About Your Instructor

Rainbow Willard is a working artist, entrepreneur, and educator who has spent over fifteen years building a creative business from the ground up.

She holds a BFA in Art Education from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MBA from Gardner-Webb University, a combination that is genuinely rare in the creative space and one that shapes everything she teaches. She knows how to make art and she knows how to run a business, and she has spent more than a decade figuring out how those two things can work together instead of against each other.

Her company, Intellexual Design LLC, has operated since 2010 and has evolved through multiple pivots, from custom handbags and painted shoes to a four-pillar model spanning original fine art, illustrated products, deck publishing, and teaching. She sells across online platforms, in-person markets, and through crowdfunding, and has successfully funded multiple Kickstarter campaigns including a Lenormand deck that funded at 244% and an oracle deck that funded at 206%.

Her colored pencil work has been published on the cover of Ann Kullberg’s CP Hidden Treasures. She has exhibited throughout Virginia and beyond, and has taught visual art to students of all ages, from kindergarten through twelfth grade and into adulthood, bringing the same patient, observational approach to every level. Her classroom experience spans public school settings, private instruction, and workshops, giving her a broad understanding of how people learn to make art and what gets in the way.

She is not a coach who figured out business after stepping away from making art. She is still in the studio, still at the markets, still launching products, and still teaching. When she talks about pricing your work, building an audience, or surviving a slow season, it comes from current, lived experience.