2D art of the week: Vanessa Morales

Vanessa Morales is an illustrator whose personal work explores the world of plants and frogs. She plays with the energy of colour on dark backgrounds, inspired by the phrase ‘the rainbow looks better at night’.

If you love the art created by Vanessa's and feel inspired, read our guide to the best digital art software and start creating yourself. Vanessa uses Procreate and Clip Studio Paint, two of the best iPad drawing apps, to create her art, and both come highly recommended. Read our collection of the best Procreate tutorials to learn how to use this incredible digital art app.

The artist loves painting whimsical scenes inspired by nature, and as well as working digitally Vanessa also creates using traditional techniques like gouache, watercolour and pen marker. Her clients include Disney Hyperion, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Visit Vanessa's website to see her original projects and client work (or just scroll down).

Crimson Spring

"Every time the seasons change, inspiration flows again. In this case, as the name suggests, I was heavily inspired by tropical flowers.”

Rainbow Ribbon

"It’s easier to handle any kind of illustrated project by starting with a simple idea. This sketch was inspired by hair braids and ribbons.”

Red Coral

“The underwater world is one of my biggest fascinations. I feel so calm and comfortable when drawing water or painting fish shapes.”

Chatting Mermaids

“I’ve always been in love with flat and stylised shapes, and the painterly style of oils and gouache. So in this piece I blended them all.”

Ocean Lilac

“Approaching colour intuitively and with theory in mind is one of the main and ongoing goals of my work.”

This content originally appeared in ImagineFX magazine, the world's leading digital art and fantasy art magazine. ImagineFX is on sale in the UK, Europe, United States, Canada, Australia and more. Limited numbers of ImagineFX print editions are available for delivery from our online store (the shipping costs are included in all prices).