She often pulls from mixed media and creates collages. Recently she used pencil and markers to create a painting for her friend Iris. It was an eye with a star pattern in the middle of the eye (Iris) and then had a clever and playful storytelling image of girls fighting off boys. She also used crayon shavings mixed with paint and glue to create an ice cream and sprinkles. Zion is also constantly drawing and creating comics.

Zion’s parents are both creatives so her environment is full of inspiration. As an avid reader of graphic novels and picture books, she uses the artists she reads as further inspiration. Raina Telgemeier is one of her favorite author/illustrators. Despite living in a large urban area, Zion also uses the landscape around her as inspiration including the many native oak trees with their acorns year round and the flowers that bloom cyclically .

Working with materials in hand is particularly interesting to Zion, be that clay, sewn pieces or collages in multimedia. First and foremost is pencil to paper, especially when traveling! Color blending is a favorite thing for Zion to experiment with and she’s been keen to follow in her father’s footsteps by trying various watercolor techniques.