The area’s wealth of artistic talent continues with young local artist Reanna Reynolds.  At only 17, Reanna already has a large portfolio showcasing a range of styles.  “I’ve always liked drawing – sketching in journals, cartooning, things like that,” she says, but it wasn’t until starting high school that she thought seriously about a career in art.  She undertook art subjects through to Grade 12, and recently graduated with an A+ in Practical Art.  She will continue her art studies next year with a course in digital media and IT.

Born in Brisbane, Reanna moved to Tin Can Bay with her family about five years ago.  Her mother Lyn is also artist, specialising in pastels of animals.  “I’m sure I would have done art even if Mum wasn’t into it because I love art to the nth degree!” says Reanna.

While she is accomplished in sketching, sculpture, and painting in both oils and acrylics, Reanna’s true passion lies with digital art.  She specialises in creating Sonic the Hedgehog-based characters and is a member of two art websites where she has developed a large online following.  “It’s great having people fromall around the world seeing my art and commenting,” Reanna says.  Her highly developed characters are hand-sketched and then scanned in for colouring, and the large number of requests from her online fans are testament to her creativity and skill.

Another passion of Reanna’s is tattoo design, where she specialises in stylised dragons and esoteric designs. One of her tattoo drawings was spotted by a man at the Tin Can Bay markets who creates artistic mirrors, and the resulting mirror was sold almost immediately.  This was not

the first time one of Reanna’s pieces was snapped up – a variety of her work was featured in the High Arts & Beyond Exhibition in Gympie, with one of her acrylic landscapes being auctioned off. 

She also recently completed a mural at her former school, Gympie

High, in collaboration with a fellow young artist.  Located at the end of D Block, near the canteen, the mural incorporates aspects of Van Helsing’s world, Harry Potter and, of course, her Sonic-based characters. 

With still lifes, claywork, woodwork and large-canvas

paintings rounding out her portfolio, this young artist certainly has a huge career in art ahead of her.  Although at only 17 she has not quite narrowed down what that career may be: “I’d like to be a tattoo designer.  Or a cartoonist.  Or what I’d really love is to be a game designer, designing the characters.”  With a range of skills like Reanna’s, there is no reason why she won’t end up being all of those things.

Check out her Sonic character work on www.furaffinity.net, where she is known as Nega_Ivy.