I was born and raised in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia on a small Angus cattle farm. Most of my childhood was spent surrounded by beautiful forests, fields, and rivers. Charlottesville is where my love for wildlife was born. I am currently a studio art and digital media major at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Although I do enjoy working with digital media, my passion has always been painting animals. For a few years I would donate three paintings a year to be raffled off by the Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary (an organization that helps protect and preserve Virginia wildlife) as a way to both raise funding for the sanctuary, and as a method to raise awareness towards endangered Virginia species. Although I still donate paintings to the sanctuary, constantly giving away paintings was simply not paying bills.
In early 2013 I found a way to combine both painting and supporting myself, pet portraits. I live in a small town, so when word got out that Alaina from down the road was painting pet portraits, crazy cat ladies, horse fanatics, and dog lovers alike all requested my services permanently memorializing their furry friends on canvas. So for the past few years that is what I have been doing, painting beloved pets. In winter 2015 a calendar of my work entitled 'Pups in Pubs' will be released which is a combination of the more interesting pet portraiture that I have done, dogs in dive bars.
