ailishashannonart

Growing with Severed Roots🌿

In 2023 I created this artwork as part of a 5 piece commission for . Depicting the experience of young people who are forced to seek asylum and a new life away from their home, culture and family.

3 years later, this drawing seems to depict where we are today as a people, divorced from what what we thought we could count on, our roots, looking for ways to grow a new way of life from dislocation.

The question is what will be grow?

This illustration depicts severed roots, and yet new growth being found through community and co-creation.

If you would like to donate to please do, they bring light, story and vision to young people who deserve it most.

What would you like to grow more of?

🌙Fairytale & Folklore Illustration Workshop🌙

After a sold-out workshop in October, It’s time for a dreamy & creative evening to warm up our January and start the year right: with loads of space for creativity, dreams & storytelling.

So grab yourself or your creative friend by the hand and come join us:

The workshop Fairytale & Folklore Illustration is a winter evening of drawing fairytales and legends. Inspired by classic tales from across ancient Europe, we’ll journey deep into the dark woods of storytelling illustration — where bears, wolves, giants, witches, ghouls, and the fae still live untouched by modern life.

The evening combines illustration exercises with live storytelling. You’ll learn how to draw inspiration from a story and plan illustrations of your own.

This workshop is for anyone who loves to draw and sink into stories. No pressure, no performance, just drawing, storytelling, and exploring together.

DETAILS

• Date: Thursday 29th of January 2026
• Time: 19:30–22:30
• Location: Blend Artwork & Coffee, Rotterdam
• Tuition: €35 per person, including all materials
• Workshop begins with 12 students, maximum 23

Who would you like to experience this workshop with👇🏼?

Photography by .photo &

2025 - You Were A Lot 🫠🤍

If I thought having a plan meant knowing what to expect, then 2025 taught me otherwise.

I started this year knowing a few big things were coming:
1. An extended stay in Ireland to see if we want to move there (answer still pending)
2. Turning the big 40
3. Getting married

All good things. But life, as it tends to do, had its own agenda. Not so much derailing my plans, more hijacking everything in between with sharp turns, lessons, and some pretty unwelcome surprises.

Here’s what actually went down:
1. I started the year swamped with work and exhausted. I hosted my first podcast but hardly had the space to register it. I was too tired. From work, motherhood, chronic health issues, medication changes, and trying to be everything at once

2. I lost it, full burn-out style. Overwhelmed, confused.

3. We went to Ireland. It was both healing and confusing. Rest and comfort paired with big questions about where to live.

4. Back home, I hit the 2025 freelance job market, it was dead. This turned into a long, not entirely voluntary (but probably much needed) sabbatical summer.

5. Then things shifted. The market picked up and I landed two genuinely lovely jobs.

6. We got married. And I pulled off my first wedding production 💪🏼 A day with everyone we love was in one place, for the very first time. A moment where real luck and real love showed up for us.

7. And somewhere in all of this, I realised something else. I’ve spent my 20s and 30s striving and surviving. Proving myself, pushing, healing, dealing with loss of almost my entire family and chronic illness. It’s time for something different.

Now, I’ve decided that this next decade is about peace, pleasure, love, and creation.

Panic and fight-or-flight will probably still visit from time to time, like a friend you’ve outgrown and are slightly bored of, but my core no longer needs to be shaped by proving, striving, or pushing. It’s enough.

I get to do so many cool things, I want to allow myself to enjoy them. I want to love my friends and little family fully for as long as I can, no shame, just being there.

Can you relate? 👇🏼

The Making Of… A Blooper 🥴
— When good intentions actually illustrate that you are a bit of an idiot.

Picture this, an artist that feels somewhat powerless as they witness the erasure of an entire people through their phone each day, decides they want to do something, anything (next to voting, donating, boycotting, protesting) to be of any help.

Yes, this someone is me…

So, I decide to make an artwork, and if it works out perhaps sell it and give the money raised to a family in Gézé.

This is how I found myself with the bright idea of drawing a “Justice” tarot card using all the symbols of 🍉 freedom.

Why? Because I love tarot cards and symbols and this style of drawing fits, also all I can think about is the Justice card when thinking of this situation.

So, I sit down, pour some tea, and sketch up. Only there’s one problem….

Tarot is NOT Islam. In Islam it is considered to be putting Djinn to work, instead of trusting in God, and generally not considered a great thing to do.

Why is this important?
Most people in Gézé are Muslim, making drawing a tribute to their people in the shape of a tarot card a very bad idea indeed 😬

The worst part?

I actually know this. Extensive conversations about our differing faiths and similarities with my dear friend taught me this.

I KNOW tarot is not Islam… yet I was so distracted by my own interests, taste and desire to DO something I forgot everything I knew.

Luckily I remembered before I hit the ink part of the drawing.

The result? A drawing that had to go through many changes. A drawing I stuck with because I am stubborn if not bright.

So, here’s what I learned folks:
Good intentions can still be a bit s**t if you don’t pay attention, cause unless your intentions are about the other person, they are just about you 😬

What’s your most recent blooper👇🏼?

womenwhodraw

Bosnian Girl - A Poem

This week I was reminded of the girls I shared my gritty 20’s. I read a terrible article about war crimes committed by the ultra-rich in Sarajevo during the war (sniper safari’s).

