{"id":2155,"date":"2016-06-27T14:27:22","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T14:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/?p=2155"},"modified":"2017-06-30T18:37:17","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T18:37:17","slug":"carson-ellis-on-her-creative-process-and-her-advice-to-young-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/carson-ellis-on-her-creative-process-and-her-advice-to-young-artists\/","title":{"rendered":"Carson Ellis on her creative process and her advice to young artists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carson Ellis<\/a>, a superstar illustrator and occasional writer of children\u2019s books, is not someone who likes a lot of responsibility and doesn\u2019t view herself as ambitious. Despite this, she\u2019s written and\/ or illustrated a number of books for kids, including New York Times bestsellers Home<\/em>,\u00a0The Mysterious Benedict Society<\/em>\u00a0by Trenton Lee Stewart,\u00a0The Composer Is Dead<\/em>\u00a0by Lemony Snicket, and\u00a0T<\/em>he Wildwood Chronicles<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Colin Meloy<\/a> (who happens to be her husband and also a speaker at #Story16). She also designs all the artwork for The Decemberists \u2013 the awesome rock band her husband leads.<\/p>\n

Carson lives on a farm in Oregon, USA, with Colin and their two sons, in addition to one cat, two llamas, two goats, one sheep, eight chickens, a family of barn owls and an unfathomable multitude of tree frogs. \u201eI like it here: it\u2019s peaceful, my kids have lots of room to roam, and the buildings are full of mysterious old stuff. Though, to be honest, I\u2019ve never been someone who romanticized farm life much. I like wild places\u2014woods and mountains\u2014and ultimately I like less responsibility,\u201d<\/strong> she says<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her latest project, Home, which she also wrote, was reviewed by the New York Times<\/a> as \u201da delightful book\u201d showing different kinds of homes, a short description for each one and an explanation of who lives there. \u201eWith the turn of every page, the definition of \u201chome\u201d broadens. We jump from a country house to a city apartment, from a wigwam to a palace, and before you know it, we are in the Old Woman\u2019s Shoe, of nursery rhyme fame,\u201d the reviewer writes.<\/p>\n

Before you get to see her on stage at this year\u2019s The Power of Storytelling<\/strong> conference, here\u2019s a quick look at Carson\u2019s artistic process and her advice to young artists:<\/p>\n

\u2022\u201eI\u2019ve drawn constantly from a young age. I\u2019ve looked at lots of visual art over the course of my life and have taken elements from it that I like and incorporated them into what I do, both consciously and unconsciously. I draw a lot from folk art but, as a person with a painting degree, I\u2019ll never be a folk artist. I know lots of things about art, the history of it and the context \u2014but I\u2019m always trying to forget those things when I\u2019m making illustrations so I can draw like an untrained person\u2014so I can try to stay in touch with the artist I was as a kid. I strive to make art that feels mystical\u2014I think that informs my illustration style a lot\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022\u201eDoes the space where I make things affect the things I make? Yeah, probably. I like to work in inspiring places. They don\u2019t have to be pretty little houses in fields on farms but it\u2019s hard to work in places that feel soulless. 99% of the hotels I stay in, for example. But I like to draw in bars, on trains, and always en plein air.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022\u201eIt\u2019s pretty fascinating to be able to post something on Instagram and find out immediately whether or not people like it. And to find out how much they like it in a totally quantifiable way: a number of likes. Has there been anything else that\u2019s functioned like this for visual artists in the past? I don\u2019t know. Not the money value of artwork or the going rate of an illustrator. But I do think Instagram and Tumblr are interesting and new and pleasantly democratizing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022\u201eColin and I, we\u2019re a very collaborative couple, so I guess we\u2019re just always talking about this stuff. There are definitely a lot of conversations about music, about illustration, about book ideas, about book ideas together, about book ideas apart. We definitely do that stuff more than I do with anybody else in my life. And I think I\u2019m also that person for him. It helps.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022\u201eI worked as a cocktail waitress and then a bartender until I was in my late twenties. So I would like to say I have great ideas and tips to help people get on a fast track to an illustration career, but I certainly don\u2019t because if I had them, they wouldn\u2019t have been the advice that I followed myself. If you want to do what I did, which is take your sweet time and kind of follow your heart, first of all, especially if you\u2019re young, especially like if you just graduated from college, I would say make things really easy on yourself money-wise. Don\u2019t put yourself on a situation where your rent is really expensive and you can\u2019t afford it. Live as simply and as cheaply as possible. I lived in unheated warehouses when I got out of college.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022\u201eI think you\u2019ve got to make that time for yourself just to be an artist if you want to do this. I think people go to college for it and sometimes they graduate and they think they\u2019ve learned all they need to be a successful illustrator. Maybe they have. I hadn\u2019t. When I graduated from college I still had another five years at least to just be drawing all the time before I was really hirable. I wasn\u2019t a good artist when I graduated from college.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Book you place<\/span> a<\/a>t\u00a0the 6th edition of The Power of Storytelling to meet Carson and be\u00a0inspired by her.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carson Ellis, a superstar illustrator and occasional writer of children\u2019s books, is not someone who likes a lot of responsibility and doesn\u2019t view herself as ambitious. Despite this, she\u2019s written and\/ or illustrated a number of books for kids, including New York Times bestsellers Home,\u00a0The Mysterious Benedict Society\u00a0by Trenton Lee Stewart,\u00a0The Composer Is Dead\u00a0by Lemony … Continue reading Carson Ellis on her creative process and her advice to young artists<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[60,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2155"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2903,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions\/2903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}