Meet C.J. Ellison l Artist & Illustrator

Today we’d like to introduce you to C.J. Ellison.

Hi C.J., so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
Looking back now, my career had a lot more sudden changes in direction than I expected. At the time, they were jarring and terrifying but in hindsight, they put me on the path to be what I needed to be.

I graduated from art school at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2015 with a degree in animation. You wouldn’t know it looking at my art now but I originally went to school to be a 3D character animator. I learned very quickly that I did not mesh well with the 3D programs at all. As any college student probably knows, it’s quite jolting to figure out that the thing you’re doing is not what you actually want to be doing. So I made the first big shift to use my remaining time to focus on designing for pre-production in animation

After college, my first professional art gig was in…. vector illustration! That wasn’t what I was expecting either. It wasn’t the most glamorous, especially for an aspiring concept artist. but it gave me a start. It also gave me a step the move closer to what I wanted by going into toy design and illustrating for children’s media.

I designed lots and lots of very cute things but after a while, I realized that really wasn’t who I was as an artist either.

In September 2019, I made a huge leap from doing very stylized, cartoony designs to digitally painting realism. By leap, I mean that I started over from scratch art-wise. I switched to part-time at my toy design job and focused my free time on re-teaching myself the fundamentals of art through Schoolism.com. Based on the timeline, you might already guess what happened next. Just a few months after starting this shift and seeing real progress, the design department at my company was laid off due to the pandemic.

Once everything went into lockdown, I continued to work on growing my art but now I had time to also be a part of the online art community. One thing lead to another and now in addition to being an artist and illustrator (and I create the kind of art that I love now!), I also work with Schoolism and LightBox Expo as an asst. community manager and webinar host. It had always been my goal to be a professional artist, but now I’m more than that. I’m also part of a team that serves the global art community!

A took a while to get there, but I’m in a place in my career where I no longer want to switch paths. I want to continue growing and see what I can do to make things better for artists everywhere.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh no, I would not say it’s been a smooth road. It’s funny when you go to art school it seems like the path to being a professional artist is very linear but I think the reality is actually quite opposite for the majority of artists.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing though. Well, I can say that now. In the moment of each struggle, it definitely felt like a bad thing! I struggled with so many things: finding work in my field after school, navigating changing a career while unemployed during a global pandemic, finding a community of peers when you’re stuck at home, teaching myself business skills, and the list goes on.

Now that I’m further along my journey, the struggles shaped my life into a version that I didn’t know was even available. I wouldn’t have started freelancing as an artist if I had landed a studio job immediately. Now it’s something I recommend that all artists try at some point. It’s incredibly rewarding to be running your own business and leads to all sorts of unexpected opportunities.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Primarily, I’m a digital painter in illustration. I paint things realistically but with a brushy, textural feel. Even though I paint digitally, I want it to still feel like it’s painted, so people feel the strokes. It’s something that I always loved about seeing paintings in real life and I want to keep it in my work.

Subject-wise, I paint quite a few animals, birds in particular. I’ve always had a strong bond with nature and that’s something that shows up again and again in my art. When I look at my artistic journey and the work of artists I look up to, it’s very much an expression of the artist themselves- what we love and what we value. I try to put that in my work and I hope others feel that too.

One of the pieces I’m most proud of is a work a did for the Arctic Institute to help promote their “Migration in Harmony” research initiative. It’s always a thrill to paint the subjects you are passionate about, in this case, lots of native fauna. But art also has the unique ability to create connections with people. When your art is being to connect people to help make the world a little bit better, that’s something even better.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was very much a quiet, introverted kid. I spent a lot of time reading (particularly fantasy!) watching movies, and of course drawing.

My love of animals and nature started very early on. My mom had a degree in exotic animal training and had been a dolphin trainer before I was born. So I’ve been around animals my entire life whether they were dogs, birds, fish, etc. and some of my earliest memories were looking through her old textbooks. I did quite a bit of hiking, kayaking, and traveling as a kid too.

Some things haven’t changed a bit- I still love everything in nature, conservation, and fantasy too. Based on my artwork, I expect that’s not a surprise.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cjellisonart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cj.ellison/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cjellisonart
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjellisonart