In the midst of teaching her weekly Art Club class, artist and entrepreneur Honey Hilliard engaged in an unexpected collaboration. Her 2-year-old ran into the studio, picked up a brush, and put a giant glop of bright red paint in the middle of Hilliard’s floral painting.

“I try not to get too prissy about my work,” smiles Hilliard. “I loved it and left it there. With acrylics you can layer over anything, and sometimes a bright color can wake up a painting and bring in new life.”

Collaboration is key for Hilliard as she hosts and attends multiple events with artists and business owners in the Tallahassee community. Along with her paintings, she’s a creator of many products such as ArmScarvz, which sell nationally and internationally, printed notecards that can be found in local museums, and miniature canvas paintings. A lover of storytelling, Hilliard is also the author and illustrator of an interactive color-along children’s book “Looking for Butterflies,” and a soon to be published color-along book of worms.

“The books have some monochromatic pencil illustrations that the reader can color so their brush strokes or pencil marks become part of the book,” explains Hilliard, who is looking forward to her new book. “Growing up, I used to draw these little cartoon worms with clothes, hair bows, and names that always stuck with me. Willy and Wilma worm have always wanted to be in a book, and it will help kids learn to build their own compost and grow fat worms and healthy dirt.”

Since Hilliard was old enough to hold a crayon, she recalls drawing little circles and sketches of her surroundings. Her mother noticed her early aptitude and placed her in weekend art classes at Valdosta State University.

Though she was many decades behind the other students in age, Hilliard became enraptured with each new assignment creating still life portraits and sketches.

“I always felt the need to document my surroundings and loved to draw people, animals and little critters I would find outside,” recalls Hilliard. “I still do that and try to as often as possible weave it into my career. It’s become something that I can do and offer to connect with others.”

Hilliard came to Florida State University on an academic scholarship and earned a degree in art. Right after graduation, she began a job as an illustrator for Florida Fish and Wildlife.

Her first assignment was to create a bird identification poster that, nearly 20 years later, is still in circulation in schools, libraries, and parks around the state as an educational tool. Hilliard believes it’s her most well-known piece of artwork, and creating it used her skills in accuracy and realistic drawing. She was given the opportunity to be an assistant to her childhood art teacher, Kippy Hammond, in France one summer, furthering her education in impressionist painting and creating a series of 25 paintings over her time there. Margaret Dyer, a pastel painter from Atlanta, was one of the teachers at Hammond’s retreat and became another mentor to Hilliard. She also looks up to masters like Matisse, Van Gogh, and Modigliani for their textured work.

“Sometimes accuracy made me feel a little like I was choking the painting,” says Hilliard of her past work. “I wanted something more alive and to see the brushstrokes. Once you’ve done those accurate illustrations, it’s hard not to get into the detail, so I have to force myself to stop and use fatter paintbrushes or a blurry photo reference. I want to keep the life in the painting.”

As Hilliard matured as an artist she began challenging herself with acrylic and oil paints, and more expressive work. Using layers and a palette life, she likes to have hints of past coats peeking through and will even use thick gels and roof spackling to give more body to her work.

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