After receiving a music scholarship, Elizabeth initially decided to be a clarinet performance major. Join us as she describes her path from music to Graphic Design and Illustration, her first job at Hallmark, graduate school in New York City, and her successful journey in the publishing world, including meeting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg after the publication of I Dissent!
Elizabeth Baddeley is a New York Times Bestselling and award-winning illustrator of I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark. She has illustrated many other biographies and non-fiction books for children including: The Fastest Girl on Earth (Knopf), Grace Banker and Her Hello Girls Answer the Call (Calkins Creek), Leave is to Abigail (Little Brown), An Inconvenient Alphabet (Simon & Schuster) and more! In addition to her work in publishing, she has also created illustrations for The State of Missouri, The New York Times, Hallmark, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Sarah Lawrence College, Notre Dame Magazine, and Deloitte. Career highlights include winning a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators for her sequential work “Swimmer Girls” and being the guest of Ruth Bader Ginsburg for a Supreme Court session in 2019.
You can find more about Elizabeth’s work and her social media at ebaddeley.com
After receiving a music scholarship, Elizabeth initially decided to be a clarinet performance major. Join us as she describes her path from music to Graphic Design and Illustration, her first job at Hallmark, graduate school in New York City, and her successful journey in the publishing world, including meeting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg after the publication of I Dissent!
Elizabeth Baddeley is a New York Times Bestselling and award-winning illustrator of I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark. She has illustrated many other biographies and non-fiction books for children including: The Fastest Girl on Earth (Knopf), Grace Banker and Her Hello Girls Answer the Call (Calkins Creek), Leave is to Abigail (Little Brown), An Inconvenient Alphabet (Simon & Schuster) and more! In addition to her work in publishing, she has also created illustrations for The State of Missouri, The New York Times, Hallmark, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Sarah Lawrence College, Notre Dame Magazine, and Deloitte. Career highlights include winning a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators for her sequential work “Swimmer Girls” and being the guest of Ruth Bader Ginsburg for a Supreme Court session in 2019.
You can find more about Elizabeth’s work and her social media at ebaddeley.com
Thank you for joining us today on Paths in Progress. I'm your host, Carrie Young. On this podcast, people in a variety of career fields, talk about their journey from choosing their college, deciding which majors and minors to pursue, their first jobs out of college, and all of the hurdles, detours and victories along their path through today. Our goal is to help students hear about a variety of exciting opportunities out there and understand what day-to-day life is like in these careers. I hope you enjoy and learn from our story today. Thanks for listening.
Carrie:Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are here today with Elizabeth Baddeley. She is an illustrator. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Communications from the University of Kansas, and she has a Master of Fine Arts in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York. So thanks so much for joining us today.
Elizabeth:Well, thank you for having me.
Carrie:I'm so happy for you to be here and we are big fans in our house of your work, so I'm happy to chat with you about it and hear more about your story and know that people will learn from all of the fun things that you've done. So can we start by going back to high school or earlier, whatever you think is appropriate, and tell us how your artistic journey started and as you started looking for colleges and thinking about your career, kind of where you were at with that when you were in high school?
Elizabeth:Yeah, that's a hard one for artists because we've kind of been doing this since the beginning. Yeah, yeah. Since you, you know, can pick up a crayon. My mom, before I was born, she was an art teacher, like a middle school art teacher. And so she's an artist, an artistic and crafty. We were always doing a little bit more than the average kid at home. Yeah. So that was just like really nurtured from an early time. Also, I had an aunt who was an artist. She was a fiber artist like for a career, so being an artist was always a viable career path for me in a way that I think for a lot of people, it's not, or it's not presented that way. Right. So, you know, I did like the normal path. I probably took an art class every semester in high school, but I also had like a lot of other interests in high school. I was really into music. I played the clarinet. I tried to take as many like AP classes as I could. I'm not really sure what spurred that. Parents probably.
Carrie:The environment of that school kind of, yeah. Encouraged it we'll say.
Elizabeth:So like, I didn't take like an excessive amount of art classes, but I definitely tried to fit in one every semester. It was kind of like standard for me. I didn't have a lot of time to do anything more than that. But when it came time to, you know, start thinking about college and majors, I was really torn. Like I was debating doing art, but I was so into music at the time. I played in the youth symphony and I played at another ensemble outside of school and I would go to music camp every summer. And so like I really thought I was gonna do the music path. And when I first enrolled in college, I was a music major and my plan was to do clarinet performance and then go to law school.
Carrie:I did not know this.
Elizabeth:Oh yeah.
Carrie:Love it.
Elizabeth:I think a lot of it had to do with, I got a really great scholarship for music. And so I felt like, oh, well this is the, you know, the powers that be telling me like, this is what I'm good at, so this is what I should do. I enrolled in all my classes and auditioned and was going to do that. And then about July before school started, freshman year of college, I was like, I wanna do art. And so like, I dropped all my classes and scrambled enrolling in classes in colleges is the ordeal, especially when you're a freshman. And so, like, I didn't get in a lot of the early foundation classes, so I kind of like started my art path in college, a little bit behind. Which was okay because I took a bunch of other classes. Like I still did music in college. I played in the wind ensemble and the marching band and the orchestra, and I took private lessons and I got to keep my music scholarship.
Carrie:Oh wow. Nice.
Elizabeth:Yeah. It was kind of like My sport in college in a way. I also swam in high school, and I knew I didn't wanna do that in college because I wanted to do music. And you know, music is kind of like a sport and it's really hard to do, athletics and also be in the arts because they're so time consuming. So that gets me to college. I find I switched everything around. I decided to study visual communications at KU. Which at the time that was either our graphic design or illustration, you could focus on either one. And, you know, being a little extra as I always was, I did both. I really loved illustration, but like I couldn't wrap my head around the practicality of it. I was really wrapped up in what am I gonna do after college? Yeah, how am I gonna get a job? How am I gonna pay? And I think that was, you know, maybe parental experience. And I think it was good because I studied graphic design as well as illustration. And I know for sure it was my graphic design portfolio that got me my first job right outta college, which was a designer at Hallmark cards.
Carrie:Well, and one point I really wanna bring out that was kind of prevalent throughout what you just said there was, you know, kind of what you're good at and then also what you really feel pulled to that you love doing. Because, The way things are presented to students. We tell students, you know, to kind of find what you're passionate about and follow your passion is one message. And then another message they get is to find what you're good at so you can be successful in that. Right. Yeah. And for a lot of people, that's not the necessarily the same thing. Like I think math is a good example. Like there are some people out there who are really good at math, but they don't necessarily like math. Yeah. So it's hard to take these different messages and be like, well, what I am passionate about and what you're telling me, or somebody's telling me, or I know that I'm good at aren't necessarily the same thing, or there's more than one thing at play. It's really hard to figure out which route to take or even sometimes what those things are in the first place because we have these two kind of simultaneous messages that we're getting, to find what you're passionate about and also find what you're good at.
Elizabeth:Yeah, it's hard. I mean, I still struggle with it really. But I mean, I think if you're passionate about something, you can get good at it. You have so much time, like
Carrie:yeah, that's true.
