Becoming an artist began at age eight when Anou drew landscapes, portraits, and animals. Her mother noticed her talent and sent her to MOMA art school in New York. Later, she attended Pels Art school on Broadway. Initially struggling, Anou’s mother's demonstration motivated her to improve and surpass her mother’s skills.

When she was ten years old, she attended the art students league of New York. In Mrs. Katz's class she recalls sneaking into a nearby room one day and seeing a naked black woman posing for artists.

At the age of twelve, her parents purchased a house in Lenox, Massachusetts. During summers, she attended the William Schultz art school in Pittsfield. Mr. Schultz, who learned from Robert Brackman at the Art Students League, taught her how to create tone paintings in oils for still lifes and portraits.

In high school, she doodled monsters and animal faces in class.

While at Bennington College, she applied her art school experience, in her painting classes. At Bennington they favored color field paintings influenced by Helen Frankenthaler. Anou stood out as one of only three representational painters in her class.

Right after her freshman year at Bennington College in 1976, she had the amazing chance to go to Paris. She enrolled in an atelier and had the honor of being taught by a master artist. Her lessons primarily focused on the technique of painting using only three primary colors. She realized how challenging it is to create vibrant color schemes using such a restricted palette. In her final year of college, she went back to Paris and attended two significant art exhibitions: one at the Petit Palais showcasing Van Gogh's artwork, and another at the Jeux de Paume museum centered around Symbolism. The exhibitions motivated her to strive for that level of expertise, with the goal of enhancing her own artistic abilities.

Upon her return to Bennington, she attempted symbolic paintings like those in the French museums. During a studio visit, a classmate swiped his finger through the wet paint, and said it resembled a cartoon. That was her initial and final attempt at transforming doodles into art, and she didn't try again until 2021.

After the incident, and despite the faculty's push for a consistent style, she turned her attention to exploring various representational subjects such as still lifes, landscapes, portraits, and even intricate depictions of squished clay. Balancing art projects with academic deadlines led to exhaustion, culminating in a frightening accident where her car skidded off an embankment into a river. Thought this harrowing experience resulted in physical injuries to her right shoulder and 126 stitches on both her legs, it also inspired a new depth in her artistic creations as she navigated through this adversity.

The midterm remarks said she needed to define her style, or risk not graduating. For the rest of the semester, she painted and drew only portraits with her left hand, and eventually, by the end of the semester, when she could use her right hand, painted a self-portrait. In the Final exam show, she exhibited the excellent self-portrait and a few other paintings. She passed; then graduated.

After graduation, she returned to NYC and again, attended classes at the Art Students League. Her interest in figurative painting and its techniques persisted. This time, her teachers were Robert Brackman, Daniel Greene, and Robert Beverly Hale for anatomy. In addition, she received private instruction from a renowned Russian classical artist and attended a class taught by Elen Lanyon at the School of Visual Arts.