Abby Little Jessup
Birmingham, AL born-and-raised Abby made her start in the arts at a young age. In 2010 she founded Reflect Visual Arts at the age of nineteen, reaching hundreds of students for classic fine art classes in schools, homeschool co-ops, private tutoring, and workshops.
Over the past 12 years of teaching fine art, painting, illustration, and calligraphy as well as her love of extensive travel and her home city led to many projects and commissioned works. Her projects included the launch of a colorfully illustrated children’s book and complementing coloring books:
Around the Ham: A Down in the Ham Coloring Book
Right Here in Birmingham
Abby now lives and works from her home studio in Sylacauga with her husband and two children. You can often find them gardening, reading, or enjoying the lake on the weekends.
Awards
Finalist, Energine Art, 2013
Winner, National Beta Club State Watercolorist, 2010
Winner, National Beta Club National Onsite Acrylic Art, 2010
Painting is like breathing to me. It’s more than second nature, it’s my first. I’ve been painting longer than I’ve been able to read (Late reader). Give me oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, or ink and I feel at home because I have learned to live in the space between the brush and the surface.
I have to say, becoming an artist was something I feel I fell into. I started in a little weekly oil painting class at the age of nine because my grandmother wanted to give it as a birthday gift. I still have my first painting of a tree… I bet most of it was by the help of my teacher, but I remember being so proud of that tree. Fast-forward ten years and I was graduating high school with no plan. Everyone knew I could paint, draw, and had the deepest appetite for art history, but I didn’t think I would do anything with it. But I started teaching. Why parents trusted me with their kids being basically a kid myself, I’ll never know, but I found I loved teaching. It made me a better artist, created a passion for people, and turned me into the girl with no plan to the girl with a drive and passion to teach and create.
Where I am today looks different then 2010 me. Hopefully you will still find that drive as well as a softer artist who listens to the needs of her projects and the people she wants to bless most.
The way is slow at times but those pivotal moments arrive when you least expect them. The truth it’s wrapped around is that the Lord is so very organized at ordaining choices into a life. He has withheld no good thing from us, even the blessing we don’t understand.