Elizabeth:I, I always felt very like the sense of urgency, like, Oh, I gotta figure it out in four years or I gotta figure it out, you know, before I start school freshman year. But I didn't realize at the time, like how much time I really had to figure it out.
Carrie:And you did a great job of pursuing multiple things. You know, that's not for everybody. Between your music and the illustration and the graphic design. Not everybody would be able to handle that, but that's always an option for people who can't decide between two or three things. Like you can figure out a way to incorporate more than one thing and that helps you figure it out. Right, because you're experiencing both or all three.
Elizabeth:Yeah. And I really think that was like the impetus for going to KU as well. Like both my parents went there. I would go to music camp there every summer, so I was really familiar with the campus and just the culture there. I wasn't totally sure what I wanted to do, so I didn't wanna go to an art school or go to like a music conservatory or, you know, something where I would kind of have to put all my eggs in one basket. KU really afforded me the opportunity to kind of explore a little bit more.
Carrie:Yeah.
Elizabeth:I know it's a different situation now with the cost of college. I've taught college students too, so it's hard for me to kind of separate what I've seen from them and like my memories of being that age as well. I know things are different now.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. I've had some conversations with some other artists on other episodes about kind of the differences between graphic design and illustration. Can you talk about kind of some primary things that really stuck out to you within your experience of the graphic design coursework versus the illustration coursework?
Elizabeth:Yeah. This is hard because it's so different depending on where you go to school, and who your teachers are. KU had a really small illustration department, like it was only two teachers at the time, and so it was very much directed by their interests. and it was very traditional illustration. Like for a newspaper article, you know, in New York Times or something, you would hire an illustrator. And we did a lot of that kind of like editorial illustration practice or like a portrait or like Rolling Stone. It was very, magazines, newspapers, very conceptual illustration. And that's one aspect of illustration. But illustration also includes children's books, it includes comic books, it includes, you know, like surface design patterns for like bedsheets or wrapping paper, greeting cards. Yeah, I mean, I feel like illustration really has that drawing picture element to it. The most basic way of explaining it. And graphic design is much more based in like typography and layout. I mean, they're both so vast that they can be very, very separate, but they can also cross over a lot.
Carrie:Like for students who are considering both and don't really know which path to take, is it more helpful to kind of take the intro class in each area to see that? Or is there something in particular that like, well, if you're more interested in this kind of thing, then go this route. I mean, obviously a corporate job setting is more of a graphic design major, if you're thinking about career track, right? Mm-hmm. But are there kind of some other basic things that would help students to possibly look down one road over another?
Elizabeth:Yeah. It's hard because a lot of schools, you know, art schools and universities, like, you can't do that. You don't go into your major until probably like your sophomore year and then at that point you have to pick, oh, graphic design or illustration. That's why, you know, I've had a lot of illustration students that I'm like, you should try to take a class in the graphic design department, to kinda build on those skills. I also know that a lot of high schools teach graphic design now. Whereas when I was in school, we had one commercial art class and it was not anything, like any graphic design that I took in college. So I think like if you can't explore it in high school, I would try to, you know, in the Kansas City area, I always refer to people to Johnson County Community College, if they wanna try out graphic design or getting those like basic fundamental classes. Because usually in art schools you start your first year is like foundations. And so you'll take like just basic drawing class and basic design class and maybe a couple of electives. And you'll be lumped in with the painting majors, the photography majors, sculpture, like all the art students are kind of like jumbled together freshman year, and then your sophomore year you make the choice to focus on one of them. I would say that's pretty standard as far as schools go. Different schools are all different. But you know that foundation's year, like maybe if you're really questioning things, try taking an elective in design, doing what you can, even if it's at a junior college or something. And you can always change majors.
Carrie:Right.
Elizabeth:You know? Yeah. If you're not loving it and you can always major in one thing in college and do something else once you graduate Yeah. That's why like sometimes I'll have illustration students that are, I can tell, just have a really good sense of design. And I'm like, just at some point try to take a graphic design class because you know, from one class you might get the skills you need to go get a job in graphic design. You might not need to major in it. Art is funny. Like no one ever asked to see my transcripts Right. And I applied for a job. They just wanna see your work.
Carrie:Yeah. So I mean, kind of in that same vein, we, you know, introduced you at the beginning of the episode as an illustrator, but you mentioned that your graphic design portfolio got you your first job out of college. So can you tell us a little bit about that process and what you were doing within that first job?
Elizabeth:Yeah. So my portfolio, the things that were in it, you know, this was, 2004. It was a big tabletop size portfolio with big giant pages, with plastic sleeves, with projects printed out and tucked into the sleeves. I had done projects like a magazine layout or package design for olive oil or, a branding project for a tea house where I had made a logo and designed all the stuff that would go in this tea house. So those were the kind of projects that were in my portfolio. I would say a lot of my graphic design projects from school incorporated an element of illustration into them, which is not something that needs to happen. But, you know, that was my interest. So they did. And so for that reason, I think it was appealing to people at Hallmark. When I got my job at Hallmark, I was a quote unquote designer, but I dealt with a lot of illustrations. They would also employ, quote unquote illustrators who would illustrate pictures. And then I was the designer, so I would take the pictures and kind of arrange them in layouts on the cards. I had a lot of experience working with illustrations as a graphic designer, so I think that's why my portfolio was appealing to them. There would've been other jobs where I would've not been qualified for or not been, you know, the ideal candidate. When you're applying for that first job out of college, they don't have to see exactly what you're going to do because they're gonna teach you how to do the things at the job. I learned more in my first three months at Hallmark than I did in four years of college, probably. Wow. And I think a lot of careers in the arts are that way. It's just how it goes. School is different than the real world when it comes to art. For sure.
Carrie:Yeah. So when you were applying to Hallmark for that job, like as you were graduating from college, did you have a strong feeling either way that you really wanted to go one route or another? Or were you just kind of putting your work out there to see what happened?
Elizabeth:No so this makes it more complicated. So I took five years in school because I did do that double focus. And also I was taking like a lot of music classes too, that kind of limited my schedule a little bit, so I needed that extra year to finish up. And in that extra year I was able to take a lot of art electives. So a lot of painting classes in a lot of printmaking classes. And in that time, that was when I was like, I don't wanna be a graphic designer anymore. I wanna be an artist. I was really struggling a lot with like, what I was gonna do after college. I thought maybe I might apply to grad school in like a painting program or printmaking. But one of my graphic design teachers was like, you know, you should take this job at Hallmark because it will allow you to have other creative endeavors. She knew, from working there herself that it wasn't going to be super demanding of my time. I could go to work, do my nine to five, and then go home and paint in my studio and then just take some time to figure it out. And I'm really glad that I didn't go straight into graduate school, because I worked at Hallmark for six years and those were really important six years to just live life as an adult and to grow up and to realize I really didn't wanna do graphic design Like it wasn't, you know, making me happy. But I also realized I didn't wanna go do a painting program. I didn't wanna be a fine artist, that I really wanted to go back and explore those illustration roots that I kind of had from the beginning. Yeah. So yeah, I really value the time at Hallmark, not just for the work experience that I got there, but just the life it experience, it allowed me to have, like, it allowed me to just, you know, go on vacations and travel to see friends and just live in an apartment by myself.
