We were lucky to catch up with Malia Ewart recently and have shared our conversation below.
Malia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
Over my years of working in the industry, whether that be full time, part time, or contract/freelance — making a living for my artwork can look different depending on my availability and readiness to take on work. As I made a conscious effort upon graduating uni to pursue and attract more art related jobs, it really came down to the ability to multitask. Having several small gigs all at once forced me to become more accountable and take responsibility for myself and the clients I worked with. Timekeeping, scheduling, and communication are skills you must hone when working for yourself, unless you want to end up adding unnecessary stress to yourself. I’ve also had to learn to pace myself, don’t agree to more work than you can commit to! That’s a sure fire way to burn out fast, so the nice thing about working for yourself is YOU get all the say and can ensure you have downtime in between gigs should you need it.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Sure! I’m an LA based illustrator who works in animation and comics. I graduated from CSUF in 2022, and have been fortunate enough to work in several art related professions thus far. I started out my career working for a webcomic company in 2021, which was my first professional art job (previously having worked almost 4 years at Disneyland) and taught me a lot about production pipeline, scheduling, and what it’s like to manage a creative project. Shortly after I was contacted by an old acquaintance, Garrett Gunn of Good Boy, reached out to me for some contract comic work. That was my first exposure to the comic world, and I still work with him. What’s wild is it was one of the variant covers that I made for him that got me noticed by DreamWorks for the newest show Curses! I’ve learned so much about the industry in my time with DreamWorks, and continue to work for them freelance. In addition to balancing studio work with other contractual jobs, I also run my own merchandise Etsy shop where everything is designed, produced, and shipped by me. It can be a lot of work but it’s really one of the aspects of my career I’m most proud of, it’s allowed me to be accepted into several conventions and meet more incredible artists.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Oh absolutely, I really wish the conversation about freelance/ independent contractor work was talked about earlier in college. I was lucky enough to learn a bit about self employed taxes in my last semester, but most other things like time management, setting rates, bookkeeping, and even going more in depth about self employed taxes would have been so beneficial for me professionally, rather than feeling absolutely lost when tax season rolled around.
How did you build your audience on social media?
You know I’ve just been very lucky ahaha! It’s always made me happy to see people enjoying my work on social media, and if I’m being totally honest I don’t really have a secret, I just post a LOT. Like I’m drawing every day, whether it’s for work or for myself, I think it’s important in this day and age with social media presence to post everyday if you really want to nurture growth. Don’t be afraid to make friends with artists you admire online as well, if you promote a positive and uplifting environment people are likely to take notice and potentially seek to collaborate with you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.maliaew.art/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maliadoodles/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maliadoodles/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malia-ewart-016515135/