and I never looked back.
I'll always credit my artist awakening to Spirit and James Baxter, but I was influenced by many artists and motivated by many people along the way. I began my Instagram account in 2017, and it has since then become one of my largest influences and supports.
FIND ME ELSEWHERE
Here are links to other places you can view my art and help me out as a college student.
The picture to the left is from my carrd. You can find this link in the bio of my Instagram!
If you have further questions you want to ask, please email me! If you have questions about commissions that are not addressed under my commissions tab, feel free to email me.
If you have questions about SCAD, feel free to email me! If you want to know about student life and work load, I'm good at answering those. Any financial or similar questions should be directed to a SCAD representative! Click on the button above for the official website.