Barnum, Joanna

Joanna Barnum creates expressive dark fantasy watercolor art depicting strong emotions, powerful characters, and eerie landscapes. She is interested in balancing realism with texture and atmosphere. Her signature technique includes the innovative use of masking fluid to splice and layer imagery.

Over the past few years, Joanna has returned to her childhood love of Halloween, creating a series of atmospheric paintings exploring haunted houses and jack-o-lanterns. She created Lanterns Burn Bright as both a unique “Halloween Art Countdown” and as an illustrated book. Currently, she is working on a Jack-O-Lantern of the Month project. She has exhibited her Halloween paintings at Bewitching Peddlers of Halloween, Gen Con, and Dragon Con and has been interviewed by the Halloween Art and Travel podcast. 

Joanna earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2006, and has since made her living as an artist across the realms of fine art, illustration, and teaching. She is a Signature Member of the American Watercolor Society and the National Watercolor Society, and served on the board of the Baltimore Watercolor Society for nine years.

She has been an Art Renewal Center Finalist in Imaginative Realism, and was awarded the Carl Folke Sahlin Medal in the American Watercolor Society International Exhibition. Joanna’s work has also been included in the Splash: The Best in Watercolor series from North Light Books and she has written articles for Daniel Smith Artists’ Materials on her approach to watercolor. She was part of a small group of artists invited to visit and create work inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope for an exhibition at NASA Goddard, and her work is in the permanent corporate collection of Ten Percent Happier.

As an illustrator, Joanna’s work has been included in American Illustration, Illustration West, and Infected by Art. She was a Chesley Award Finalist for “Best Gaming Related Illustration” for her work on Overlight with Renegade Game Studios and has also worked with clients including Wizards of the Coast on Dungeons & Dragons, Wyrmwood Gaming, MidWorld Press, Shout! Studios, AARP, Cricket, Faerie Magazine, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Instagram: @joannabarnum