Meet Anna Davis | Animator and writer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Anna Davis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Anna, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
I was never someone who worked for hours and hours on something and I never liked to pull all nighters but I was the type to get lost in my own ideas. I think in the past if I had an idea that’s all that would occupy my mind to the point where it would be the only thing I would want to work on, which had it’s effects on my school life at times. I learned over time that my art is at its best when I make time to actually live my life and focus on other things. I’m still obsessed with my ideas and art but I felt like if I wasn’t focused on my art all the time I wasn’t a “real artist” which in the end made me start feeling like doing art was a chore, I didn’t want that so I then I focused on making room for a life outside of art and that’s when I noticed that doing that made it easier to draw inspiration from my life. I think being an animator and being in that field I noticed that a lot of us tend to over work ourselves and not notice until it’s to late, mainly because we’re so eager to improve and forget that improvement is slow and can’t be forced. I also think you can’t force yourself to love your art all the time and creating balance is also creating the space to be frustrated with your art and then also to love it later.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve always loved bright and colorful art pieces so I try to do the same as well and of recent I’ve still been drawing with color but with in the drawing i try to also add a twist to it. I like to draw women a lot and they’ll usually been doing mundane things but i’ll put them in a graveyard or a convent store but with bloody bodies on the ground and for me that’s really the most fun is taking a situation and exaggerating it in an extreme way. I’ve also been getting into zombies and survival sort of shows which I think really influences these sort of drawings. What i’m most excited about right now is actually my senior thesis project, in college i’ve usually just animated short films but for my senior thesis I’ve decided to do a pitch bible, which focuses on 4 friends who end up in the zombie apocalypse by accident and they try the most bizarre things to survive, it’s sort of my camp version of how I think people would actually handle the zombie apocalypse.I also take a lot of inspiration for my stories from my gymnastics life. I don’t do gymnastics any more but when I did i loved to imagine my characters doing similar stunts and having that sort of relationship made my interest and love for action adventure movies and shows come alive, I use my knowledge of gymnastic to make the action feel real in my stories. Although I love writing now I used to hate writing anything and reading as well, only because I wasn’t very good at it. I eventually overcame that because my 7th grade teacher made the class write every day before she started class my worst nightmare, but we could write about anything so that’s where I started to love writing. After that and having to write everyday I learned that you really can draw inspiration from anything for anything, I once got inspiration for a story from cracking my knuckles in dead silent class. I believe my stories help speak about specific emotions and feelings that society doesn’t notice as much and I try to tell it in a way that anyone can related to and find comfort in as well as maybe some advice on the matter. On the other hand I try to fill my stories with as much humor, fun moments and unhinged characters as possible and that might be through a fantasy world with magic or a zombie apocalypse.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If one of my New York friends came to visit me in LA I would have to take them to my local coffee shop toasted they have amazing coffee and they make excellent sandwiches, next store to that is the vintage store called Pattye’s closet which has some really cool finds like old film photos and cameras, house decor, shoes, jewelry, and obviously clothes but the clothes range from things you would wear everyday to clothes you can make halloween costumes out of, you never get bored in there. Those would have to be the first stops. We’d also have to check out this book store Stuart Ng books on another day, it has art books and comics from anything you can image, I’ve found some of my favorite art books there. I would also love to take them to an open gymnastics gym on one of the days they we visiting mainly for the reason so I can make fun of them a little and also to show them how much fun it actually is and that it’s not scary. The beaches are a must in LA so i would definitely take them to my favorite El Porto, it has a great snack shack it not as crowded as other beaches and it not to far a walk from the parking lot. Silverlake is another place that’s a must especially as an artist since there are so many like minded people and artists that live in that area, I’ve met some amazing artist and writers that have helped me on my journey that are from there. On the week ends there’s no doubt I would take them to my local farmers market that has great food, my personal fav the hawaiian chicken stand and after that we’d check out a flea market probably the one in Pasadena “Market 10:42”. Finally I would just show them around my neighborhood and how peaceful LA can be.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It’s thanks to my family that I have a love for art and drawing, they also gave me the courage to explore art as a profession. My love for creative writing really started thanks to my 7th grade English teacher Ms. Stein who gave me the space to write whatever I wanted.

Website: https://annaanimates.wixsite.com/annaanimates

Instagram: banana_annaarts

Twitter: bluemelon120

Image Credits
The portrait photo of me was taken by my friend Hanabi Copon