Emma Fick is an artist and illustrator. After completing her degree in English Literature and Art History in 2013, she taught English in Serbia on a Fulbright scholarship and began to chronicle its culture in a series of watercolor illustrations called Snippets. The illustrations caught on, and thanks to a grant from the U.S. Embassy, Emma returned to Serbia the next year to pursue painting full-time. After publishing her first book of illustrations, Snippets of Serbia, in 2015, she returned to New Orleans and began working on Snippets of New Orleans, which was published in 2017. In New Orleans, she shifted to fine art, with a conceptual focus on hybrids: merging Louisiana-specific symbols and ancient Byzantine frescoes; creating half-human half-bird mythological creatures; combining plant species in ways not found in nature. Her current work, all watercolor and ink on paper, explores cultural, biological, and floral hybrids and the endless permutations they allow. She hopes to continue traveling far and wide, illustrating her way across the world. She lives in New Orleans.
[Fick's] enchanting illustrated travel memoir shares the experience intimately. ... She chronicles the trip diary-style, with watercolor paintings to show both stunning scenery and portraits, as well as myriad odd details, the snippets that make remote travel so alluring. (Imagine your own illustrated travel journal in which you capture each day's essence in a note with a drawing; then imagine you actually have talent.) - New York Times Watercolor sketches [depict] artist Emma Fick's 2017 journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway ... with paintings of bathroom fixtures, local officials and Russian cafeteria food that dodge the genre's cliched tropes altogether. Handwritten notes accompany the images, which are sometimes framed with a traveler's-eye view of train windows and passenger compartments. Others serve as whimsical compendiums ... [the] effect is charming, yes, but it also invigorates. - Washington Post Artist Fick's illustrated travelogue combines intricate art and intimate observations-vibrantly colored and distinctly hand-lettered-of a Beijing-to-Moscow expedition on the Trans-Siberian Railway. . . . Lucky readers get to adventure along in cozy comfort. - Booklist