It reminded me of my beautiful friends and what they carried and still carry.

Behind every headline there life that comes after the loss, something that we pay little attention to.

This poem is an ode to all the Bosnian Girls.

With Love.

🍁Fairytale & Folklore Illustration Workshop🍁

It’s time for a dreamy & creative evening before the Christmas madness hits! So grab your creative friend by the hand and create space for dreams, story and imagination:

The workshop Fairytale & Folklore Illustration is an autumn evening of drawing fairytales and legends. Inspired by classic tales from across ancient Europe, we’ll journey deep into the dark woods of storytelling illustration — where bears, wolves, giants, witches, ghouls, and the fae still live untouched by modern life.

The evening combines illustration exercises with live storytelling. You’ll learn how to draw inspiration from a story and plan illustrations of your own.

Working with East Indian ink, fine liners, Ecoline, and pencils, you’ll explore the core techniques behind classic fairytale and folklore illustration.

This workshop is for anyone who loves to draw and sink into stories. No pressure, no performance, just drawing, storytelling, and exploring together.

All you need is curiosity and an interest in drawing and story. This is also the perfect workshop to continue your creative journey if you have already attended one of our workshops in the past.

Your guide for the night is artist and illustrator Ailisha Shannon, a drawing and visual storytelling teacher since 2009. Known for her dark art inspired by wild nature and folklore.

DETAILS

• Date: Thursday 27th of November 2025
• Time: 19:30–22:30
• Location: Blend Artwork & Coffee, Rotterdam
• Tuition: €35 per person, including all materials
• Workshop begins with 12 students, maximum 23

Who would you like to take on a creative autumn evening before Christmas kidnaps us all👇🏼?

🔥SAVE THE DATE🔥

Time to put the 27th of November from 19:30-22:30 in your agendas folks! Call your creative friends, that Thursday, you’re going out!

After a super successful and sold out Dark Fantasy Illustration workshop at Blend on the eve of Halloween, we are back with a new workshop.

Want to be the first to know what this workshop is all about and get your hands on tickets?

Sign up to my newsletter (link in bio) to be the first!

A big thanks to everyone that joined the Dark Fantasy Illustration workshop! And a huge thanks to the amazing .photo for the gorgeous shots.

Who do you want to take on a creative adventure, before Christmas & family take over 👇🏼

Our wedding 10-10-25
&
Don’t believe the bad press, love is everything.

After our wedding we held a hand fasting ceremony at night, by candlelight under a huge tree, there is something beautiful and intimate about the fact that this was almost impossible to document.

“I promise to walk beside you as my equal
To share your joys and your sorrows
To honour your freedom
And to offer you a home, without the need to own you
I promise to grow with you in strength
And grow with you in love
From this day, till the end of our days”

A huge heartfelt thank you to everyone who has loved and supported us and continues to do so, you are the world 🤍

Photography by:

Sunday Inspiration 🌒✨
Don’t be afraid of the dark.

If you know one the artists, pls tag them.

NEW PHASE - Taking a step back to take a step forward🔥

After much thought, I’ve made a choice:

This Autumn & Winter I won’t be teaching any courses. I’m taking a step back to create space to for my own work again.

To those who were planning on joining this year, this also means that The Winter Intensive, my favorite and longest advanced course, will be having a gap year this year, to return again in the autumn of 2026.

It’s been a big decision and involved accepting that the sum of all the work I do had one outcome: no time for me to make my own work. It also meant accepting that something had to give in order to create the space I need to create.

Feeling a bit bummed? No worries. I will be teaching a few single workshops, like the Dark Fantasy Illustration Workshop I’m teaching @ Blend on the 30th of October (the eve of Halloween/Samhain).

So, if you don’t want to wait until next year, go to the link in my bio and get your ticket.

If you’d like to follow what I’m up to more closely head over to my link in bio and sign up to my newsletter!

Are you slowly down this autumn or ramping up?

🌒DARK FANTASY ILLUSTRATION WORKSHOP🌒

Step into the shadows on the eve of Halloween and explore the darker side of your imagination.

This workshop invites you into the world of dark fantasy illustration, where ink, texture, and line transform into stories alive with myth, folklore, and mystery.

We will embrace the beauty of darkness: stormy castles and black cats, wolves and witches, superstitions and half-forgotten tales.

Using East Indian ink, crosshatching, linework, and mark-making, you’ll learn how to make black your closest ally and start your journey to creating illustrations that feel as though they belong on the cover of a book or the pages of an epic saga.

Your guide for the night is artist and illustrator Ailisha Shannon, a drawing and visual storytelling teacher since 2009. Known for her dark art inspired by wild nature and folklore, her work seeks to capture what is hidden, lost, and unspoken.

This workshop is a warm and inclusive gathering for levels ranging from beginner to pro. A little drawing background (even high school sketching) will help you go deeper and get more out of the workshop.

Details

Date: 30 October 2025 (the night before Halloween)
Time: 19:30–20:30
Location: Blend Artwork & Coffee
Tuition: €35 per person
Group size: Workshop begins with 12 students, max 23
Materials: All materials provided; you’re welcome to bring your own favorite’s

Tickets: in the link in bio

Who do you want to take to this workshop👇🏼?

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