Vanessa Kelly

For fifteen years Vanessa has instructed all ages in drawing, comics, and animation, with classes hosted across the Lower Mainland. In 2008, in coordination with the City of Burnaby and the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, she helped to design and instruct cartooning and comics classes for elementary school students across the city, including delivering quality art lessons to at-risk students and students with disabilities. Vanessa’s teaching philosophy encourages artistic exploration, self-discovery, and process-oriented thinking through design and storytelling projects. Vanessa holds a BFA in Visual Arts from Simon Fraser University and an Associate’s Degree in Commercial Animation from Capilano University. In addition to her long tenure as an instructor, she is also a published comic artist and an experienced storyboard artist in the Vancouver animation industry, bringing stories to life for clients such as PBS, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Disney, Teletoon, and others.