Meet Leanza Abucayan, aka Leah. She’s a Handwriting Artist who joined the team in April 2018.
She’s originally from Sacramento, California, but now calls Atlanta home. She lives there with her husband who is an Airborne Combat Cameraman in the Army and her Frenchton pup.
By day, she’s a graphic designer for CNN Digital, designing and maintaining the CNN app. Before CNN, she worked for Walt Disney Imagineering as an environmental and print collateral graphic designer. She designed for parks, resorts and cruise lines. While she doesn’t work for Disney these days, she’s still a huge Disney fan.
By night, she keep the creativity going. She’s a duct tape artist. Her specialty is portraits. You might even run into her and her duct tape art at Alanta metro art shows.
Now that you know a little about her, let’s look at the hand-drawn cards she created for customers.
Food pro: Leah gets pumped anytime food is requested or referenced in a card. Lucky for her, our customers are always hungry and constantly write about food.
All Disney, all the time: Not only does Leah love Disney, she’s great at bringing characters to life in customers’ cards.
Stunning letters: Words jump off the page when Leah’s hand is behind them. Here’s a great example of her lettering work in a awe-inducing friendship card.
Rockin’ card: Colors and drawings take this happy birthday message to the next level.
Summer fun: Leah joined other Punkpost handwriting artists this summer to takeover the Tombow Instagram account. She made this card, and you can even watch a video of her creating it on Instagram.
Motivational message: Leah is great with color, but black and white is really her preferred color scheme.
Fast facts about Leah:
- Location: Atlanta, Georgia
- When she’s not writing cards: She’s creating for CNN, making duct tape art, hanging with her husband and pup, working out and traveling to eat.
- Writing background: She’s always been drawing. But one moment that stands out is seeing the Sistine Chapel as a kid. She came home asking her parents if she could draw Barney all over her ceiling.
- Go-to doodles: Everything she draws is unique, but she loves when people request food.
- Favorite writing utensil: Pencils and Crayola Super Tips.
- Favorite colors to use in cards: Black.
- Favorite stamps: The Art of Magic and Frozen Treats stamps.
- Favorite cards to write: The random, vulgar, inappropriate and funny cards that Punkpost customers send. “As much as I love reading love notes and feeling like I’m somehow a part of someone’s story with each letter I read, I really enjoy creating silly random cards.”
- Workspace: Home, work, everywhere and anywhere. She takes her markers and pens with her wherever she goes.
- Favorite background noise: Music. She’s a big fan of old-school hip hop, neosoul and island reggae. “Good vibes = good cards.”
- Favorite time to write: Lunch breaks and after work.
- Writing process: Once she decides what to draw, she plans the layout in pencils and then goes back and inks her design.
- Cards written (so far): 500+
- Skill building: “Just keep doing it. Practice and take risks, and don’t beat yourself up when you try something and it doesn’t turn out how you expected.”
- Resources: Take time to appreciate your surroundings. Leah finds inspiration on packaging, posters, billboards and store displays. She’s also finds inspiration on Abduzeedo, and from others on Instagram, such as @stefankunz and @homsweethom.
Want to see more? Follow her on Instagram at @hellaleah.tapebeast and visit her website to see and shop her work.
Stay tuned: We feature new faces all the time so you can get to know the real people behind every doodle and letter that’s sent with Punkpost. And if you can’t wait a whole month, you can order a card from our app or site. Who knows, maybe Leah will draw your friend’s fave Disney character.
Check out these card collections:
- Birthday Card Collection
- Friendship Card Collection
- Congratulations Card Collection
- Encouragement Card Collection
Artist profiles you’ve got to see:
Other stories from Punkpost:
