Bored Panda reached out to Kate Curtis to learn more about her creative journey and process as a cartoonist. The artist shared that she's always cartooned. "I mean always," she emphasized. "I grew up all over the place (America, New Zealand, Australia, Kenya, Ghana) and read my parents’ copy of The New Yorker every week. It was printed on lightweight ‘air-mail’ paper and was often the only new reading material we had. I knew by the time I started school I was going to be a cartoonist."
According to Curtis, her creative process can be best described as a constant bubbling up of "What ifs?" "I was an art director/creative director in advertising and have learned that there is no ‘magic moment’ in creativity. You just sit down and do it. Good or not so good, it’s always a foothold up to something better. I doodle and put my key thoughts in a notebook, or in the ’Note’ app on my phone, to review later in my studio. If something worthwhile bubbles up at night, I WRITE IT DOWN. Nothing worse than remembering you had an idea in the night, but not what it was. That really sucks.
I also eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. Not so hard when they’re yelling into their phone next to you on the train."
A lot of artists face the challenge of knowing when a piece is finished. We asked Kate how she handles this in her comics. "Sometimes it is hard to know when a cartoon is done. I like drawing….so I tend to over-draw and overthink. It’s easy to wander away from the original simple idea of a joke. I try to take breaks, make a coffee, and return with a fresh eye."
If you're an aspiring cartoonist, Kate Curtis has some valuable advice for you: "For any aspiring cartoonist, I would say believe in your work. You know what’s funny. Keep drawing, try to enjoy it, and submit submit submit. I submitted ten cartoons to the New Yorker every month for 2 years before I was picked up. The more cartoons you draw the more you develop your own style."
