Cover Artist

Azizona (US) based artist Stephanie Bauer is an Artist and Children’s book illustrator. Her beautiful cover art for this issue is a self portrait. Not wanting to paint blonde hair, she created the gorgeous colourful garland of flowers, which so resonated with our theme of hope and joy!

Self-described as a serial nincompoop, bad speller, and good painter, Stephanie Bauer creates lush and luminous artworks using a wide variety of mediums including (but not limited to) gouache, watercolor, oil paint, ink, hand-painted papers, beloved Escoda brushes, old ratty brushes, sometimes her fingernails, often both hands, and only, just one time did she use her feet. Her work stems from a love of paint and process. The end product is usually a happy accident and she is delighted by the serendipity of the entire adventure.

Stephanie’s parents gave her an Art Box at the age of six. She has not stopped painting since! After training in classical oil painting, chemistry, a degree in interior design, and starting her own faux finishing business, she was inspired by the elephants at the Zoo WHICH to start painting art for children. This snowballed quickly from selling her art in one tiny store to worldwide production of her charming, wonky style in three dozen children’s books, along with puzzles, games, greeting cards, apparel, wrapping paper, fabric, and wall decor. Stephanie has extensive Pinterest boards including Bitten By A Vampire Named Hue exploring color trends and Lively Florals cataloging hundreds of flower photographs from which she paints daily.

Stephanie begins every painting by asking herself what she finds funny about her subject. She exaggerates imperfections, celebrating the beautiful and endearing quirkiness of everything she paints. The motifs she creates often end up as endearing nincompoops, not due to their cuteness or sweetness but because she attempts to celebrate their individual quirkiness. Stephanie hopes to inspire everyone to celebrate their inner nincompoop and see the beauty in imperfections, quirks, and unusual places.