orn and raised in Sweden, Caisa Howerin was inspired in her childhood and early teens by the illustrated fairy tales of H.C. Andersen and the animated characters of Disney. She studied languages and art history at Stockholm University. Soon after she enrolled in art school, where she learned to paint on canvas in oil. When her formal training was over she abandoned the oil and turned to watercolor, which she found to be a cleaner, but more challenging medium. Eventually she moved to the United States and in the late 1990's took up computer art.

Many different artists have inspried her over the years: after a visit to Holland she was influenced by Dutch art, especially Rembrandt. She painted in earthtones and various shades of gray. In Italy she came under the influence of Italian renaissance art, in particular Botticelli. She discarded the earthtones and adopted a blond, "mediterranean" palette. Around this time she was also drawn to an early Italian surrealist by the name of Arcimboldo, known for his fantastic portraits made out of objects symbolizing a person's livelihood or trade, i.e. a gardener composed of flowers.

Most of the images exhibited here were made recently in Adobe Illustrator 7 and 8. Illustrator is a computer graphics program based on mathematical formulae. One of its advantages is that it is resolution-independent. No matter how much an image is enlarged, it will still be sharp, with nice, clean edges,

Caisa usually creates an image by drawing the outline of a shape and filling it with a gradient or a solid color. Many of her early images of flowers and fairies were created in this way. Eventually she developed a more complex style, with tiny pieces or blocks of "paint" built up in layers, in order to create some texture.

With the help of Illustrator Caisa has created ethereal fantasy & faery art, delicate butterflies and flowers for greeting cards, and whimsy animal characters for children's books. Her watercolors pre-date her computer art and were painted after her visit to Florence. She is presently experimenting with a combination of digital and traditional media.