A Warm Welcome and Personal Introduction
Hi you! Thank you for joining me in my little corner of the world! It can get scary out there, so hopefully you can find joy and happiness here on my creative journey!
Being creative can be hard in this world, and sometimes we can take ourselves too seriously! So, I am calling this space my big notebook! It is a place where I can document all my learning, and you can read about it, too! I LOVE to learn new skills, so I get so much information that it all can't live in my brain.
Hey! While you are here, let me introduce myself! My name is Michaela Grant, and I am an illustrator and graphic designer. I started my creative journey at a young age, drawing all over the place. Yes, I drew on the walls, too. I always loved creating things, and I always knew I had a unique brain and saw things differently like I picked up on patterns quickly that no one else was paying attention to, I remember my third birthday, and I found the pun in almost everything, along with other random stuff that I thought made me weird.
Anyways, from seeing things from a different perspective than everyone else, I started to translate that into drawing. I wasn’t a prodigy child, but I’d like to experiment and draw what I see. I eventually taught myself how to draw, then my parents put me in some art classes, and I took art classes in school growing up. In college, I took illustration classes and was working towards my AA studio arts degree. After 2 years, I transferred to CSULB for illustration.
I thought illustration was what I wanted to do. I enrolled in some classes at Long Beach, but I had a professor who told me that Illustrators don’t make money, and that's all I heard! I thought to myself, “I have asthma! I need a job with healthcare insurance so I can afford my inhaler! I can't be here! I need something more practical!” So I left class, went to the counselor's office, and switched my focus to graphic design! I didn’t believe I could make a living as an illustrator. That’s when my journey of doubting my art skills began.
I enjoyed graphic design! I was able to use the analytical side of my brain. I learned new programs and a different side of being creative. It was fun! Then, I got my degree, and it was hard to find a job. I worked one full-time job at a small printing company after I graduated, and then they let me go a few months later. After that, I worked a part-time job until the pandemic happened. A year before the pandemic, I started an Etsy shop making shirts, and I pivoted to designing stickers during the pandemic, and my Etsy took off! I was averaging 1 sticker a day! I was excited! I bought myself an iPad to start drawing my stickers, and I got back into illustration.
The world was starting to go back to normal slowly, and I began to doubt myself again. I told myself I needed to have something practical to pay the bills while I took this Etsy shop seriously. I got another part-time job, then a full-time job working at a school, but I was always so frustrated at both! I felt like I wasn’t complete. I went back to learning new drawing skills on YouTube, Skillshare, and other platforms, but it never truly felt like enough.
My Etsy sales slowed, and I began doubting myself more. I took a break and switched to climate action and worked at Santa Monica City Hall for almost a year in a fellowship. I was doing something completely different. I was gardening! I was having fun, learning new things, and being outside! My supervisor knew I did graphic design, so he asked me to design flyers for their garden events. Then I started working with the city’s resource, recovery, and recycling department and helped plan/create an ad for their big belly trucks! I also started incorporating illustrations into my flyers, and I even created several stickers for them. I had a fellow Fellow ask me to illustrate a children’s book she was writing, and we got to read the manuscript and present some of the pages I illustrated at a gardening event. It was the best experience ever. It built my confidence because people who didn’t know me were making positive comments about the fliers I created, and then I’d turn around and say, THAT WAS ME! I started to believe I could actually draw and create things that people would enjoy! I thought, “Why not me? There are so many people out there living their dreams and illustrating! Why not I?"
Then I fell back into my scared habits. I signed up for another fellowship and started working again a month later. I fell back into the low of feeling incomplete. I was sitting in an office for this fellowship; I wasn’t gardening, and I wasn’t designing anymore. I had had enough. I’ve let six years go by being scared, so I built my online portfolio, added the work I did with Santa Monica, the projects I made from all the learning I did, and the products I sold in my Etsy shop. This was all in the last 6 months, and I’m still getting started.
All this brings me to today, working towards my dream and believing in myself fully! As I am writing this, I am emailing companies about my patterns, emailing agencies for representation, and reaching out to publishers for the children’s picture book I am working on with my old co-worker. I’m taking a chance on me and taking the leap. Wish me luck!
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