Mary Grace Eubank is an internationally recognized, award-winning illustrator whose work celebrates her lifelong love of children, animals, and nature.
Growing up in the Piney Woods of East Texas, she found inspiration in nature’s seasonal beauty and the power of her clairvoyant friendships with animals. That imaginative world sparked a +50-year career creating whimsical illustrations that entertained, informed, and delighted generations of children.
After graduating from SMU in 1966, Mary Grace joined The Drawing Board in Dallas. Through its licensing partnership with Children’s Television Workshop, she met Sesame Street’s art directors—an introduction that helped launch her successful freelance career.
Mary Grace brought Big Bird, Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster, and all their muppet affiliates to children’s products ranging from bedsheets to backpacks. She illustrated books for numerous major publishers including Random House, Simon & Schuster, McGraw-Hill, Harcourt Brace, and Western Publishing. She put her magic on many games for primary industry pioneers like Milton Bradley, Mattel, and Fisher-Price that are still on shelves today.
Her portfolio grew to include Woody Woodpecker, Strawberry Shortcake, and original characters for brands such as Keebler, Carnation, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and Butterick. Appearing in books, greeting cards, advertising, and television commercials, her playful creations reached children across three generations.
As Mary Grace recalls, “I partied with the frivolous fantasy family I inherited from my childhood, shared their laughter with children, and loved every minute of it!”
In 1996, Mary Grace and Ted retired and moved to the country with their Cavalier family. Their love, devotion, and attention to canines became a full-time job. Though Mary Grace’s appetite for image making and artistic expression was put on the shelf for seventeen years, it was persistently and painfully missed.
In 2007, the Eubanks purchased a home in the community of Cordillera, Colorado. Mary Grace’s intrinsic kinship with animals and Mother Nature was awakened, revitalized, and nurtured by the similar backdrop plethora that inspired her as a child. The mountain magic ignited the spark to pursue her purpose, recharge her energy, and focus on her dream. She began exploring the Fine Arts with determination, confidence, and courage. It was time to rechart the path and drive herself into a second career journey.
Leaving “Dogland” in 2013, the Eubanks moved back to Dallas, and Mary Grace began enthusiastically embracing her long-awaited exploration into Fine Arts. The departure from restrictive commercial categorization was emancipating, but escaping the serendipitous approach to her artistic interpretation into a freer, more purposeful and inventive narrative was extremely challenging. She completely transitioned the trajectory of her journey and began a new career at 70!
Dividing her time in her Dallas and Colorado studios, Mary Grace is currently working consistently with boundless, optimistic enthusiasm creating diverse oil paintings with reflective insights. Her work is shaped from a lifetime of memories and experiences with compositional freedom and contemplative connection. Through discovery and discernment, her richly layered abstractional representations often resonate significant, valiant attempts to express the inexpressible. With intrinsically autobiographical transparency, her work becomes the perfect voice for stories that resonate and explore the power of the human spirit. Eubank paints mostly with a palette knife applying pigment in lush impasto layers interspersed with thin glazes that enrich color and result in canvases that glow with pyschospiritual ambience representing whatever subject matter the viewer chooses to see.
Employing her inherent improvisational interpretation and heartfelt positivity of life’s enigmatic synergy and rejuvenating spirit, Mary Grace is inventing pieces that are winning competitions, attracting private collectors, and providing unique pieces for designers, galleries, and art enthusiasts. Consequently, Mary Grace is still telling stories that generate JOY, but in a more visual, soulful narrative.
“I find it impossible to retire that rewarding sense of artistic invention I am blessed to celebrate with JOY every day.” -Mary Grace
With boundless enthusiasm, at my age, the only restriction is time. I find it impossible to retire that rewarding sense of artistic discovery.