Considering her vibrant use of color and often whimsical interpretation of her subject matter, few people would realize that Miriam began her career as a medical and scientific illustrator, working primarily in pen and black ink. Over the past ten years Miriam has been painting in primarily in watercolor. Traditional watercolor paintings, however, didn’t stop Miriam from taking the leap and trying new things with the medium. Currently doing a combination of watercolor and collage has become one of her favorite explorations.

“I can tell that the tediousness of very detailed medical drawing still speak to my heart and so while I could achieve a result with one or two pieces of collage paper, I love to tear the paper in minute pieces and incorporate them into the watercolors like a mosaic. I mix several textures and colors to create a whole new color, much like I mix watercolors, and carefully, with tiny tweezers place each item into the composition.”

Pushing colors to shout without being annoying is another favorite technique Miriam explores. “One afternoon, I was alone in my studio after teaching and had several large pieces of watercolor paper staring at me in the face. They were about 12” x 32” each and I grabbed one of my large brushes and started to imagine what I could do with three very different colors, no drawing and lots of energy.” Miriam’s famous chicken paintings arose from that experiment and has become a core lesson on color mixing with using only three colors. Although a parent once brought their child to observe class one day and he whispered to his mom, “I don’t think Ms. Hughes knows what chickens look like”.

In spite of baffling young artists, Miriam says, “I love that the medium that seems to scare so many people can actually be playful, flexible and vibrant, once I learned to change the rules a little bit.”

Miriam was born in Chicago, IL, went to school both in Chicago at Colombia College and graduated from Kansas State University. In addition to being an illustrator, she has also started several businesses that had nothing to do with art but helped her make a living while doing art on the side. Her most favorite career path was as MissPoop – Dog Waste Guru, and she even won awards for her work in the field. Miriam currently lives in Flat Rock, NC with her mate of twenty some years and three dogs (sometimes four and sometimes less). They reside in a small historic 125 year old cottage with an art studio, a writing studio for her partner and amazing gardens that Doug, her partner, creates as his other art form. Miriam is not the gardener, but loves to sketch in the results.