Saz Ross
Saz has spent 10 years working and thriving in the field of art education. After winning the 2016 Maryland Art Education Association Elementary Teacher of the Year Award for Howard County, she started thinking about how to keep achieving more as a young and passionate artist and educator. For Saz, this meant getting back into the art studio. At first, she wanted to start monotype printmaking because of her love of ink but could not afford a suitable space or the right equipment. Saz decided to switch her medium to pen and ink illustration since she was able to do that in her own home while still experimenting with high contrast designs. After five years of doodling on her couch while teaching art, Saz decided to quit her tenured job in the public school system to pursue her own freelance illustration/muraling/art workshop business.
The leap into this new career pursuit came around the same time her mother was dying of Multiple Myeloma. At the most crippling moment of her life and feeling more lost than ever, she was able to use her creative outlet in illustration to build a thriving business in freelance illustration. Saz’s illustrations are all stories that connect to her embracing the feeling of being lost and rediscovering her identity through the traumatic loss of her mother. Her whimsical, playful, and curious imagery of architecture, nature, and wildlife draws in viewers and makes them question unusual juxtapositions of subjects. Saz enjoys sharing her illustrations and story in any space she can reach – galleries, online groups, businesses, conferences, interior/exterior walls, and the list goes on. In the midst of storytelling through illustration, she uses her love of art education to facilitate professional development workshops for the Maryland State Department of Education as a Roster Artist while working as an Educational Director of an art education non-profit organization called Leaders of Tomorrow Youth Center.
Saz is now working at her home studio in Hampden, Baltimore and is designing murals and custom artworks while facilitating art workshops across the country. Saz wants anyone to be able to access their creative mindset no matter what the circumstances are. She continues to inspire artists, educators, impoverished communities, and businesses to use their story as creative fuel for their profession and passions in order to make positive and mindful changes in our world.
Available for:
Commissions, Murals, Custom Designs for Businesses, Pen and Watercolor Workshops, Keynote Speaking
