Melissa Hough

Hello! I'm a 27-year-old project manager living in the Boston area. I've been working for the past four years as an animation studio, but my work is on the administrative side. My real passion, however, is creating and consuming art. I've been making art for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I remember creating drawings from imagination, contraptions made out of paper, hand-made magazines, and even paintings on the computer. I eventually taught myself to paint, around the age of 12, and it changed everything. I was obsessed with reproducing things in a lifelike way. I threw myself into my art courses at school and eventually went on to study art in college. I received a BFA in painting from Boston University in 2016, and, although my current job isn't one that allows me to make art for a living, I have upheld my studio practice in my spare time. I'm fascinated with the technical and creative challenges that come with making art--either by challenging myself to reproduce a subject as realistically as possible, or by figuring out how to make a piece that is entirely new and innovative by means of creating a unique structure or a fresh combination of materials. I work primarily with oil paints, but I also love gouache, acrylic, and graphite. I am trying to expand my artistic skillset by taking classes in my free time, as I would one day love to teach art and hope to have as many different artistic skills as I can. I'm looking to learn more about working with colored pencils, watercolors, cut paper, resin, embroidery, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and epoxy clay to start! I'm thrilled to be able to continue learning, experimenting, and growing as an artist.