Jessica Kurnas

Jessica Kurnas was born on March 6th of 1991 to Wendy and Terry Kurnas in Newport News, Virginia. She currently lives in Fairplay, Colorado with her husband Curtis Long, two Shiba's: Yuki and Okami, and cat: Aurora (Borealis). Jessica has had an interest in art since a very young age. Her admiration grew from early morning 90's cartoons, anime and various video games such as ‘The Legend of Zelda’ and ‘Final Fantasy’.

Her success in art came at a young age. By the age of ten she created a design for a T-shirt which was printed for DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and by fourteen she created another award winning design which was featured both online and printed on various products for Virginia History Day. At eighteen, she was accepted at Virginia Commonwealth University under the arts program, where she studied under the rigorous teachings of Albert Epshteyn.

Upon graduation, she found herself working various corporate, nine to five jobs, she would come home exhausted and still pick up her stylus to follow her true passion. She took her love of nature and animals, and primarily focused on character and creature design. Occasionally she would receive a request to design a logo or a tattoo and as time went on, the number of requests grew in size. When the opportunity presented itself to work in the art field, she took it. Jess now works at Portfolio Gallery in Breckenridge Colorado, while also working part time as an artist from home. Since going part time as an artist she has had many opportunities such as sculpture and sign repair, live demonstrations and workshops, various logo and tattoo design requests, the opportunity to sell her own work at the gallery, as well as painting murals for local mountain towns.

In the future she intends to expand her services through the tabletop/card game industry as well as through the illustration industry, designing sci/fi and fantasy book covers. She is grateful for the opportunity to work as an artist and to have the ability to teach others how they too can follow their passions and make a living on the creative side.