Illustrator’s Way Fall 2026

Claire Seiber has a warm, approachable presence that makes people feel at ease right away. Colleagues and clients notice it quickly—she works well with others, listens carefully, and brings a steady, positive energy to collaborative projects. That natural ability to connect has served her just as well as her talent with a pencil or stylus.

Growing up in the small rural town of Crossville, Tennessee, Claire was part of a class of only 15 students through elementary and middle school. Even then, she found a deep love for art. High school art classes turned that interest into serious practice. She fell in love with graphite and acrylic painting, took AP Art her senior year (earning college credit), and won awards at local art shows, including a People’s Choice honor for a portrait of her sister with her niece.

Those experiences confirmed she wanted an art degree, but she also understood that the field is broad and constantly changing. She wanted a program that could support both fine-art skills and the practical demands of marketing and advertising. That search led her to Nossi College of Art & Design for her bachelor’s degree.

At Nossi, Claire’s early work focused on portraits and color. She has always been drawn to the personal quality of portraiture—the way a painting can reveal something of the person who sat for it. Rather than chasing strict realism, she chooses colors based on personality and emphasizes strong contrast. That sensibility is still visible in her physical artwork today. At the same time, she embraced graphic design and discovered how much she enjoyed creating cleaner, more commercial work for businesses and advertisements. The combination of illustration and design classes proved especially valuable.

Near the end of her degree, Claire illustrated a children’s book, Embrace Your Roar, with close friends from the program. She handled the digital painting and texturing of the line art—an excellent introduction to freelance collaboration while still in school. In her final semester she interned at a music management company, designing merchandise for signed bands, developing branding for emerging artists, and creating a guitar design and merchandise for opening bands on Tim McGraw’s 2024 Standing Room Only Tour. The internship sparked a lasting interest in the music industry.

Since graduating in 2024, Claire has continued working in that world. She created a social media anniversary campaign for Tim McGraw’s Grammy-winning song “Live Like You Were Dying” and designed posts thanking Sports Illustrated for tour posters. She also created the cover art for his single “Different”—a project that felt especially meaningful as a longtime fan. Seeing her work appear on the platforms of a major artist remains one of the highlights of her early career.

Today Claire works as Marketing Coordinator for a commercial real estate brokerage, managing social media and handling all print and promotional needs. She balances that role with freelance projects. One of her favorite recent opportunities was serving as a graphic designer for the Music City Rodeo. Over roughly seven months she produced print materials, social graphics, and arena and city-wide promotions. Her designs appeared on billboards and promotional pieces in Nashville and in Las Vegas during the National Finals Rodeo. “There is no greater feeling than seeing your work all throughout your city,” she says. She also takes on smaller freelance jobs, particularly logo design for new businesses.

That advice fits naturally with the approach we encourage at Nossi. Students must create their own art—AI cannot be used to generate the illustrations themselves. The drawings, characters, compositions, and finished pieces that define your practice come from your hand and your creative decisions. AI can support the process in limited ways: generating ideas or references when needed, assisting with writing and client communication, or helping manage the business side of a practice more efficiently. The core artwork, however, remains the illustrator’s. Claire’s career so far demonstrates the value of that foundation. She has built a practice rooted in personal drawing and painting skills while expanding into graphic design, branding, and commercial work. The combination has opened doors in music, events, and marketing.

Claire graduated in 2024 and is looking forward to the opportunities still ahead. Her path shows what is possible when strong illustration fundamentals, design versatility, and a genuine ability to work with people come together.

The creative world attracts all kinds of dreamers and gadflies. Chris Italiano is happy to be both.

With studies and degrees from MICA, Montclair, and SCAD behind him, Chris has always worked both sides of the easel: his own art, and the brands he creates for. Along the way the work has picked up more than 30 ADDYs, some Tellys, Pantone recognition, and a product collection sold exclusively at MoMA. Artist, explorer, and, when it counts, teacher. Not bad for a guy who still draws in the margins.

The sketchbook never closes. His artworks have shown in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Savannah, Georgia, and Brooklyn Art Library galleries. Now and then a piece sneaks out the door with a new owner, which he treats as a good excuse to paint another. The work builds characters through layers of line work, form, place, and dimension, landing somewhere between strange and familiar. When asked why, he gives an honest shrug.

“It always starts with a scribble. I push, pull and tweak to mold it until it becomes the thing in my head. Creating a story or a place, building a world, a single point in time, or a whole timeline. Sometimes there’s no reason at all, and that’s the best part. The why is in the making.” The process is loose and layered: airbrushed acrylic, oils, oil crayons, and whatever random element the piece calls for.

Paper and canvas were never going to be enough. Chris is always exploring new places for art to live—character work for brands, design, branding and advertising, cars, buildings, and full environments, plus casino murals and signage. If it holds still long enough, it’s a surface. Fun fact: if you’ve frequented casinos from Vegas to just about anywhere in the country and found yourself marveling at the sheer artistry of the wall murals meant to distract you from the money you’re losing, it could be some of his work.

Currently, Chris finally has the time to develop new illustrative visions. He’s also a designer of 30 years and, within that, a creative director of 15 years, working with a couple of digital agencies, building side projects, and quietly developing a new kind of agency model with a colleague. He serves on the Illustration Advisory Board at Nossi College of Art & Design. Personable and genuinely talented, he’s always willing to help young artists and the next generation of illustrators and designers—sharing what he knows with the same easy openness he brings to every conversation and every blank page. He’s sometimes hard to place, but that’s the fun in exploring.

Mark FlemingIllustration Program Director and Instructor Since 2004
mfleming@nossi.edu

Fifty Years In: On Building a Life as an Illustrator

Mark has spent more than fifty years making images. The path has never been a single straight line. He began as an artist inside a theme park, creating the kind of work that has to function at a distance, in a variety of scenarios, for thousands of people who will only glance. Later he moved into a large financial firm, first as art director and eventually as marketing manager. Then came more than twenty years of self-employment, Creative Avenue. Now he is Program Director of Illustration at the college, still creating and still teaching.

A life spent as an illustrator, painter, artist and graphic designer can look like full-time freelance, a staff job with side projects, commissioned portraits of people and animals, design work, paintings, murals, or any combination of those. The work itself keeps changing shape. What stays constant is the need to stay curious, to keep engaging the world, and to keep making and creating.

Passion Is Not Optional

Mark is clear about the requirement: you have to be passionate and you have to engage the world. The artists who last are the ones who keep finding reasons to look more carefully—at light, colors, details of life all around you—and then bring that attention back to the page, canvas or the wall.

Many Doors, Same Practice

There is no single correct way to structure the career. Some graduates will freelance full time from the start. Others will take staff positions and build side practices: evening portraits, weekend murals, small commissions that keep the hand moving and the portfolio growing. Still others will move between both modes over decades, as Mark did. The practical advice is simple and repeated: sketch a lot. Sketching is how you develop yourself professionally. It keeps observation sharp, it generates ideas when none are assigned, and it builds the visual vocabulary you will need when a client asks for something you have never drawn before.

Stay True to the Creative Impulse

“Always be true to yourself and do the creative.” That sentence sits at the center of the advice. Technique can be learned. Professional habits can be practiced. The part that cannot be outsourced is the willingness to keep making work that feels honest.

Mark’s career is evidence that the field is large enough for many kinds of lives. Theme park, corporate office, studio, classroom: the titles change. The daily practice of looking, drawing, and deciding what matters stays the same.

Maureen O’Brien continues to bring warmth, clarity, and storytelling craft to a wide range of projects. An illustrator and designer working from her Franklin, Tennessee studio (and an adjunct professor of illustration, graphic design, and foundations), she specializes in stylized realism, humorous and conceptual work, and children’s books and magazines in traditional, digital, and mixed media. Her clients have included Charlesbridge Publishing, Willka Publishing, Thomas Nelson, Kellogg’s, Nestlé, Herman Miller, and others.

The Sugar Garden — New Release and Kickoff

Her latest children’s book is The Sugar Garden, written by first-time author Annette Latulippe Young and illustrated by Maureen. Published by WestBow Press (a division of Thomas Nelson/Zondervan), the 38-page picture book was released in October 2026.

The story is based on a true family experience: two curious children ask their grandfather about a special garden, and a delightful journey unfolds that inspires wonder, patience, and a “sweet” harvest surprise. Maureen’s illustrations capture the gentle charm of the tale in soft watercolor style—featuring a child in a yellow hat, blue overalls, and red boots carefully tending a garden with butterflies, a small animal companion, and blooming plants.

Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, Michigan hosted the official kickoff on Saturday, October 17, 2026, at 11 a.m. with a book reading and signing. The event celebrated both the new author and the illustrator’s contribution to this heartwarming story.

Visit Maureen’s website at mo-illustration.com.