visual creator & storyteller
rae
johnson
I tell stories through visuals, words, and whatever medium the moment calls for — built on a decade of real-world experience and a deep love of craft.
I tell stories through visuals, words, and whatever medium the moment calls for — built on a decade of real-world experience and a deep love of craft.
I've spent years creating visual content alongside a career in arts administration — producing promotional graphics, social media assets, and marketing materials for a live music organization in Worcester. Design wasn't my job title, but it's been a consistent and meaningful part of my work.
I'm also a writer. I'm currently studying English at Quinsigamond Community College, developing the writing side of my creative practice with the same intention I bring to visual work. Whether the medium is an image or a sentence, I'm thinking about the same thing: what's the story, and how does it land?
I work across Canva, Procreate, and Clip Studio Paint, and I bring audience-first thinking to everything I make.
A selection of professional and personal creative work — organized by project.
These videos were produced for an arts presenter's social media presence using Canva. The work spans a range of content — from year-in-review "Wrapped" recaps inspired by Spotify Wrapped, to archival storytelling, sponsor and partner acknowledgments, and deep dives into interesting moments in music history. Each piece was built by individually selecting and arranging design elements, then manually animating each one independently using Canva's animate feature — controlling the timing, movement, and flow of every element to create cohesive, on-brand content. Click any video to view fullscreen.
This anatomy study is the piece I return to when learning new software — a personal benchmark for getting comfortable with a new digital painting workflow. The Procreate version came first, built with warm earth tones and tight detail work around the jaw and teeth. When I later acquired a Cintiq tablet and began learning Clip Studio Paint, I returned to the same subject intentionally to put the new tool through its paces. The two versions ended up with distinct characters: the Procreate study is warmer and more controlled, while the Clip Studio version is looser and more gestural, with cool teal-greens pushing through the shadows. Neither is a copy of the other — they're the same subject seen through two different workflows, completed between 2024 and 2025. Anatomically accurate, painterly in approach, and the work I'm most proud of.
A complete merchandise project from concept to print, completed in 2022 as a surprise gift. The illustration was conceived and painted in Procreate, then brought into Canva to be formatted as a tarot card-style layout with typography and final compositional adjustments before being sent to print. The project exists in three versions: a fully rendered color design, a minimalist line art variant, and a simplified alternate — each highlighting a different aspect of the work. While this piece is a few years old and my technical skills have developed considerably since, it remains a strong example of blending digital illustration with graphic design to produce something that actually exists in the world.
Original character concept for a science fantasy novel in progress. The upper half breaks down the layers individually — intricate topographic line art on the left, a holographic iridescent underpainting on the right, each serving a distinct visual purpose. The lower half shows the full composite. Take a close look at the antlers: it's where the two layers work together to create something ethereal and otherworldly that neither could achieve alone.
A personal illustration exploring a bold, graphic style — a skeleton in a teal cowboy hat kicking back in a vivid desert landscape. Vibrant color blocking, detailed bone anatomy, and a playful mix of the macabre and the whimsical. Originally conceived as a t-shirt design concept.
An early concept sketch for a deity-like character from a science fantasy novel in progress. A figure draped entirely in living flowers with bonsai trees for antlers — rendered with individually painted blooms across the full length of the form. The inset shows a close-up detail of the face and crown.
Ongoing animation work using Luma AI, trained on original Procreate artwork to reflect a personal visual style rather than a generic aesthetic. Two pieces in progress — an animation drawn from a dream journal kept since childhood, and an animated concept for The Gardener, a deity-like character from an original science fantasy novel. Both are early work, shared as a window into process rather than finished products.
A decade in fast-paced administrative and operations roles — with visual content creation and storytelling woven throughout.
Open to creative roles, freelance projects, and collaborations in Worcester and beyond. If you've got something in mind, I'd love to hear about it.