Carrie:Are there any kind of memorable projects or things you got to work on at Hallmark? Can you just tell us a little bit about like, what that was like and what types of things you got to do that, I dunno if there's anything there that helped inform you with what you wanted to do later or helped kind of shape you more as an artist?
Elizabeth:Yeah. So towards the end of my time, so I left in 2010, so it's been quite some time. So I can't speak to how it is there now, of course. Right. But I was moved to a team that was called, they had teams, so you'd be on the birthday team or the Valentine's Day team and I was on the digital team and at the time. It was kind of like a hodgepodge of different projects. We would do you know the cards you could just buy online and like type Happy birthday Carrie into it? Yeah. Or you know, print on demand, they would call it. Or there was also the little group that would do e-cards. And there was a group at the time that was doing something called Mobile Greetings and it was basically like little greeting cards you could text to people. Didn't really take off for a variety of reasons, but, it was really good for me because, we had to create so much content so quickly that I was technically like a graphic designer. I wasn't doing illustrations at Hallmark. But for these projects, we didn't have time to commission an illustration or find illustration or find someone to do like hand lettering. So we just did it ourselves. Okay. And I started just doing a lot of hand lettering, a lot of illustration really fast. And I was like, oh yeah, this is what I wanna do. And honestly, like if I could have just kept doing that at Hallmark, I probably would've just stayed there and did that. But, you know, it was a big company, it was a corporate company, and trying to like move around can be hard sometimes. And I wasn't really like finding my place there and doing the kind of work that I really wanted to do. But I knew I wanted to do more illustration. I wanted just to like own projects more and not just like, take other people's art and, you know, put lettering around it to make a card. So I think it was like all that work on those mobile greetings that was really like, oh yeah, I wanna do this and I can do this. So how am I gonna, how am I gonna do this? From that point, I went some in some different paths. I had this moment, I think it was like the summer of 2009 that I took a week off and I worked on my portfolio and built a website and I was doing these little like doodles every week. There used to be this website called Illustration Friday, and of course this was before like Instagram, but people had blogs mm-hmm. And so I had a blog. I would post my illustration Friday, drawing every week on my blog. And, illustration Friday would be like, they just give you like a word, like eyeballs and you'd do an illustration of eyeballs and you post it on the blog. Yeah. And you could see everybody else's. And I would see mine, but it meant I was doing a piece of art every week. Yeah. And I would post it on my blog, my blogger blog spot blog. I mean, almost no one looked at this, it was really just for me. So I did that. I also applied for another job and got another job, and I moved to work at Barkley, which is an advertising agency in Kansas City. That was a good experience for me. My particular job role meant that I just kind of like with those mobile greetings, it's like you just had to do everything. You know, if you needed an illustration, you would just do it if you needed hand letter and you would just do it. I mean, I'd also had to do graphic design work, but that agency, it was a lot of work, a lot of hours, but it really like, kind of made me own my own projects and it was a lot of fun. The third thing I was doing at that time is I also applied to graduate school. So I had heard about this program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. The title of the program was actually illustration as visual essay.
Carrie:Oh, wow.
Elizabeth:Yeah. And it meant that you could kind of do whatever you wanted with illustration. If you wanted to make picture books, you could do that. Storytelling was really at the heart of it. Beyond that, I mean, some people go through that program and then just decide to be fine artists. You know, some people go back to doing graphic design. You could kind of make it whatever you wanted. And so I got into that and left my job at Barclay, moved to New York. And that's kind of like when my like career as I know it kind of started to take off as just doing illustration.
Carrie:Yeah. For your graduate school program, were you having to work and do things on the side while you were in school? Or how was that time for you?
Elizabeth:I was lucky. My undergrad was really inexpensive. College at that time, like late nineties, early 2000 was fortunately, not very expensive, especially if you stayed in state. Then I had that music scholarship, so I didn't have any debt going into it, but I took on a whole lot of debt getting student loans. Yeah. I moved there with my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, and so we were able to live like in a studio apartment. So two people in a studio apartment that helps. He also had a full-time job. I was able to get health insurance in New York, as a student for fairly inexpensive, so that also helped. And it was two years. It was only two years. Right. I think not having like really even a part-time job, I did things here and there, like freelance work. That was very lucky and that was very nice and I really appreciate having that time that I could just focus on graduate school cuz it, I mean I really put everything into it. It was a full-time job. I was at grad school Monday through Friday, all day long. And probably on the weekends too. I mean, I kind of lived there, basically. Cause the alternative was our studio apartment. And then I did work in the summers.
Carrie:Can you talk a little bit about being an artist in New York City or being an artist student, I guess we should say in New York City? Because I think that is for a lot of people, whether it's for undergrad or grad school or right out of school, that's kind of this ultimate destination in people's minds, right? As particularly for students who are in the arts. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about just the experience of living there and being in that community and the access you had to things that you don't have in other places in the country. Can you just talk a little bit about that experience and what that meant for you as a growing artist?
Elizabeth:Yeah. I mean, I'll start with like the good. So I was a graduate student, so I didn't really take part in the school as like an undergrad would, you know, I didn't live in a dorm, I didn't eat at the cafeteria or, I mean, really even use the school library. Our graduate program was very isolated. We were on a singular floor of a building in Manhattan and we kind of like stuck to each other. Yeah. There were 20 people in my class and 20 people in the classes on either side of me ahead and below. And so those were the people that I knew there. And it was great. I mean, it was enough people, formed enough connections. But I mean, the thing that was so good about it is, We would have like guest lecturers and guest critiquers in our classes that, you know, it was the art director for the New Yorker or the New York Times, or from Penguin Publishing. We had these like real people that were in the community come and you'd talk with them and meet them face to face and Yeah. You know, form some like really great connections. You know, the connections I formed at that school were so invaluable. Friends of friends of friends, you know, have connected me through so many jobs. I can't even keep track, especially cuz I work a lot in publishing and you know, there's publishers all over the country, but most of them are in New York City. Yeah. So that was really fantastic. The downsides is it's so expensive to live there. it's just really, really expensive to live there. Yeah. You know, at the time SVA wasn't any more expensive than like, say the Art Institute. I think that's changed, but, your cost of living is just gonna be a lot more. So, you're gonna have to take out more loans or you're gonna have to work more. And that will definitely take away from your art practice to some extent. Right. Yeah. I would also say, something that's very interesting at S V A is there's a big like international student community. Like, I had students in my class from Spain, Russia, Mexico, Taiwan, Korea germany, Israel, just like all over. And you know, I have taught at the Kansas City Art Institute and there isn't that same international community there, which it was very interesting. Met a lot of people from different backgrounds and different cultures.
Carrie:What about like galleries and museum kind of setting. Did you find yourself just being able to go to a lot of that?
Elizabeth:Yes. all the time. In fact, when I go back and visit, I'm always like, I need to go to the Met. And like, I can never even find time to go like on a vacation to New York. Yeah. But when I was in school, I went all the time, you know, there's so many student discounts. One of the best classes I took in grad school was our drawing on location class, and it was. One, you took it for an entire year, and it was every Friday, I think it was like four or five hours long. And we would go to a different location in New York City, to sketch. We'd go to the Museum of Natural History, we'd go to a boxing gym, we'd go to a delicatessen. We went to the Met Opera and got to like sketch backstage. It was just a amazing way to see the city and just draw at the same time. It was very cool.
