{"id":5305,"date":"2020-05-31T20:04:51","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T03:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eu.shop.wacom.eu\/us\/?p=5305"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:29:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:29:03","slug":"mermay-profile-jenna-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/mermay-profile-jenna-gray\/","title":{"rendered":"MerMay Profile: Jenna Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"This is the fourth in a series of interviews with hopefully, all eight artists who participated in the show we co-organized with Los Angeles's Gallery Nucleus, then collaborated with each other to create the image below.\u00a0\u00a0 (Some of them are taking longer than I expected to facilitate.\u00a0 Can MerJune be a thing?)\u00a0<\/em>\n\n\"\"\n

Previous ones:\u00a0 Tom Bancroft<\/a> | Pernille \u00d8rum<\/a>\u00a0| Brigitte Roka<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n \n\n

\n\n

Jenna Gray<\/h2>\nJenna Gray prefers to let her art speak for her. Her bios describe her as an \u201cillustrator\/artist working in SoCal,\u201d and we know from her resume that she works as a freelance digital production artist, has been a visual development director for virtual reality, and has taught at The Art Studio<\/a>. She\u2019s also done (and still does) various jobs for D.C. Comics: most of them are \u201cnon-art related,\u201d she says, but adds, \u201cI do enjoy being involved in the process.\u201d\n\nBesides that, she\u2019s as mysterious as the mythical creatures she draws. There are no findable images of her, her Google name is \u201cNope,*\u201d and our interview itself was terse but informative. Her work, however, is stunning enough that it carries more than enough character and story on its own.\n\n*As of the interview.\u00a0 It's since been changed to her name.\n\nShe\u2019s probably the artist in our lineup who\u2019s drawn the most diverse and experimental mermaids. Such as ones for unconventional fish:\n\n\"\"\n

And undead ones:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And very elaborate ones:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

From Instagram<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nShe\u2019s also been the most dedicated to MerMay this year, posting a piece to her Instagram every day\u2014This interview was done several ago, but she\u2019s kept it up since then.\n\nHow did you end up working with Gallery Nucleus and Wacom\u2019s Mermay project?<\/strong>\n\nI was contacted by Nicki France back in\u2014I believe\u2014October or November to be a part of the MerMay exhibition and art book. I've been a big fan of Gallery Nucleus since college, so saying I was excited to to receive the email would be an understatement!\n\nYou\u2019ve participated in MerMay virtually every day so far this year. How hard has that been to keep up?<\/strong>\n\nIt's been pretty difficult this year: I've been trying to stay on top of it by having thumbnail sketches, and as clear an idea as possible of what I want to do, the night before, but it's been pretty busy. I hope I can keep up, though I may have to space out the posts or start posting less-finished sketches, or forgo backgrounds.\n\nYou\u2019re also an incredibly skilled background artist. Does that require a radically different skill set than drawing figures, or do you find it falls back onto the same principles?<\/strong>\n\nThank you! That\u2019s incredibly flattering to read. For me, backgrounds are more relaxing to draw because trees, rocks, hills, et cetera, can be more abstract than how I usually draw figures.\n

\"\"<\/p>\nFinally, how are you enjoying the Wacom one? Any notable features that have been useful to you as a digital painter?<\/strong>\n\nI love the Wacom One! I've been an avid Wacom fan since my first Bamboo Pen tablet back in high school, and I love the lightweight pen design and easy set-up. It's a fairly lightweight tablet display as well, which makes my workspace more versatile. I'm hoping, when it's safe to venture out into the world, that I\u2019ll be able to set up outside of the house at cafes; maybe by the beach. Thanks again for this fun opportunity!\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

From her website\u2019s About Me<\/em><\/p>\n

Jenna Gray\u2019s art can be found on her:<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>Website<\/a> | <\/a>Artstation<\/a>| <\/a>Instagram<\/a> |<\/a>Tumblr<\/a> |<\/a>Facebook<\/a> |<\/a>Etsy<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

(Facebook and Insta are the best to check out her impressive gallery of mermaids and mythical creatures.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n

About the Interviewer<\/h3>\n\"CSCS Jones is a Philadelphia-based (stuff's on fire, but he's fine) writer and illustrator<\/span>.\u00a0 The former is best seen at\u00a0thecsjones.com<\/a>, and the latter at\u00a0@thecsjones<\/a>\u00a0on Instagram.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2318,2317,2342],"tags":[679,376,680,663,196,410],"class_list":["post-5305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-inspiration","category-digital-drawing-painting","category-wacom-one","tag-gallery-nucleus","tag-interview","tag-jenna-gray","tag-mermaids","tag-mermay","tag-wacom-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}