ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES - MONA SHAFER EDWARDS

Mona Shafer Edwards is a freelance illustrator specializing in Fashion and Courtroom Illustration. She is a native of Los Angeles, California, and was one of the youngest graduates of the Art Center College of Design, where she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors.

She is co-author on eight books on Fashion for HarperCollins Publishers, New York, and just completed a book for Prentice Hall (Simon and Schuster).

Her practical trade experience includes teaching at UCLA and Trade-Tech, L.A., in the areas of fashion sketching for advertising, and guest lecturer at University of South Carolina and several area high schools.

Mona has illustrated children's books and has done artwork for major department stores and manufacturers, and regularly donates her artwork to various charities.

Her courtroom illustrations for ABC News have been seen worldwide, and many of her drawings have been featured in foreign print publications. In the nearly twenty years of sketching in the courtroom, she has witnessed hundreds of high profile trials from Richard Ramirez and the McMartin Preschool cases to Rodney King and OJ Simpson. Her colorful and emotional drawings are in many private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Mona lives in the hills of Los Angeles with her husband, a business attorney, their two children, two gold retrievers and, at the moment, 28 birds.