MEET MIRA
I gave up art at eight years old.
It took me twenty years to discover that I had walked away because I believed something about art that simply wasn’t true.
The lie I believed.
I looked at the kids who could “really draw,” looked at my own untrained attempts, and concluded what so many children conclude: art is a gift. Some people are born with it. I wasn’t one of them.
Nobody corrected me. Nobody told me that seeing is a skill—that drawing has foundations and building blocks just like reading, music, or math. I didn’t know there were things I could actually learn.
So I set the dream down. And I wouldn’t pick it up again for twenty years.
Then everything changed in twelve months.
As an adult—a wife and a mom of four little ones—I finally received what I never had as a child: real art training. A sequence. Foundational skills. Someone who said, “This is learnable,” and then showed me how.
In one year, I went from a complete beginner who had never seriously held a paintbrush to a working professional artist.
I don’t share that to impress you. I share it because it changed what I believe about learning art.
The thing I believed at eight—the thing another child may be quietly deciding right now—is a lie.
Art is not a gift reserved for a select few. It is a skill. And skills can be taught.
And here’s the thought I can’t let go of: I did that with a fully grown adult brain. Childhood is a period of remarkable neuroplasticity, when experience and practice are actively shaping developing neural pathways.
What could happen if we taught children these skills while their brains are already built to learn?
-That question became Making It with Mira.
The training behind the teaching.
Warmth matters. But so does knowing what you’re teaching.
Graduate, Milan Art Institute — classical drawing and painting
B.S. Psychology with focused study in child development
Five years of homeschool curriculum development and co-op leadership, including internationally
Mother of four young makers, ages 2 to 8
Living proof that beginner-to-artist is a path, not a lottery.
Why children, and why now.
I have always believed that one of the greatest things we can do is invest deeply in children.
They are becoming the thinkers, builders, storytellers, creators, and leaders of the generation after ours. And childhood is an extraordinary season of learning—when developing minds are absorbing, practicing, questioning, and building connections that can shape who they become.
Art belongs in that investment.
Because the world does not need less beauty. It needs more of it.
It needs people who notice beauty. People who imagine what could exist. People who know how to take an idea that lives only inside them and bring it into the world with their own two hands.
I don’t just want to teach children how to draw.
I want to help raise a generation of artists who create beauty so abundantly that it pushes back against the darkness around them.
What if we gave young artists the skills, confidence, and freedom to begin now?
What if we raised a generation of artists who grew up knowing their creativity was worth developing—and then used it to flood the world with something beautiful?
When I'm not teaching, I paint.
The skills I teach young artists are the same foundations I practice in my own studio every morning, in the quiet before my house wakes up.
My original paintings and fine-art prints live at Mirasoul, my professional fine-art studio.
The bigger picture.
Before I was an artist, our family spent years serving children and families in South Asia, and that work never left me.
A portion of every Illustrator Studio membership continues to support that work—helping provide care, food, education, and support for children who have less than you could imagine.
So while your child is growing as an artist at your table, another child across the world is being invested in too.
We think that may be one of the most beautiful things we create.
Start where every artist starts: with one small step.
The Growing Artist Starter Kit is a free introduction to the way we teach art at Making It with Mira—building the eye, the hand, and the mind together.
Simple observation, foundational drawing practice, Artist Mind tools, and an independent challenge make it easy to print, grab a pencil, and begin.