From treasured childhood picture books to teaching art workshops in Copenhagen, the illustrator has built a practice based on observation, gratitude, and the quiet joy of drawing. She speaks to Creative Boom about her journey, her inspirations, and why she believes creativity belongs to everyone.
Alysha Takoushian can trace her earliest artistic memories back to the children’s books piled high on her bed at night. According to her parents, she would fall asleep mid-page, pass out with the books still stacked on top of her, after hours spent poring over the illustrations.
“I was an imaginative child who didn’t really fit in with the school system,” she recalls. “My mum describes how she would take a spritely fairy to school but pick up a sad and deflated creature at the end of the day. I’d often get told off for daydreaming or doodling on my schoolwork.”
Luckily, Alysha had a family who fully supported her creativity. She speaks fondly of afternoons spent in her uncle Daniel’s art studio – “he’d set me up in the corner with a creative task, blasting music from his speakers” – and attending children’s art workshops at the home of a local artist named Sandra. “She was incredibly inspiring, and I honestly don’t think I would be an illustrator today if it weren’t for her encouragement.”
It’s why Alysha resists the idea that she was ever “drawn” to illustration. “It’s always been second nature to me. I’m always doodling, often without fully taking it in: all over my to-do lists, while I’m on calls to help me think, or reaching for pen and paper when I’m overwhelmed,” she says.
“I may not always do illustration as a career, but I’m certain drawing will always be part of my life.”
Gentle energy
It’s hard to pin down her work in words, though she says others often describe it as peaceful, gentle, and joyful. That resonates deeply with her, since those are the same feelings she finds in the act of illustrating.
Her practice spans both digital and analogue, though her heart belongs firmly to the latter. “There’s something about the physicality of working with analogue materials that is so special – nothing beats the scratch of a nib pen on paper!” she says. Watercolours are her “first love”, but she’s equally at home experimenting with dip pens and ink, gouache, collage, and even gelli plate printing.
In recent years, sketching on location has become integral to her process. She admits she can be “very hard” on herself about the results, but that’s not the point.
“Observational drawing forces you to slow down and hone in on a small moment of everyday life. In slowing down, you begin to notice how special this seemingly mundane moment actually is… the beauty in the impermanence of shifting colours and changes each season brings,” she explains. “It feels like an antidote to short-form video and the fast pace of modern life.”
A turning point in teaching
Like many creatives, Alysha has faced periods of uncertainty about her place in the industry. The rise of AI, the pressure to produce constant content, and the instability of freelance work all began to take a toll between 2023 and early 2024.
“I still adored illustration,” she says, “but I was beginning to wonder if pursuing it as my job was killing the magic for me. Every time I sat down to make art that didn’t have a clear end goal or financial gain, I would feel guilty, which puts you in a difficult position as an illustrator.”
The breakthrough came when she began teaching a Young Illustrators art club at a local children’s bookshop. “It was a complete turning point,” she admits.
“Teaching that class of brilliant, quirky, energetic children aged 4–11 brought vibrancy and balance to solitary work at my desk. It gave me the permission I felt I really needed to experiment with new materials and techniques.”
Observing children’s uninhibited approach to art proved a reminder of why she fell in love with illustration in the first place. “It was exactly what I needed at a time when my practice had reached a stale point.”
Now based in Copenhagen, Alysha has expanded her workshops to adults, aiming to help people “reconnect with the childlike curiosity that exists in all of us” in a judgment-free space. “We all possess creativity,” she says. “As we grow up, self-limiting beliefs can muddy our vision — part of my aim in teaching is to remove those barriers.”
Observing life, processing loss
Alysha describes herself as someone who’s never been “the loudest voice in the room”. It’s a quality she once viewed as a flaw, but has since embraced as part of her creative strength.
“There’s a quiet stillness and patience that comes with being an illustrator, and you definitely have to be comfortable in the role of the observer.”
Her connection to nature and observation deepened after the death of her stepdad, whom she considered a parent, when she was 19. “Grief is a strange thing because through the heartache and deep loneliness, I remember so often being bowled over by how beautiful nature is,” she recalls. “It was painful and a shock to watch life and the seasons rolling on as normal, but I found so much solace in nature and responding to it creatively.”
That experience, she says, is still with her today. “Illustration isn’t just a career for me – it’s a gratitude practice. Life is so short and precious, so I hope to always take time to pay attention to the things I love through drawing them.”
Switching scales
While much of Alysha’s personal work is detailed and analogue, she also enjoys the more stripped-back demands of minimal illustration. “It’s super satisfying to puzzle together the challenge of bringing warmth, character, and readability to the most minimal of illustrations,” she says of her work in Procreate and Adobe Illustrator, often for iconography and logo briefs.
Her most rewarding client commission to date came last year, when Studio Morfar asked her to illustrate Forage Box’s 2025 foraging calendar. It was her first entirely analogue client project, painting edible plants and fungi in watercolour on large A3 sheets – a departure from her usual scale.
“In order to get good reference photos, I had to go on a lot of walks to search for and get to know these plants myself, which, as a nature lover, was a very welcome element of the job,” she says.
“Watercolours are transparent and not very forgiving, so I was initially nervous. I even caught myself trying to zoom into my paper out of habit!” The outcome was a joy, and Alysha hopes to take on more work of this nature in the future.
Inspirations old and new
Alysha’s influences span picture books, animation, and literature. As a child, she was captivated by Sara Fanelli’s energetic, often dark collage illustrations for Pinocchio, and she admires the ornate compositions of Tomm Moore’s films, such as The Secret of Kells.
She also draws inspiration from the tenderness of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, the delicate watercolour animation of Isao Takahata’s The Tale of Princess Kaguya, and the witty simplicity of Jon Klassen’s picture books. Each, in their own way, embodies the balance of emotion and craft that Alysha strives for in her own work.
Looking ahead
Right now, Alysha is continuing to run her Copenhagen art workshops, often with a meditative focus. “I’m very passionate about the therapeutic benefits of art, and I’m always exploring ways to weave these elements into my workshops,” she says.
In her free time, she’s out sketching the city’s streets, plants, and daily life. It’s a way of finding connection and feeling more at home. In future, she hopes to write and illustrate her own children’s picture book. “I have some ideas brewing,” she says, with the same gentle optimism that runs through her work.
For Alysha, illustration has never been just about creating images; it’s about paying attention to the natural world, to fleeting moments, and to the emotions we carry. Whether she’s sketching in a park, guiding a student’s first brush strokes, or capturing the delicate fronds of a woodland plant, that attention remains her constant.
