“It’s important for artists to evolve, to try new things”: Christina Chung, Catapult Artist for March 2020

“At art school, finding ‘A Style’ was the constant and collective struggle of all of us students—trying to find a way to define ourselves and stand out.”

Social media’s a great place to discover artists you’ve never met before. People are out here, trying to make connections through creative pursuits, trying to boost each other, to lift each other up. There was a Twitter thread of artists sharing their portfolios and that’s where we found this month’s Catapult Artist, Christina Chung!

Her elegant style and warm palette hooked us immediately. In the three illustrations she created for Catapult in March, Christina takes us to new worlds informed by the nonfiction, short story, and travelogue pieces we shared with her. It was a seamless process, so we asked her about her routine, her creative process, and her career thus far!

The Editors: Did you always want to become an illustrator? Or was there a different path you took that led you here?

Christina Chung: I haven’t always wanted to be specifically an illustrator, but my dreams have always been creatively-oriented. I actually didn’t fully realize that illustration could be a viable career path until the last year or so of high school, when I discovered and started following the works of illustrators such as Jimmy Liao, James Jean, and Yuko Shimizu. Until then, I had been considering pursuing a writing career! I was doomed to be a creative either way.

Us too at Catapult!

But art had always been one of my first loves. With the encouragement of my supportive parents and long-time art teacher/mentor, I applied to several art schools. I went on to study illustration at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and I haven’t looked back since.

You created art for three pieces for the magazine—it was such a joy working with you! The editorial collaboration was pretty seamless. So I’d love to hear you describe your creative process.

My process in terms of commercial client work begins with reading and rereading the provided prompt. This can come to me in several forms, from a headline, to an early draft of an article, a full manuscript, or a rough idea of what the art director would like to see. I like to read the material once through to get a first impression of the content, and at least once more while taking copious notes.

I’ll note down words or phrases that help me to come up with visuals, ideas that pop up while reading and a sentence-long summary of the main idea that needs to be conveyed in my illustration. Going off of my written notes and scribbles, I’ll sketch as many rough thumbnails as I can. I use this stage to be unburdened by perfection, and I focus purely on quick visualizations of an idea that comes to mind.

It’s similar in writing too, yeah? You have to have a rough draft to build off of, which you then fine tune and edit. You need that stage to just be, as you said, “unburdened by perfection.”

From here, I pick a minimum of three ideas to turn into more detailed sketches. While it’s not necessary for these sketches to at all be perfect, it’s imperative that they’re clear enough for the art director to understand the thought process. Sketches will occasionally come back with a few notes for changes to be made; other times, a direct go-ahead to final. I use Procreate on the iPad for both the note-taking and sketch stages, but I work exclusively in Photoshop for final illustrations.

Using the approved sketch as an underdrawing, I finalize the line and value in a black and white piece first, before laying color and texture over top. Working on the line and value is the most straight-forward part of the illustration, since it’s like laying down the pre-planned foundations from the blueprint that is the approved sketch. With most of my work, color is a stage I have full creative freedom over, so I take this opportunity to experiment and play around with options until it looks and feels just right.

How did you grow into and find your style?

In terms of finding my style, it definitely was and still is an ongoing process. At art school, finding ‘A Style’ was the constant and collective struggle of all of us students—trying to find a way to define ourselves and stand out. It’s honestly very difficult to actively go about finding your style, especially if you are still developing as an artist and don’t quite know who you are or who you want to be just yet.

At least in my experience, the best way to find your voice is just to put your head down and make a lot of work. Just by putting in the hours, experimenting with different techniques, materials and subject matter, even if you don’t notice it right away, you’ll begin to find a way of working that you genuinely enjoy. I was lucky to be able to find that in my junior and senior years of school, but of course that has and will continue to change as I grow as a person and an artist.

My current work next to my work from five years ago, or even last year, looks very different. I think that it’s important for artists to continuously evolve, to try new things and take time to reevaluate the way that they work—both for their own sanity, but also in order for their work to stay fresh and relevant.

Bring us through a typical work day. What are some of the pros and cons of the artist’s life?

My day starts at eight o’clock, with meditation and a morning workout. Over coffee, I’ll answer emails and make a handwritten list of the tasks that I have to get through for the day. I work through to around twelve, break for a snack and maybe a short walk around the block, and then get back to work until around seven.

There are plenty of pros and cons to being a freelance illustrator who works from home, but the biggest pro for me is also the biggest con: freedom. While I have clients and deadlines to answer to, I have the freedom to choose where to work from and my work hours. I love my home set-up, with snacks and cuddles with my cat readily available, but flexible work hours can also mean overworking myself.

It’s definitely a life and work style that took time to get used to and that I’m still trying to perfect!

What tips would you give to emerging illustrators trying to make a career in art?

I would say that one of the most important things to concentrate on is having a strong portfolio and a solid website. This is what clients will hire you based on, and what agents will want to sign you for. I also recommend having a social media presence to share your work and gain visibility, but also because there’s a large and vibrant community of illustrators online that are supportive and engaging.

Social media is also a great way of finding clients that hire illustrators, and seeing what kind of jobs and topics other illustrators are hired to work on. You can look for opportunities offline by picking up books or magazines, and looking for art directors in the mastheads, or keeping an eye out for illustrator credits whenever you see illustration out in the world. Beyond promoting my work on social media, I also send cold-emails to clients for work opportunities.

That’s exactly how we came across your work—we found you on Twitter! That’s a great tip, being plugged into creative networks.

As you continue to work on more and more commissions, your work will often begin to promote itself, when found by art directors going through publications, or when promoted by clients and peers. Commercial illustration takes a lot of hard work, and requires you to be multi-faceted beyond just being an artist, from self-marketing to bookkeeping.

We gotta wear different hats all the time!

But at the end of the day, it’s an incredibly rewarding career, made even more so by the work you need to put in to succeed. I’m very grateful for my journey so far.