Artist Spotlight: Katie Shanahan
- Katie Chock
- Dec 18, 2018
- 7 min read
Artist make the world go ‘round, they bring us joy and the make us feel. Even if they are not big stars like Disney, they can impact lives on a smaller scale. They can bring representation of a culture and they can create stories that touch people and everything in between. I can’t deny lighting up at a convention seeing my favorite characters on a print in a fantastic art style or discovering a new artist. That’s why they deserve a bit of the spotlight.
For my first Artist Spotlight, I wanted to focus it on the talented Katie Shanahan, a cartoonist and animation storyboard artist from Toronto, Canada. Katie would categorize her style of art to be a cartoony mix of comic and animation influences. She loves to use her art to tell stories, bring characters to life and obtaining the small moments happening around her. The world and its daily life give her inspiration most notably the movements of people specifically dancing and martial arts. As Katie puts it art is like a beautiful meditation: “Starting with a blank page and making something come to life on it never gets old for me”.
Katie doesn’t exactly have an artist statement, but she feels the message of her art is: “the messages I seem to subliminally put in there (her comics) deal with searching for humor and absurdity in a day to day life. That and holding onto optimism”.
Katie didn’t become the artist she is today overnight, she started young and worked at it over time. She began drawing since she was a little kid picking up her first crayons to color, and never wanted to stop. It wasn’t just her love of drawing that inspired her to become an artist, her parents were a big inspiration too. “Growing up, my parents worked as mascot designers for various sports teams, amusement parks, and organizations. Watching them create these characters from an early age had a big impact on me, as well as the various comics, books, and cartoons they shared with me”. Talk about a pretty cool job to create mascots for various jobs, no wonder why Katie is inspired to create characters! Katie knew she could do more than just color and draw with crayons, her creativity was expanding into new fields.
At the young age of 5, she created her first picture book and that was just the start. “Around age 7 I decided I wanted to make an animated feature film about our family dog, but when I started reading an animation instruction book by Preston Blair and trying out the exercises, I realized "Oh! Animation is really difficult and takes a long time!"”. Even though she realized animation was an art form that takes a long time to create it didn’t stop her from wanting to peruse it as a career.
Katie stayed true to her passion for animation but focused it on being a storyboard artist for animations. After high school, she went to college and got her degree. After graduating she was able to get a job for a tv series and has had a steady flow of animation jobs ever since. Thanks to the way the Toronto animation industry works Katie can have a flexible schedule of incoming work whenever she feels like it. “It's consistent work and I get to draw every day, but I go through cycles where I lose interest in working on other people's stories and want to take time off to work on my own projects”. Katie mentioned that she does have friends who work in California for big studios that don’t get time to peruse their own personal passion projects, she feels very fortunate to have such a flexible schedule.
When something feels too much like a “job” instead of a passion that’s what Katie feels is the worst part of being an artist for her. Sometimes she just wants to focus on your own art for a while. “The worst is being committed to drawing for a client whose vision/project I don't agree with or believe in on a moral level. I take pride in being professional and making my clients happy, so I try to avoid projects I know might cause those conflicts within me”.
Speaking of personal projects Katie has a few: her autobiographical comic Shrub Monkeys and several short stories that can be seen on her website KatieShanahan.com that have been published in several books like Flight Vol. 7 & 8, The Anthology Project: Vol. 2, “Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales: Africa” Anthology and much more. The personal project that she is most proud of is her indie comic, Silly Kingdom.
Silly Kingdom is a humorous fantasy series that follows the daily adventures of a power-hungry Prince, a fun-loving Princess, a clever Jester, and a grumpy old Wizard. The Wizard Alengrimrickshaw or Alen for short is Katie’s favorite original character she has created! All the artwork is done by Katie, it's written by her and her brother Steven “Shaggy” Shanahan. This is one of their biggest projects they have done together. “We had no idea how to go about making a published comic, but we went ahead and tried it, learned a lot, exhibited at shows, and made so many new friends and readers through it”. Now they can say they did it! Silly Kingdom currently has two volumes and a third volume is in the works!
