About the Artist

Name: Latorree “Tori” Howard

Artist Name: MyTerraTori

Pronouns: She/Her

Sign: Scorpio ♏

Bio: Tori is an artist who loves to draw, color and create things that bring joy and beauty. Tori is a teacher, who has led art classes in Oakland schools for nearly 10 years. She is an illustrator who has created illustrations for 5 children’s books. She is also an avid DIYer who loves to create things from scratch like her coloring books, but also the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in her background.

Q&A

  • MyTerraTori was born completely by accident. I usually go by Tori, but I had a coworker who always forgot my name and called me Terra. One day he was saying the two names over and over to try to remember and we noticed that “TerraTori” was a fun play on Territory.

    Now MyTerraTori is my artist name but it’s also my space to express myself in a creative way plus help others do the same.

  • My earliest drawing memory was in kindergarten. I remember feeling so proud because I learned a “cool” trick to draw braids.

  • I’m self taught! I love to learn from other artists, either by watching them work, or by checking out resources they share like art books. I also like to draw what I see around me: People, animals, plants, etc…

  • I draw a lot of portraits. Mostly people, but sometimes animals, and I tend to draw women and small children the most.

  • That’s a tough questions because my art style can change a lot depending on how I feel. Sometimes it’s very small and cute and cartoony, but other times it’s very realistic.

    Overall though:

    • I like really saturated and vibrant colors

    • The people I draw are either cute or pretty (even men)

    • And I rarely draw backgrounds (unless they are blurry)

  • For Traditional Art - I love working in my sketchbook with pencils, pens, markers and colored pencils

    For Digital Art - I normally use my ipad and Procreate, but I also have Adobe Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint on my laptop

  • I taught a traditional art class at a middle school and an elementary school where kids started from basics (drawing simple shapes) and had drawn life-sized, full-body, self portraits by the end.

    I also taught a 4 week 9th Grade Digital Art class where students learned to use Adobe Photoshop to design clothes, shoes, posters, and more.

    I even led a paint-and-sip class once or twice :)

  • Yes I did! I like to hand-draw everything either on paper or on my tablet. I don’t use AI or other tools like that. If you’d like to see my drawing process you can check out my social media pages (especially YouTube).

  • My favorite color is green! I love it so much that painted my whole office a dark green color with gold accents here and there.

  • Yes! I have 2 dogs: Cyrus and Haze. Cyrus is a German Shephard mix and Haze is a Siberian Husky. They are super cute but both can be pretty loud and shed quite a bit