My name is Leia Shea Ranger-Drouin. I’m a country girl, and I have been since day one. I love the city too, don’t get me wrong; a day in the city makes for an awesome outing, and it’s beautiful and magical in it’s own way. But nature is just so amazing, so full of magic. Every time I step into the woods, I can imagine sparkling fairies, sneaky little elves, hidden gnomes and trolls and dragons. I can imagine glowing portals and fae kingdoms tucked away in the rocks and the roots of the trees. My middle name, Shea, literally means “of the fairies”, and it’s a title I wear like a badge of honour. And I think growing up surrounded by nature is why I’m such a creative person.

I’ve always loved coming up with stories, acting them out, and drawing the scenes and characters. Even before I could use a pencil or pen to write down a proper sentence, I was writing books; I’d draw the pictures for each page and tell my mom what to write alongside the images. She’d copy it down word for word, and when it was finished I’d put the pages in the proper order (I’d number them when I had finished the drawings and everything), staple them together, and voila! A book. And more often than not, I’d get my friends or my parents to pick or make a character, and we’d act out the story. Sometimes the book came after the game, inspired by the story we had played. The details are different now; my stories are now too long to put an image on every page, and often times I have parts of them in my head LONG before I actually write them down (I still haven’t finished any of my main story projects, some of which I started over a year ago!); my art style has changed a lot, getting more sophisticated the older I get; and now there are specific people, such as my younger friends and cousins, that I play them out with (as opposed to my parents and literally any one of my friends). But the basics are still the same, and I’m pretty sure they’ll never go away. They’ll definitely keep evolving, but they’re sticking around indefinitely.

In all of these cases, I’m expressing myself, or letting my imagination run wild. That’s what art is to me; not holding back, just letting your imagination pour out of you for the world to see. And I intend to keep on doing so, for as long as I possibly can.