Animal ABC: Playful animals teach A to Z (Padded Board Book) About the Author Maria Harding was born in Oxford, UK and has an honors degree in Fine Art from Liverpool University (1997), UK, specializing in painting figurative work. She describes herself as a professional graphic designer for the past twenty years and an unofficial artist her whole life. In her professional career spanning over two decades, she has worked with a wide variety of companies, a few being The BBC, Hotel Chocolat, Fairfax, Weldon Owen kids' books, Cambridge University, Laureate University and some amazing musicians and artists along the way. From 2011-16, she ran a successful business painting custom stencil portraits, and was selected as a finalist for The Stencil Art Prize in 2013 and 2015. She is now specializing as a portrait artist using a more free flowing technique with water colours . She currently resides in Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia along with her musician husband Tom, son Ben and dogs Charlie and Snoopy.