Meet CJ Ellison | Freelance Illustrator/Concept Artist & Social Media Assistant

We had the good fortune of connecting with CJ Ellison and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi CJ, what’s the most important lesson your business/career has taught you?
It’s not supposed to be linear, not your life and not your career. It was a hard lesson to learn but when I first started I genuinely thought that if you work hard at A, you’ll end up at B. Now I think that’s more the exception rather than most people’s reality. My original career goal was to be a 3D animator working in a studio. Now I’m a freelance digital painter and social media assistant most days. It came about from different opportunities not panning out the way I expected them to, trying completely new things, and questioning what I really valued along the way.

And you know what? Now I’m exactly where I want to be. I just didn’t know this is where I wanted to be when I started. So thank goodness, the path didn’t go linearly as I wanted it to!

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I really love the direction my art is going right now but funny enough, it’s actually a complete 180 of what it was at the beginning of my career. Originally my work was very stylized character design and vector illustrations. Now I create paintings that are rooted in realism. It couldn’t be more different!

Fear was the biggest thing that held me back in my early career. I took a lot of jobs and commissions because I felt like I had no other options or I had to take them to survive. I was so afraid of losing an opportunity to work as an artist that I ended up taking every opportunity even if it wasn’t a good fit for me. A lot of professional artists will say to say ‘yes’ to everything when you’re just starting and there’s a lot of truth to that. But if you start taking opportunities out of fear rather than for growth, you’ll end up in a bad situation. It was when I finally ended up in high intensity toy design position that it forced me to examine the kind of artist I actually wanted to be- not just the artist I could be.

I liked drawing characters but I LOVED digital painting -the way painted colors shift and move, when edges disappear into shadows, how much you can say with just one brushstroke, and most importantly- the way a painting can make you feel. That’s what I wanted to do. It’s what I really wanted to do. But it takes a lot of know-how to create the kind of paintings I wanted to create.

So, I switched to part-time as a toy designer and committed to learning how to paint. My studies began with “Essentials of Realism with Jonathan Hardesty” on Schoolism to learn the core of how art works. When the pandemic struck, I also joined Bobby Chiu’s 90 Minute Art Challenge every week. I later became a mentee of both Jonathan Hardesty and Bobby Chiu, while continuing to study art. Even as I create art that is true to me now, I still want to learn. I genuinely love what I do and want to learn everything there is about it.

Was I scared of starting my career over and relearning art from scratch? Oh yeah. Was it hard to do? Most definitely. But I learned that it’s not about what you could do, it’s about what you actually want to do. I remember a month after I had made the repairing a painting for a show I was entering. I had put a hole in the canvas and was trying to repair it before it was due the next day. I was so exhausted and frustrated….and the happiest I had been in a long time. Even when things are going wrong, it still feels like it’s right.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If we’re visiting Denver then the only answer is…MOUNTAINS. We’re seeing the mountains. All mountains, all day every day. The outdoors is always the thing I’m most eager to share with the people I’m close to. Since I’m from the Midwest too, the mountains always hold a special place in my heart when I can see them.

So on my list are Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s a week of hiking, camping, seeing beautiful mountains, trees, wildlife, Plein-air painting, and some of the most beautiful wildlands in North America. It really doesn’t get better than that, does it?

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
LightBox Expo Discord! This server is an extension of the yearly art convention, LightBox Expo. I can say without a shadow of a doubt being a part of LightBox’s online community has changed my life for the better. At the beginning of the pandemic, I found the camaraderie I needed and it helped me grow not only in my career but as an artist and a person.

If any artist is trying to find a community where they can learn, grow, and be supported by artists, I cannot recommend it enough. Anyone can join here: Discord.gg/lightboxexpo

Website: www.cjellisonart.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cj.ellison/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjellisonart

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cjellisonart/