Forest Calendar 2026

★*°✶ • My Watercolor Wizardry book is out now for pre-orders! Get a free gift with your copy ✦ ✶•

Work & Portfolio

Short Stories

My workshop

Welcome to my workshop! This little space is where I gather my rough ideas from world adventures and turn them into something more tangible like a completed short story or painting. Some of my favorite items here include a skull-shaped jar that changes color depending on the paint I dip into it, and my wizard hat that sits atop a green lampshade. It's important for my creative space to not be too serious, but instead playful and make me feel like I am the protagonist of a Tolkien-esque story, or a tinkering alchemist in the age of Camelot.

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Commissions

If you would like a fantasy map for your novel or D&D campaign, book illustration, landscape or creature concept art, custom MTG card ideas, my commissions are open! Just send me an email below with the details of your idea, and I'll get back to you with a quote and more info.

Also take a look at my portfolio for a reference on what I can do for you.

Inquire

How to Illustrate Fantasy Concepts using Gouache on Black Paper

Course

Kiara Maharaj

YouTube

Sketchbook tours, process videos, tutorials, and thoughts about creativity

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Patreon

Wilbur & Niso Smith

Nedbank YouthX

Fairytalez

Ambassador

Articulate Africa

About Kiara Maharaj

Author/Illustrator

Kiara Maharaj (Kiara in the Forest) is a writer and illustrator from South Africa. Her illustrations are done using gouache and watercolor, and are based on tree portals, characters, and creatures from her fantasy short story series: The Polkadot Files.

Before publishing her first paperback anthology and working publishers such as 3dTotal, Page Street, and Maskew Miller, her short stories have been published by Short Story Day Africa, Articulate Africa, Fairytalez, and shortlisted in the Wilbur and Niso Smith Adventure Writing Competition. She graduated with a BSc in Computer Science from UKZN, and used that knowledge to write science fiction/fantasy. In 2022 she won first place in Nedbank's YouthX entrepreneur competition for her publishing business idea Slyspore Books. Since then she has been interested in educating artists on how to create an art business through her digital Art Business Kit. She created numerous online resources and tutorials for artists, including a free Gouache Starter Pack for those keen to learn about gouache. She is currently an ambassador for Prime Art, a leading distributor of art supplies in South Africa.

Her upcoming book Watercolor Wizardry will be out in bookstores worldwide on March 3rd 2026. She exhibits at Comic Con Africa to launch her books.