Carrie:Well, part of the reason I bring that up is cuz I think, you know, particularly with graduate school, when you're becoming more specialized and more sure about routes that you're taking, right? The setting of the school you choose sometimes can be really important. You know, it kind of depends on what you're studying and what you're doing. But for something like art to be, you know, if you're doing that in a rural town in the Midwest, you're gonna have a much different experience than being in somewhere like New York City. Right? Just having access, like you said, to people, to networking, to institutions that are gonna have Showings and things that you just can't see other places. And then even like the sketch class you're talking about, which sounds awesome. I mean, obviously you can have a sketch class like that anywhere, right? But the types of places you're gonna be able to experience and go are gonna be different. So I know there's a lot of debate about location, right? You know, some people talk about it in the context of like, weather you know, like if you can't stand the snow, don't go north, or, you know, things like that. But also be thinking about, you know, are there places that are really rich in the culture or the networking or the community of what you're studying and how much you can benefit from that outside of the classroom.
Elizabeth:Yeah, totally. And I, I also too, just going back to like the people and the connection, just seeing like working illustrators, working artists, seeing people that are doing the thing that you wanna do like every day. Yeah. That was so important because it makes you realize like it's really possible. But you know, I will say school of visual arts is a so different experience than KU. Like s v A is spread across several buildings in Manhattan there's no main, like quad or meeting point or student union. I don't actually think there is a dining hall. I mentioned that before, but I don't think there is one. Mm-hmm. I feel like you would need to be a little bit more motivated. It might be a little more isolating. I'm sure if you live in the dorms it's helpful, but, you know, there's a lot of like built-in community at a school, just a university, and maybe some other arts too. It would have to be a very focused, very motivated, very mature student that I would recommend going to SVA right off the bat. Maybe, you knock out some classes at like a junior college or at a more affordable school and then you transfer. I've seen like really great things happen with students that, you know, transfer to schools at some point. Not because they're like totally unhappy where they are, but that they have a clear picture of where they want their education to go and they find a better place for that. I went to KU cuz I was gonna be a music major, it wasn't maybe the best choice for me for illustration. So I think transferring or changing path is not any sort of a failure. It's just sometimes you have to switch gears.
Carrie:Exactly. Yeah.
Elizabeth:There's no rule that says you have to go to the same place for four years and then graduate and get a job. Especially in the arts, like that's really hard to do. Like that's like winning the lottery in design. I tell people, like I have two degrees in illustration and I worked at Hallmark. It's a very traditional career path and not many people have that same path. I should note, you don't have to do all of these things to be an illustrator.
Carrie:Right. So as you were going through that graduate program, were there any things that really helped kind of shape a vision of where you wanted to go upon graduation? Or were there any things that were introduced to you as like introductory steps for you to take on that path? How did that graduate program really influence you and help you moving forward?
Elizabeth:You know, that class that I mentioned, the location drawing class, that was a big one. I knew that that was the type of illustration, like more realistic, more observational illustration. That's kind of what excited me and fueled me. We also had a class, it was just called the book class, like very vague titles. It was very self-driven. And we got to just make a book about whatever we wanted. On like the last day of the semester before we were going to start this project, we had to like, go around the class and say what our book was gonna be about. And like, I had no idea. And so I was just like swimming or maybe water, I don't know. And so I ended up making a book about swimming that kind of evolved over the process of making it. But, I really liked doing that and knew I liked kind of like this sequential art. Either, you know, a comic or a picture book or some sort of bound project is kind of where I saw myself. But, also, I was gonna do whatever anybody like paid me to do at the time, too. Right. It was an illustration. I was like, I'll do it. but I think like the path into publishing was kind of like an easier one because, you know, they do have such a need for illustration in books. Whether it be a book cover or a picture book. It's a really like viable career path for an illustrator. You get paid a lot more for doing a book cover than you do a newspaper illustration.
Carrie:Right, right.
Elizabeth:A lot more. And those illustrations in the books, they can live on forever, you know, a newspaper kind of gets tossed out the next day. Some people just love that editorial, but my brain just doesn't kind of work in that way. It's a little too, like conceptual for me. I really like that observational drawing.
Carrie:So how did you get started on this path? Cuz I think that's one of the most intimidating things, right? When people have a vision for what they wanna do or they have a dream. A lot of it is like, where the heck do I start and what steps can I take to start putting yourself in the right spaces, right? And talking to the right people. And I'm assuming that, did your school have some of that guidance for you before you graduated? Did you feel like you were equipped a little bit to at least kind of know where to start?
Elizabeth:Yeah, there wasn't like a specific like job board or counselor that was like, oh, you should do this. But I think with all the people I had met in all my classes, all the guest lecturers, all the fellow students, all the former students, that was another, big connection path at s v A was students that had graduated from this program like four or five, six years ahead of me were now working as our directors. I think just kind of like all of that together. I was able to take the steps I needed to find work. This was also, so I graduated from graduate school in 2012. The internet was evolving very quickly in like how artists utilized it. When I started graduate school, like everyone had blogs, right? Right. When I finished, like almost no one updated their blogs anymore and people were just using Instagram. Yeah. So like connecting with people via social media kind of became a thing while I was in school. The first steps that kind of got things rolling for me was that I had connected with an art director. Via Twitter We had some mutual friends and we would kind of banter back and forth sometimes, we had a similar sense of humor and so like she would post something and I would respond. And then we also met in person once at this place called the Society of Illustrators, which has a lot of shows and competitions and resources for illustrators. It's a physical place located in New York. Oh, oh. And, we had met there and then like all of a sudden one day she emails me and she's like, I finally have a project I can work with you on. This is someone that I had developed a relationship with and then she hired me for something. Yeah. And it was a book cover. It was for Simon and Schuster. I did the book cover and it went well. It actually is a series of book covers that I've done like eight of now, and I'm going to do another one next month. So this has been going on for a long time.
Carrie:is that the murder mystery one?
Elizabeth:Yes.
Carrie:Okay. Yeah. I have one of those. I haven't read it yet though.
Elizabeth:They're cute. they're fun. They take place in like the thirties in England at a boarding school. They're very fun.
Carrie:Well that's good too cuz if something is a series then that can end up being a longer term project, right?
Elizabeth:Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, at the time she was like, I think this is gonna be a series. And I was like, Ooh, jackpot Yeah. And so yeah, we worked on it together. Just, I worked with the art director on this. But in all books there's also an editor. And so there was an editor that I didn't really work directly with her, but she had feedback on everything and she works with the author. She knew of my work. The editor, in addition to editing, you know, chapter books and novels, she edits picture books and she, the editor for Wells and Wong Mystery series was the editor that hired me to illustrate I Dissent, which was my first picture book that I illustrated. So in the world of illustration, it's really just like a series of connections, I feel like. That initial connection was made via social media. I know a lot of illustrators now put a lot of work out there on Instagram. They're basically using Instagram as their website. You know, some people don't even have other websites. It's hard to make that first connection. Like it's not easy but I feel like if you do and then you get that first job, you know, work your butt off on that first job because then they'll recommend you to their friends for other jobs. And it kind of is just like this waterfall effect. So you always wanna like do your best, especially in the beginning. Try to go above and beyond and be easy to work with and then, you know, more work will follow. And I'm still in touch with this initial art director. I just went to New York last month and went out to dinner with her. It's a relationship that will go on for a long time, hopefully.
