Bored Panda reached out to Ellen to find out a little bit more about her and her comics.
"Well, I've been making art since I was a young child, and while on lockdown, I had more time to focus on creating a comic series. We had also adopted a cat and I became obsessed with drawing her goofy expressions! I was originally quite nervous to share my art but my family gave me the boost I needed. I figured people may need a laugh during this pandemic and wanted to help people smile, then it kind of took off!"
As we mentioned previously, Ellen's comics tackle all kinds of situations but most of them involve her tabby cat. The artist's comics depict situations such as working from home with a cat (who always tries to show off in front of the camera during a Zoom call) or even putting up Christmas decorations around the house whilst waiting for them to get destroyed by the claws of the mighty feline.
We also took a chance to ask Ellen more questions. First, we asked the artist if she had any life-changing influences that might have helped her with her art and art style in general when it comes to her comics.
"My influences in life are my friends and family, they've always encouraged me to create art and are so supportive! Art-wise, I'm a big fan of Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett, and the guys from Penny Arcade really influenced my style (it was the first webcomic I'd ever seen)."
In case you are interested and liked the artist's work a lot, you might want to consider her Patreon page, which provides her fellow and most loyal fans and supporters with special membership roles. For example, you can get your very own personalized doodles, higher-quality art, patron-only community bonus comics as well as sketches, and any conceptual art that will later get turned into comics, ready to be posted on other platforms by Ellen herself.
Art, in any kind of form, takes a lot of time not only to practice but also to produce, therefore we asked Ellen how long it takes her to fully finish her comics.
"It takes a few hours to complete one strip from concept to final version. I add a lot of details on the coloring and shading, which is my favorite part of the design process."
Being an artist is not easy, one can easily encounter a lack of inspiration, burnout, etc, so we wanted to ask the artist about her ideas for the comics.
"The ideas are always flowing, my issue is not having enough time to draw them all! My kids and cat are a great source of comedic entertainment, they're just naturally funny and we spend a lot of time laughing in our house. I'm kind of a silly person so I tend to turn everything into a joke anyway."
As we mentioned before, sometimes creative work can cause quite a burnout, therefore we asked the artist how she dealt with that as well.
"I love doing creative work, it energizes me when the rest of the world leaves me burned out. I get sucked into drawing and often forget everything around me, it's kind of like my zen place."
We also asked the artist about how people reacted to her work.
"Most people are so sweet and kind with their feedback, I get lots of messages from people telling me I've brightened their day and that they love my work. Of course, there's some negativity from people if you put your work out there, that's unavoidable I think, but it really drowned out by the kindness of so many wonderful people!"
The creative process is not easy, but there are many enjoyable parts to it as shared by the artist.
"I actually love drawing the facial expressions the most, I find it really fun to try and capture all that emotion and energy in one pose. I've always drawn silly faces, my kids really like them and I think it always brings something extra to a comic since you're trying to express so much in a few panels."
We also asked about the inspiration behind the artist's Instagram account.
"I started making digital art as a teen in Microsoft paint. We didn't have any other tools in my house so I just learned to get really good at drawing with a mouse, that's actually what I still use to outline my digital art in Adobe illustrator. I went to design school in my twenties and started doing art commissions for other people, mostly logo designs or illustrations for companies. Even though I enjoyed it, I found there wasn't enough work coming in and I wanted to do something more creative and fun."
Artists tend to get motivated by a lot of things such as curiosity, the search for beauty, or even meaning. Therefore, we asked Ellen about that too.
"My biggest motivation as an artist is entertaining people and making them smile. The world is such a crazy place and there's a lot of negativity out there, especially online, I want my comics to be something that helps people escape the noise of all that bad stuff, even if just for a little bit.
I'm a Nova Scotian and we're all pretty laid back and friendly here, I grew up in a really small town so everyone knew me and my family, we were all pretty close. I would draw pictures as gifts for everybody and they seemed to really like it. Some people still have them hanging up on their fridge years later, it's such a nice feeling to see how your work impacts people."
It's also worth noticing that Ellen posts comics every week, so if you are interested in seeing more of her works, we suggest following her on Instagram to see more weekly episodes that take on life with cats, kids and love (and lots of coffee). If you liked the artist's work, please don't forget to tell us which of the comics was your favorite and why, Pandas!
