Antigonish artist Abbey Allen stands in front of a selection of her artwork at Down To Earth Art Gallery. (Richard MacKenzie photo)

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Where some people may view a dense forest as mysterious and foreboding, Antigonish artist Abbey Allen sees comfort and adventure.
“I kind of grew up in the middle of the woods,” Allen said, referring to land extending from her parents’ property off of the old Maryvale Road. “It’s what I’ve always seen… a lot of trees and nature.”
Allen said she would often find a quiet spot in amongst the thicket and just draw for hours and hours.
Quipping that she was probably drawing before she could talk, Allen said her earliest influences were comic books and from about the age of four to nine, she would endlessly sketch the Betty and Veronica characters from Archie Comics.
“I think that was probably how I learned to draw women,” she said.
To view Allen’s artwork now is to see a complimenting combination of realism and fantasy. The realism coming from familiar backgrounds and landscapes and the fantasy from her characters, mostly female and sometimes spurting wings or elf-like ears.
“As a teenager, I started looking specifically at fantasy artists,” she said. “In Spain (home to some of her favourites) and around different parts of Europe, it’s very popular.”
In refining her craft, Allen said her collection of books and graphic novels grew and she constantly used them as a reference for her art.
“From them, I adopted a style and realized where I wanted to go with it,” she said.
Working at Down to Earth Art Gallery in Antigonish has also influenced her as an artist. She said that while she doesn’t often run into artists creating the same type of work she does, it’s still nice to meet and get to know so many artists through the gallery.
“I talk to a lot of people here about art… just in general,” she said. “And although it’s very different from mine, I really respect and enjoy a lot of artists that I meet through here and own a lot of their pieces.”
In one section of the gallery hangs a number of Allen’s originals and she said she is appreciative of the display.
Allen said while she does have some prints around, along with the originals at Down to Earth, her artwork now is more focused on doing commissioned work and putting together a graphic novel.
She noted that with most of her drawings comes a story and the idea is to put it all together in a graphic novel that would be less comic book style (no panels or word balloons) and more children’s book style with large pictures accompanied by text.
“Generally, I would like to do graphic novels,” she said. “That’s what I would like to do and I’m working on my first one.”
Allen said while she still needs to do a lot of the drawings for the graphic novel, the text part is virtually completed.
When it comes to drawing, Allen said while she finds it easier to do her nature backgrounds, in part because they can be more forgiving to an errant line, she really enjoys doing her female characters and finishing them off with “accents, make-up, clothes.’
“I really enjoy fashion,” she said. “So I enjoy doing that.”
Allen’s art and other information about the artist can be viewed on her website www.abbeyallenart.com or at www.downtoearth.ca.