Chelsea Heard is an Illustrator, Character Designer and Animator based in sunny California! Since childhood, Chelsea has always enjoyed utilizing her art as a way to tell stories and draws most of her inspiration from her personal life experiences as well as the world around her. Her first ipad as a kid was an ETCH-A-SKETCH with a PEN and has always had a love for experimenting with different mediums. She enjoys experimenting with bold colors, lines, perspectives, facial expressions and exaggerated features when drawing which gives her work a unique look! Curls, was Chelsea’s first children’s book which she illustrated, wrote and published back in 2017 and then created an animated adaptation of it during her undergrad at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2022. Curls was inspired by her personal experiences with her curly hair growing up and it went on to win various awards during its film festival rounds, screening at the 2023 LA Shorts, to being featured in Animation Magazine and winning Best Animated Film at the 2023 Cannes World Film Festival. In 2024, Chelsea completed her Masters of Arts at the NYU Tisch IMA Low Residency Program. She presented her thesis titled, Beyond the Spectrum which was a compilation of projected illustrations of various African and African American figures and her grandparents who were Civil Rights Activists. The viewer had the opportunity to listen to the voices of the various figures and at the and hear the intimate interview she had with her grandparents as they dove into what life was like for them during the 1960s. Beyond the Spectrum was presented at Chelsea’s alma mater, Mt. Carmel High School and at the 2023 NYU IMA Thesis Show in Shanghai China! By focusing her work on beauty and diversity, Chelsea hopes to continue to inspire other young women and men of color to love and embrace themselves fully for who they are. She hopes that her work can be a space of healing for herself and a space for others to see themselves in.