Carrie:Are there any kinds of situations, particularly in the beginning, where it's kind of like an all call for art and then they choose someone? Or is it really primarily just through connections? Is there a way to like, submit something here and submit something there for consideration, without a connection?
Elizabeth:Well, I mean, maybe I'll just talk first of all on like the, like the bookmaking side of things. Mm-hmm. I've illustrated books for other people that have been written by other authors, but I'm also working on my own books. I think that that's the thing about being an artist, you've gotta do that work that like pays the bills and keeps your career going and moving. but any successful illustrator I know always has their own project on the side. Yeah. Like that's the goal is to like get your own project published. And so in publishing, you know, anybody can make something, you can make a book and submit it. Submitting it is a little bit complicated. If you wanna get it picked up by a big publisher, typically you need to go through an agent. But you can submit to agents. Agents are always looking for new clients and then the agent will shop it around to publishers, mm-hmm. You always do have to be, you know, going out there and finding your own things, and on the side other things will happen. You know, people will reach out to you for this and for that. But I think like the real key is to kind of like try to get your own projects published. For something like a newspaper or a magazine, I don't think that happens quite as much. But it could, I mean, you could be like, Hey, there's this thing happening in the world and I did this comic for it. Do you wanna publish it in your newspaper? Like you can do that. You can reach out to people. The worst they'll do is ignore you or say no. Right. Sometimes I'll get contacted by some company or some person and then be like, Hey, I have a job I need to get A bottle of olive oil illustrated, and would you like to submit a design for me? If I choose yours, I'll pay you. And I really would never do something like that. Like, I want to always be paid for my time if someone's mm-hmm. in that sense. And then sometimes I have had books where I have to like, submit an illustration. Like they're trying out several illustrators, right. But they pay you for that usually, you know, they'll pay you for your time. You might not get the job, the full job in the end, but you'll get paid for the little bit that you do.
Carrie:Yeah. If a student's listening and perhaps they're getting close to graduation or they're getting to a point where they wanna start trying to get their work out there, in addition to what you've already said, do you have some tidbits of advice about how to start getting your work in front of people to see it? Like when you're just starting out?
Elizabeth:A lot of schools, not just the schools in New York City, they'll have resources for you. Like KU and also the Kansas City Art Institute where I've taught, off and on, they'll have portfolio shows. The Art Institute has something every fall called the Harvest, where they invite people from the community to come see the students' portfolio. So really, really taking advantage of those opportunities, those in-person. Mm-hmm. But also, I know at the Art Institute, there's certain classes, there's one class I think it's either juniors or seniors. But, the professor basically has guests come in every week and, they're from the local community, but you know, they're from Hallmark or ad agencies or they're just freelance illustrators like me. Just trying to make connections at those kinds of things. Like anytime you can make that personal connection trying to do it, especially at the Art Institute, they have a lot of adjunct instructors, cuz it's a very big program. Mm-hmm. And I've been one of those adjunct instructors and I don't get like a ton of job offers, like every week. Like things aren't just like my inboxes and just like overflowing, but sometimes I'll get contacted by someone and I'm like, I can tell this isn't gonna pay enough for it to be worth my while or I'm just not that interested. But I hate telling someone just like, no, I can't. I always like to be like, no, but maybe check out this person. Yeah. And so often I will recommend like other students or recent grads or even sometimes students that are in school. You never know who's gonna be seeing your work, so you always wanna really try. You have to be hungry in illustration. You really do. Mm-hmm. So those are kind of just like those in-person connections trying to take advantage of. But then, social media, you know, it's, Instagram is still, it's a pain because we don't have a lot of control over the quote unquote the algorithm or whatever. And that really frustrating. But I think that when you do post, and I'm not gonna be one of those people that is like, you should post every week to keep yourself. Like, that's just not realistic. You don't, you're as an artist, you're not gonna be able to generate something every week. But I've noticed from my posting, the things that get the attention is stuff that is just like, Really heartfelt, really original, you know, something to say, you know, not trying to make something that looks like everyone else's, but just think about like what you wanna say. It's so funny how those things just seem to come. Those have the most likes or whatever, get the most attention. Just kind of trying to be as an original as possible. And I think even if your genre of art that you're interested in is fantasy, just pulling from personal experiences in any way you can, I think is so helpful. And this goes for applying to colleges, too. When schools are looking at portfolios, they really wanna see someone with like a unique point of view more so than someone that can draw a perfect bowl of fruit or something. Right, right. I mean, those schools are important too. Depending on what you wanna say with your art, you may need to, you know, draw very realistically to be able to say the things you want to say, but not always.
Carrie:Yeah. Well, if we could take, I don't know if, I Dissent is the best example or a great example for this, but could we kind of just start from the beginning of a project that you've done or a book that you've done and like, through the end of it and just kind of tell us about how that opportunity came your way and then what the process was from that initial introduction or offer to the book being published?
Elizabeth:Sure. I mean, I could tell you I Dissent cuz I kind of already got you a little bit there. I was contacted by this editor that I had worked with before, but not on a picture book. And she was like, I have this book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We're looking for an illustrator. The catch is, it's due in four months, which is a very short amount of time. And like basically I read Ruth Bader Ginsburg and didn't read anything else, and I was like, yes! Yeah, I was so desperate for any work at the time. This came up and it was a really nice publisher and they offered me, You know, I didn't really know what I was doing or knew to ask for more or anything, but I was very fortunate that they offered me an appropriate amount of money for it. Mm-hmm. I don't know that an agent would've gotten me a lot more being as an inexperienced as I was. I was pretty naive at all. I kind of like stumbled my way through reading the contract. I was like, yeah, this looks good. Didn't question anything. I did the illustrations. So the way it works is after we've all agreed to like the terms of everything, I usually before this, but I'm sent the manuscript. So it's just like a Word document, usually words on paper. Every once in a while an author will like, put in some art notes, like, oh, I was thinking this could happen here. But honestly I don't get a lot of that. Because once an author sells a manuscript to a publisher knowing that they're going to find an illustrator. I mean, they know that the book is then only going to be, you know, 50% their creation. Once the illustrator signs on, you really kind of split the project, even though I didn't write the words, I'm doing the pictures. Even though I never work with the author, it's definitely a collaboration. Yeah. So I read all the words. Sometimes the words are broken up into pages. Like, this should be on page four, this should be on page 20. Sometimes they're not. And so I have to kind of figure that out, how I'm gonna like, divide everything. And do like the roughest loosest, most indecipherable sketches that anyone's ever seen. And I don't show them to anybody. But just to kind of figure out the placement of everything. From that I tighten up those sketches a little bit and then I will send the editor, art director, these sketches and they will give their feedback. Sometimes they'll give author feedback, sometimes not even at that point they won't even show the author. And then I do like a second round of sketches, usually based off their feedback. Tighten them up a little bit and then they do send those to the author because especially for these books that are non-fiction, they wanna make sure I'm just like not getting anything super wrong. right? Yeah. Sometimes the author will have comments and they will not even share those comments with me because maybe they don't agree. So it is like a joint effort with the writer and Illustrator, but there's also an art director and an editor that are having input too. So it's really a team effort, when it comes down to it. And most books, if you look inside the front or back pages where they have all the copyright info, you know, it'll say who maybe was the designer or the editor on it. And I always like to look at that because I feel like that's really important as well, even though their names aren't on the front.
