Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D. has been drawing since she was five years old, and would color her father’s office stationery with crayons to create brilliantly hued paper for her art projects. She received her first acrylic paint set in 1973 (a $25.00 kit was a lot of money back then!) and promptly drove her art teacher crazy finishing class projects in hours versus days. She won her first art award in the 9th grade at her high school (1972) for a large poster design that would be considered ’Zentangle Inspired Art’ (ZIA) today.
She attended Virginia Commonwealth University’s Bachelor of Art Program, and then re-engaged later at Radford University where she earned her BFA in Graphic Design and Illustration. She later returned to Virginia Commonwealth University to earn her Masters Degree in Adult Education and attended Old Dominion University for her Doctorate of Philosophy in Education.
Over the years she has developed a distinctive style for her pen and ink illustrations of old barns and houses, as well as Colonial Williamsburg architectural portraiture. She is currently working in mixed-media using recycled magazines to create 3-D images of stylistic animals and mandalas, as well as using childhood craft processes (bubble-gum chains, paper footballs, and quilling techniques) to create sophisticated paper baskets that are woven together in a non-traditional way. Her doodling and art sketches started in high school before it was known as the style as ’Zentangle Inspired Artwork’ of which Zentangle(R) is a registered name for a particular type of artwork based on specific doodle patterns in a variety of combinations.
She is the author of 94 books on topics of business, career search practices, mandala books for hypnotherapy and meditation, coloring books for adults, women and gender studies, and quotes for self-improvement ("2,000+" & "3,000+" series), genealogy and family lineage. She assists other authors publish manuscripts in the print-on-demand market and also has a series of books entitled: Interview with An Artist. The interview books compile artists’ interviews with photos of the artist’s work to assist the artists in marketing and branding their work to an international marketplace. Fifty of her books can be found on Amazon.com.