With Silly Kingdom Katie was able to strengthen her favorite part of drawing and her least favorite part as well. Her favorite part of drawing is people, especially facial expression. Just look at that title cover, every person has a unique facial expression best suited to them. “Successfully showing a character feeling something complex, or battling with their own emotions, I love seeing that in animation and comics”. Katie nails her facial expression in her work but specifically Silly Kingdom, even without reading the text she portrays their thoughts and feelings in every panel just by their face alone. Though she had fun with the faces she had to deal with her hardest part of drawing, backgrounds. But she’s working hard on improving that aspect of her art.
Katie and her brother Shaggy have worked on many projects together, like the short stories and Shrub Monkeys mentioned earlier. They collaborate a lot together with different projects and ideas. “We grew up with similar interests and tastes in cartoons/comics, so it's been a fun process to work with someone so in-sync creatively. He's a talented writer and I know he'll make many great things”. I’m excited to see what else they’ll make together and what Silly Kingdom 3 will have with their teamwork. Check out his website here.
Not only does she have her own personal projects she loves to participate in the artist community activities, like 24-hour comic, Mermay and others. Katie’s personal favorites are Hourly Webcomic Day and Inktober. Hourly Webcomic Day is when an artist creates a comic that encompasses their daily life each hour for just that day. It’s a nice way for Katie to check in with all her comic friends and how their lives are! Inktober is during the month of October where you create a picture a day for the whole month with ink. The ink can be any form black, colored, even digital. Inktober allows Katie to participate in her favorite process of drawing, inking. Though she like both traditional and digital art, she favors inking above all. “The hard-mental work of penciling has already been figured out and I can focus on making the lines flow”. This Inktober Katie was able to complete all 31 days in a 3x5 inch sketchbook following the theme of Dungeons and Dragons. Which has to be one of her favorite themes for fan art right now featuring Critical Role. Check out her completed sketchbook here!
Katie has attended several conventions with an artist booth around the world including ones in North America, Japan, and Germany. She finds them exciting because she gets to see new places and interact with all sorts of people but also exhausting. Artist booths are hard work that requires lots of attention to your artwork and the people who stop by your booth. Her favorite convention is the one held in her hometown: Toronto Comic Art Festival or TCAF. A two-day convention exhibiting independent comic book creators. Check her out whenever she has a booth there.
Beside Silly Kingdom 3 Katie is currently working on a comic that she has had been thinking about for a while and is working on this winter. This comic is currently hush-hush, but it is a different take than her normal light-hearted works. She is also taking time to sharpen her skills with some life drawings with resources from this website: https://www.bodiesinmotion.photo/. The basics are important!
The advice that Katie would give to a new artist or those who look for advice is: "“only take the advice you need”" and “It's okay to walk away if things aren't working, to look for inspiration elsewhere, and come back when you're ready”. There is no one golden rule of advice for all artist, except for probably to practice your skill. Talent and skills take time. Katie believes it’s ok to change your goals, but you should be willing to set goals for yourself even if it comes with failure. Not only should you set goals but find a job you would be comfortable with and not just getting a job with a flashy title that overworks you. “…a part of me thought "I'm a failure because I didn't get a job working at a big movie studio in California!" but after thinking about it, I didn't even want to work there, I just felt like that was what I was supposed to want”. Find something that will make you happy, you don’t have to be the best just be you. You can go big to make that your goal and get a job with Disney and Dreamworks but if you don’t make it big, you’re not a failure.
Even though I’ve never met her in real life, I’ve followed Katie’s work for a long time since I first found her on DeviantArt, like ten years ago, I think. Her comics from Shrub Monkeys make my day, I have the comic and several small prints that an old friend got for me in 2011. I’m very drawn to her goofy expressions and whimsical storytelling.
A while ago I bought Silly Kingdom 1 & 2 and had my favorite character drawn in them, The Prince! Yes, I know he’s ridiculous and super smug, but I can’t help it. I think he’s cute and adorable but it’s funny when things blow up in his face. I would be that silly girl who would swoon at the sight of him, like the Bimbettes around Gaston. Maybe not that bad but you get the point!
Katie Shanahan is an accomplished artist who has made a name and a stable career for herself. In the animation world for having many different jobs as a storyboard artist and the comic world as well by producing her own comics. Katie deserves this time in the spotlight and for her many fans and me, we are excited to see what she will produce next.
Here are the links again to her Tumblr, Twitter and Silly Kingdom Comics. Also if you would like to support her you can buy Silly Kingdom.
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