Carrie:And those are other connections within your network too, right? Even if you didn't meet them in person, they're gonna know your work, obviously.
Elizabeth:A lot of editors have assistants, and then the assistants then go on to become editors. And so, like I said, it's just like those waterfall and you just build more connections with every project.
Carrie:Going into the project, was there any indication or comment or assumption that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was gonna see this when it was done? Like, did you feel any kind of extra Oh my gosh. with that? Or was that a thought at all?
Elizabeth:So when I signed on, I believe I was told that she knows about it and we have her blessing
Carrie:Okay.
Elizabeth:Which I thought was pretty, pretty a big deal because you know, she's not alive today, but if she was, I don't think she would be like giving approval on every book that was being written about her. Right. Of course. The other thing about Ient that makes it very unique, because it was the first picture book about her. Like there weren't any others at the time. Hmm. And I think that's why it's sold so well. Yeah. Cause it was just the only one.
Carrie:Well, the timing of everything too. Right. Everything that was going on.
Elizabeth:I feel like Supreme Court justices weren't as known at the time. I mean, it wasn't that long ago, but they weren't like household names the way they are today. She was just kind of like starting to become a thing. There was that, I think it was a Tumblr blog called The Notorious. Rbg. Mm-hmm. that was kind of gaining in popularity at the time of my making of this book. They have a book that came out too that is actually a great book and it didn't come out until I had finished the book cuz I opened it. I was like, man, I wish I would've had this when I was working on the book. great pictures in here to reference. But, she really kind of became more well known after the 2016 election and that happens to be the exact time that the book came out was the fall of 2016. So the timing was just really incredible And so, yeah, we didn't realize she was gonna be such a fan, but, she was
Carrie:Yeah. That's exciting. Did you get to meet her?
Elizabeth:I did get to meet her.
Carrie:So how did that happen?
Elizabeth:So that was in 2019. So right before Covid, right before she passed away, actually, that happened because my dad reached out to her.
Carrie:He, are you serious?
Elizabeth:Oh yeah.
Carrie:Oh my gosh.
Elizabeth:Oh, you know, this is what he does. He somehow was able to connect to like her assistant and was like, my daughter illustrated a book about Ruth and I think they should meet. And the assistant was like, I think so too, And, gosh, they were oh my, like to come out and be her guest at the court on this date. And we were like, yes, of course. And so that was like, oh, I wanna say it was in November of 2019. My son was like almost one. It was the first time like I had left him. So that's how I can recall that. Yeah. So we were invited. So we got to see a Supreme Court session, which funny enough, there were two cases and they were very not interesting and not memorable. So I can't recall the exact details, but one actually originated in Kansas. It was like so-and-so versus Douglas County. It was some sort of traffic violation. It was really boring.
Carrie:Oh my gosh.
Elizabeth:But it was so funny cause like the team that had started that case in Kansas, they were all there. So there were all these lawyers from Kansas there and I was there and we're like, Hey, we're from Kansas too.
Carrie:Oh my gosh.
Elizabeth:So we got to sit through court and then we got like a private tour of like the Supreme Court and like the library and everything. And then we just like met her in her chambers.
Carrie:Wow.
Elizabeth:It was wild. It was great. She was so normal and like gracious. I mean, you know, you're talking to, to greatness basically. But yeah, she, we were so nervous too. Like my parents went with me, it was the three of us and like we were all nervous. but you know, she really lit up when we were just, she had like a wall of photos on her in her chambers. And so we were like, oh, is that yo-yo ma Yeah. And she was like, oh yeah. And then she likes just started talking and, you know, talked about, referencing the photos. So that was that kind of like, was our end. We talked about the case we had seen. But the thing that was so interesting and like totally makes sense now why she was a fan of the book is because she had swag all over her chambers. Like you would expect it to be this like tidy, I don't know. Formal. I mean there was a fire going in the fireplace. She had like Ruth Bader Ginsberg Bobbleheads, and she had a drawing I had sent her from the book Framed on the wall, and she showed us her bottle collars and she like had buttons, like she gave us like some buttons that somebody else had made, like on Etsy or. She bought like a ton of'em and would like give'em to people when they came to visit her chain She books like she had our book and some other books that she would sign for people and give them to them when they came to visit. So she like kind of liked all the fuss that was made about Yeah, it was, it was very charming. Like I really didn't expect that. Um, I love that. Well, and also what a good lesson for just like you said, just reaching out to somebody, you know? I know. Um, cuz who knows? Maybe somebody would be like, sure, yeah. Come on over. Like, you just, you just never know what's gonna happen. Yeah. I guess they have a set like number of, you know, tickets, so to speak for right. Court sessions that they can just give to people. we got them that day. It was very interesting to see it all, all go down.
Carrie:Wow. That's awesome. Well, with, I don't think we kind of wrapped up your process. I'm sorry. So, oh I got a little sidetracked with the RBG. Yeah. So what is kind of the wrap up when you are finishing a project like this?
Elizabeth:Well, the last round of sketches I send for approval are pretty refined. They're pretty tight. So the author sees that, sometimes they'll have fact checker type people, like copy editors for art almost. Just making sure like certain details are correct. But I would say a lot of that is actually just on me. So I get approval on those final sketches and then they're like, okay, this is good, or fix this or whatever, and then you can go. And then I go for like, which is what I'm doing right now. I do the final art. So that will take me like two to three months usually. And I don't really have a lot of communication with the team during that time cuz I really just, I just gotta sit down and make the art and like, I can go from like page one to 32 or whatever, but that doesn't usually happen. I usually kind of skip around and things kind of come together. together for me. Mm-hmm. So I can't like send them, oh, here's the first half of the book. What do you think? So I really just wait until I have everything finished and then I send it to them. I work like a combination of traditional and digital, so I will send them digital files, usually just a link to a Dropbox account and they can go download the files and they see the final art. And typically there's not a lot of major changes at that point. There will be some, maybe it's just like a color tweak or maybe, you know, oh, that person didn't wear that kind of hat. Can you change that hat? But they're usually pretty small. They're not gonna be like, oh, I don't like the way this page is going because they've already approved it. Right. Well, technically they could change their mind. My husband's an architect and anytime people have like last minute changes, he's like, that should be a change order. I'm like, it's just not really how it works in illustration. You gotta make it right no matter what. Yeah.
Carrie:Well when does the conversation about the medium you're using or the color saturation. I mean, gosh, you pick up all these different kids' books and some of them have very little colors. Some of them are like really, really bold colors. Some of them you can tell it's pencil. Some of them you can tell that it's paint or you can tell that it's watercolors. Is there a discussion on the front end about like the overall look and the medium you're using? Or is a lot of that up to you?
Elizabeth:Well, I do do a little bit of that because I feel like how I work has been evolving and I kind of change it up a little for each book depending on what I'm actually illustrating. So sometimes during like one of those sketch phases, I'm like, here's a sample piece. This is like what the art might look like. And maybe I'll finish one of the pages. I almost always end up redoing it in the end. But, I give him a sample. But there's not a lot of that because something I haven't talked about that's kind of important for an illustrator is: your style, like what your art looks like. Mm-hmm. And it can be a struggle for some people. It's been a struggle for me. Just like kind of picking a style and landing on it and always working in that way. But it is kind of important because people hire you for what you do. So if you make your art with marshmallows, they're gonna hire you because you're like the marshmallow guy. And I'm saying that because we actually have a book that's made with marshmallows. Or if you want a black and white in charcoal, you know, with pops of yellow, you know, they're gonna hire this person because they do that. It's tricky as an illustrator because you want to stay true to your style, but you also want to grow and evolve. Yeah. There's not a lot of discussion about medium because they're hiring me to do the thing that I've done in the past, basically. Mm-hmm. if I were to pitch a new book that was totally different style, I mean, I could potentially do that. And illustrators have done that. Like the marshmallow guy for example, he didn't always work with marshmallow, but one day he was like, I have this idea. And so he pitched it and he did that. But you know, sometimes when people submit books to agents or to publishers, they'll include some art samples with it. So they kind of know what they're getting. Yeah. If I were to turn in final art that was, you know, made with bears or, you know, or collage or something, they'd be. What just happened, like, right. They'd have a problem with that and I would probably have to redo it.
Carrie:Yeah. Do you ever kind of go to them and say, you know, I feel like this character, I need to do this a little bit differently, or the setting that this is in, I feel like it needs to be more this or more that. Do you have those kind of conversations so you don't surprise them with something that's a little different?
Elizabeth:Yeah. I would say like, anytime I'm gonna do something that's kind of different than what I've done in the past, I always send them a sample. Like this book, and the last one I did, I'm working almost fully traditionally, like with paint, and not as much digitally, not as much line work. And so I kind of like made that clear up front. He was like, this is the past book I did. Here's a sample. I was thinking, this one could look more like this. What do you think? And so far everybody's been like, fine as long as it's telling the story in a clear way that is appealing. It's not like, you know, too far out of left field. I also feel like, I think things change more than they probably actually do. Mm-hmm. And I think that's common with illustrators, especially young illustrators. That'd be like, I don't have a style, like doing all these different things and then an outsider looks at your work and you're like, no, you have a style. It's hard to see it in yourself sometimes.
Carrie:Yeah. Well, one thing we haven't talked about is a lot of the other things that you've done, and I don't know if you call them side projects, but you've had a lot of print art that you've sold. You post a lot of just like little projects that you've done, whether it's like with fabric or sewing. Is a lot of that just kind of for enjoyment or do you have some intention behind some of these other things that you do with your art and your time? Can you talk a little bit about some of the other projects that you work on and what's behind those and what you do with them?
Elizabeth:Yeah. So kind of the blessing and the curse about being an artist is that everything is your art It's really hard for me to separate, just my life, my personal life and my art. I feel like it's all my art in a way. Mm-hmm. to varying levels. So I've sold, I sometimes I will have, it's currently not open, but I'll have an Etsy shop where I sell prints. And a lot of times these prints are from things I've drawn in my sketchbook. Well, I do the sketchbook work to it's enjoyable for me. It's fun. It helps me develop new ideas. I challenge you to go out and sketch and not have an idea pop into your head. It, it won't happen. Yeah, it helps me practice my, my drawing skills, just straight up skills. Sometimes I like this art and there's nowhere for it to really live. So I print it out on very nice high quality paper and sell it and, you know, I can make some extra money that way. And that's very nice. And also people inquire about prints a lot and I like to get, have an answer for them. So that's kind of how the prints develop. I've been doing, like on my Instagram lately, I've been doing kind of a lot of like, sort of comic type stuff and that is somewhat intentional because I would like to transition into possibly doing some graphic novels. I have, yeah, some ideas simmering and so kind of those comics kind of started out as practice for this. Kind of different way of visual storytelling, but also I kind of think they're fun. Like I have weird thoughts pop into my head. I'm a swimmer and I still swim from time to time. And truly the only thing you can do is think your thoughts while you're swimming, right? Like, I always have like ideas that pop into my head or when I'm walking my dog and like, I like to turn them into just little visual stories to share with people. And so, you know, those are just kind of like, for me, for fun to get these ideas out of my head, but also they could develop into something more. Like, you never know who's gonna see it and be like, I like that. Play on that. The sewing that is purely a hobby. that was something that I picked up in the lockdown portion of our pandemic. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, I think I enter into sewing the way a lot of people do baking. It's very satisfying. I don't feel like it's really that creative the way I do it. Like I follow patterns. It's kind of like making a model. I go step by step and then I have something I can wear at the end. However, I have an idea for a graphic novel about a kid that sews. So like everything kind of becomes your art when you're an artist. And I wouldn't say that everybody is this way. I can only speak to my own experience, but I think that also comes with the fact that the art I like to make is, you know, based on the world around me, based on reality. things that actually are happening, because those are the stories I find interesting. But,
Carrie:Yeah. Well, regarding ideas and artistic process, I think something that people hear a lot from like composers and songwriters is that they start hearing this thing in their head and like, oh my gosh, I have to get this down. Like, I have to get this out and like get it out. Do you have those kind of compulsive feelings where when you get an idea, you're like, oh my gosh, I have to sketch this. Like, I have to get this so I can see it in front of me? Or is it just kind of, is it a more relaxed process for you?
Elizabeth:It can be compulsive, sometimes it is, but it's not really that. It's just like I get so excited, you know? Yeah. It's like I love the books I'm working on, but they aren't my own stories. Not yet. Right. And books take a long time and I'm like in the thick of it right now. And so like, I'm finding this compulsion to come up more when I'm not working on my own story. Because it's just fun. I just like it. Yeah. And it goes back to that thing like, is it the thing you're talented at or passionate about? And you know, I think sometimes the thing you're passionate about, you're just able to focus on more and kind of give it the time that it needs and then it ends up being the thing you're talented at because you work so hard on it.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. We hear a lot of societal messaging about how getting an art degree is not a good idea for your career path and it's not worth anything. And you need to be focused on more guaranteed paths like engineering and accounting and medicine and all these things. You know, you know about all of these messages that we get. Yes. So can you just talk a little bit about, I mean, obviously you've been a student in art, you have made a career with your art, and you've taught art to other students. So do you have any words that you would like to say on that topic as far as the value of an art degree and the value of that in your life? What your thoughts are when you hear people say things like that? Or if students come to you and ask about that, what you have to say?
Elizabeth:Yeah, it's hard. I think they're right. You know, an art degree isn't always the most practical thing. I think about that sometimes. Like, I'm like, why didn't I choose. Why didn't I go to law school? Like I could, like
Carrie:I've had that same thought with my music degrees.
Elizabeth:I could've made things a lot easier on myself. right. Right.
Carrie:Is it easier? Are we going practical or are we going with what's kind of in our soul? Right. It's a very, there's different choices that can be made. Right.
Elizabeth:Well I will say you don't have to be earning a living from doing art to be an artist.
Carrie:Yes.
Elizabeth:You can do us things and you can have like a full-time job and then do art. Your job doesn't have to be who you are. And I think when I say why didn't I think make things easier on myself, that's kind of what I'm thinking. It's like, why don't I have a job that I can separate myself more from? Cause that would be nice sometimes. But I mean, you also don't have to have an art degree technically to be a working earning illustrator, you know? Yeah. You, you don't need an art degree necessarily. I think the time an art degree gives you to work on your craft is more important than, you know, that piece of paper.
Carrie:Do you feel like the educational part, do you feel like you were introduced to more skills or methods or ways of thinking or approaching your art? I mean, there's all of those pieces too, right? That if you don't pursue a degree or some kind of education in art mm-hmm. you do miss out on being introduced to things that you may not have been introduced to before. Right.
Elizabeth:Yeah. I think especially in the TI era that I went to school, I think. Yes. However, there are different, there are different paths now. There are a lot of things you can learn on the internet. Yeah. Especially for like graphic design or art, or just if you wanna learn the programs because like learning, like I know Photoshop like the back of my hand. I know it very well. I know InDesign, I know Illustrator, and those are like really useful skills. As useful as like an engineering degree, I would say. But you can learn those. I would say don't just like randomly go to YouTube and try to find something. But there are services. There's Skillshare, there's it used to be linda.com, but now it's called LinkedIn Learning. They have fantastic classes, that you can access with a library card. So there's a lot of like practical illustration things that I think were so beneficial to me that I learned in school that now you could possibly learn on your own. I think that school, like I said, the time to focus on your craft and work on your craft, it's really important. If you're working full-time or going to school for something else and then also trying to do your art. You just have to be that much more focused. You have to be that much more passionate and that much more focused. And then at that point you're like, well, maybe I should just be going to art school. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. You know, with social media, with Instagram and I'm sure there's ones that I'm not aware of cuz I'm not a young person. I don't wanna say TikTok cuz that's a little complicated to find a group there. But I mean, still definitely Instagram, you can make those connections and meet people, you know, without, The formality of school. I don't know. I think it might be interesting to see where art school is in 10 years. Next month I'm actually giving a lecture for, there's an illustrator, who does his own online course that people can sign up for. And I don't know exactly what's involved in this course, but I know he has guest lectures like myself and I'm pretty sure it's all online. And it's not through university, it's just through this guy and he's gonna teach you what he knows. And I think you pay, I don't know how much you pay for it, but, a lot less than school. So I think there are other ways to educate yourself as an artist. Art school worked for me, and I think especially undergrad was just the good period for me. Like I needed it to grow up a little bit. I wouldn't have been mature enough, I think, to focus on my art as a 19 year old, not in art school.
Carrie:Yeah. Is it safe to say that companies like Hallmark and the ad agencies are looking for people with a degree, or are they strictly just looking at portfolios?
Elizabeth:Mean, it's been like over 10 years since I've applied. Yeah. So I really don't know. I don't know how strict it is in other places to be. Yeah.
Carrie:So look at those job postings. People you'll have to look to see, because, you know, there's a lot of jobs out there that they slap on bachelor's degree required. Whether or not that really means that you need that knowledge. Right. But sometimes it's just like a corporate HR requirement.
Elizabeth:Yeah. And I would say, like in my field in illustration, there aren't a lot of those corporate jobs, you know? So I think that's why I'm just so un familiar with it. Hallmark is an outlier and I know that they are hiring less and less, let's just say that. There are, you know, other like sort of like in-house illustration type jobs, like in video games, in animation, mm-hmm. I think that a lot of those are on the west coast in California. And so if I was interested in one of those fields, I would try to focus my school search in that area. I think so much of illustration, it's a freelance driven career for the most part. Is it a good career path for you? I think think about like maybe the type of person that you are. Do you want that job with the 401K and health insurance, does that make you feel comfortable and satisfied? Maybe, you know, focusing more on graphic design would be a better path. Are you laid back enough to just like have faith and just hope that it's gonna come together? Fortunately young people can stand their parents' health insurance for a lot longer these days. So if you have that ability, it definitely take advantage of it. People have different resources to them. That's one thing that became glaringly apparent for me in New York. Like a lot of people that are, you know, just doing like the freelance hustle, living in New York City. they have outside funds from somewhere you know? Right. Yeah. Maybe they're from there and their parents own their apartment or you never know what people's backgrounds are. I'm married and I have insurance through my husband's job, which is corporate and like, I always like to emphasize that when I talk to people, it's like I'm doing okay, but I'm also, getting that stable help that some illustrators don't have.
Carrie:Right. Yeah. Well, looking back over your journey, do you have any big picture life advice for students? Is there any advice you've been given along the way or that you've heard about that you felt like helped you grow along your path? Move forward from one step to the next and thinking about your future and making decisions as you went?
Elizabeth:Don't panic. You have time Yeah. Don't worry too much about like the next step. Kind of just focus on where you are now, and have faith that if you work hard that something will come or you'll figure out something. Maybe not success, but maybe you'll figure something out. You know what I mean? Right. Right. Yeah. But you know, just try to get by. Just take each year, I would say as it comes. From the moment I stepped foot at college, like I was concerned about where I was gonna be going after college. And I think that drove a lot of decisions that maybe weren't the best use of my time always. I mean, it all worked out in the end, but yeah. I mean, the end. So far.
Carrie:For people that want to check out your work and take a look at what you've been doing and what's to come, where can they find you?
Elizabeth:The best place to start is my website, which is ebaddeley.com. And from there, I have links to like my Instagram. Also, if you just like Google my name, all my social medias will come up. But yeah, I try to post every once in a while to Instagram. But like I said, it's hard to keep up with that. But you can keep track of like all my books and everything on my website.
Carrie:All right. And we'll be sure to put that in the program notes. Well, Liz, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story with us. This has been really fun. I really appreciate your time and sharing all of this with students. I think you've had a really interesting perspective too, because you've also taught college students, so it really helps kind of bring this full circle to kind of look at your industry and your work and students role in that now and how things have changed. So I really appreciate your time.
Elizabeth:Yeah. It's changing so fast for them and my heart breaks at how expensive college is now. Yes.
Carrie:Well, and I'm glad you had brought up the community college too, that you refer people there because I think especially in the arts, students automatically think about like fancier schools, you know, whether it's a music conservatory or something that has a strong acting program or you know, a musical theater program that's gonna get you to Broadway or whatever it is. Where really, a lot of community colleges have fantastic foundational coursework where, like you said, you're given the time to work on your craft and that's really the most important thing when you're that young. Especially in the beginning where it's like you can wait till grad school to get more fancy if you really want to.
Elizabeth:I recommend it cuz Johnson County has such a good foundations program for art. Yeah. You can just do the first two years and then transfer. That's what I would advise an art student to do, honestly, just because of the cost of college.
Carrie:Absolutely. Well, thank you. I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much.
Do you know someone I should interview? Please DM me on Instagram@pathsinprogresspodcast and let me know who I should talk to. I would love to hear about how these stories are impacting your journey. Please follow Paths in Progress wherever you download your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you think. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Paths in Progress Podcast. Our music is by John Grimmett and the artwork is by Edgar Alanis. Thanks again for joining me today.