Anna Lisa Leal is originally from Laredo on the border of Texas and Mexico. Her family has been in in the South Texas region since 1731 when they arrived from the Canary Islands to the Villa de San Fernando in the Bexar Presidio - what is now San Antonio.

As a kid, she spent her days playing and drawing in the shade of the tangerine trees her backyard. She vividly remembers drawing through high school and college. Though she had artistic talent, she pursued a degree in the sciences versus the creative world. She discovered a great aptitude in botany which was her first college course in biology. When the semester was over, she was invited to teach the laboratory aspect of that course and did so for the rest of her time at that campus.

In 2013, she attended a half day pastel workshop taught by an artist from the Pastel Society of New Mexico. She fell in love with the medium and has not put pastels aside since. She furthered her education in pastels by taking numerous workshops with nationally and internationally known pastel artists. Over the years, she picked up various techniques that resonated with her and led her to develop a technique of her own which includes preparing her own boards and the various ways she applies the pastel and other mediums to achieve the effect she desires.

Botanical subjects are her primary love. She is most inspired by the xeric specimens found in the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts and throughout the Southwestern United States. When people ask her to name her favorite between cacti, succulents aloe and agave, her heart is invariably with the agave. She admires the stateliness of the agave and the seemingly endless variations in size, colors and shapes. She says “I have a fascination with the undulation of some species of agave leaves and am intrigued by the markings of the now unfurled agave leaves on its adjacent leaves - like footsteps in sand. The ultimate beauty is that of the poignant swan song of the agave flower - it's last hurrah before death”.

Anna Lisa never fully understood her fascination with xeric botanicals until she was driving through the city of Presidio on the Texas/Mexico border. She realized then given her birthplace and early years, she was simply drawing her home. Home for the last thirty plus years has been in and around Austin, Texas. Currently, her studio is at her home in the Hill Country northwest of Austin near the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.