About the Artist

As a kid and young bird-lover, Kelly thought she wanted to be a veterinarian—but as she got older and realized that she was awful at math, she followed her other passion: art!

Since graduating with a BFA from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in 2010, she has published three adult coloring books through Mutual Publishing. Her personal work is strongly influenced by wildlife, fairy tales, mythology and the surreal, often in some combination of colored pencil, graphite, pastel and watercolor. 

In 2019, learning about annual seabird fallout (when artificial lights cause fledging chicks to become disoriented and land in harm’s way) led her to circle back to birds, prompting a return to school to study ecology and conservation biology—even if she had to power through Calculus this time!

Kelly currently works with the lovable manu o Kū (white terns, Gygis candida) in Honolulu and, more often than not, you’ll find her staring up into trees counting eggs and chicks. Her ongoing hope is to share the joy and love of learning that nature has brought her.