Hello,
As an artist I go by the name of Katy Vezo -not my real name but an anagram of my real name. I'm 40's-ish years young and live in the United States on the East Coast. I'm self-taught, aside from basic art classes in high school and college, none of which were in graphic design.
The art I create is made from a combination of photomanipulation of multiple basic stock images, combined with bits and pieces of designs I create myself in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. I almost exclusively use Adobe, although sometimes I dip into Canva because they have some fun and good stuff on there. I don't ever use AI myself, mostly because I'm not practiced at creating good prompts to get nice results. That's not to say that any of the stock images I use aren't created by AI because you never know these days. I don't judge anyone for creating art using AI, I do believe it's a form of art all it's own - being able to effectively craft a prompt to get what's in your head generated by AI and get impressive results, because I cannot do it. Kudos.
My life other than art has been focused in the STEM arena, but I've been all over in my life. I've been a helicopter pilot at one point, spent 5 years as US Marine, worked for the government, and worked for myself as well. Now days life is much less exciting and I stay pretty firmly planted on the ground without many adventures but spend a lot of time creating artwork so I can't complain.
Now that I'm a middle-aged disabled veteran I have more time to focus on learning online graphic arts programs and I'm currently teaching myself how to use Illustrator and how to draw on my Microsoft Surface with the pen.
If you have any questions or any ideas for creative projects you think I can be of assistance with please reach out to me, I'd love to speak with you!