Latasha's Coloring Book by Latasha Moore

What does Latasha’s Coloring Book feature?

I've always wanted to make a coloring book. I hadn’t drawn for two years because I used to work for an animation studio, and I got burnt out.

After everything I went through medically, I wanted to create a coloring book. Someone that I know was telling me to go ahead and do it and said, “You have until October to finish the pictures.”. My response was, “Oh, okay challenge accepted!”.

I've always had an affinity for line art, the illustrations in my coloring book are a collection of line art that I’ve done digitally. I thought people would appreciate coloring the drawings because I didn't want to color them.

The book is all the things that came out of my mind that I put online. I’m looking into creating botanical images because I love drawing flowers.

What did you primarily focus on at the animation studio?

When I first came to the animation studio, I was what's called an “illustrator”. I used Adobe Illustrator to create images for the show Archer to be animated. Then I shifted to doing background art. One of the shows that I did background work on, was a show called Dick Town. That's when I fell in love with digital art because we had to draw everything: line art, perspective, and coloring. I was also a traditional illustrator. I've been illustrating and drawing since I was 16 years old.

I went to Savannah College of Art and Design to get my degree in Illustration. It’s very interesting how my path flowed.

What pushed you into compiling a coloring book?

It was one of my goals in my life. Another goal I still want to do is make my own children's book.

I’ve always wanted to do a coloring book and I was wondering if people would be interested. I did some research and found out that people are buying these books. Which was a relief, it reassured me that I’d be okay.

I’m getting good feedback from the people who bought the book. They’re sending me the colored drawings and it's very special to me. The feedback ranges from children to adults.

I’ve noticed that the colored pages they choose to send me are the more difficult ones and they’re beautiful. One person even colored every single leaf on the page. It’s amazing to see how everyone is responding to the images.

One person gave me great feedback to create different difficulty levels. That way if people want to do “easier” drawings people don’t have to think about it, they can turn their brains off while they color.

I’m working on another coloring book (or two). I want to make a square book so it’s easier for people to share on Instagram. I’m also going to create one that caters to a younger audience.

What part of the illustration process did you enjoy the most with this book?

Drawing it!

I also enjoyed putting the book together. Trying to figure out how to structure the different pages by difficulty and figuring out the flow.

What got you into drawing?

I have a photograph of myself at 2 years old, on my second birthday drawing on a piece of paper next to my cake. That’s the origin story.

When I was in elementary school Lion King came out, there was this other girl at my school, and we would compete in drawing Lion King. Unfortunately, she passed away in sixth grade, and that motivated me to continue. I thought, “I'm going to do it for her!”.

When I got into Middle School, I was introduced to Anime. I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is cool style!” and it pushed me forward even more.

After high school, I went to a community college taking different classes trying to figure out what my career was going to be. One semester I didn't do any art, and it made me sad, and I didn't like it. My choice was to either become an astronomer or an artist. When I got into physics, my brain couldn’t handle it, so I went into art! From there I transferred to Savannah College of Art and Design and studied Illustration, where I had some great teachers.

That’s how I got started doing freelance, and other jobs. Once I got into a studio I thought, “Oh I made it finally!” and then I got burnt out. Then I thought, you know what? I’m going to do art for myself again, which was freelance again, and go from there.

Lately, I’ve been getting requests for the streaming industry, on Facebook and other sites. From there I became friends with many different streamers. Some of them came to me for different pieces of art like profile pictures and other items. It’s been a lot of fun.