We recently connected with Matt Schu and have shared our conversation below.

Matt, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I always loved to draw as a kid. I would make my own comic books and try to copy other drawings I liked. So drawing and illustration were always a big part of my life, but not really in a way where I was planning to make an actual career out of it. I just daydreamed in this very unspecific way.

I got more focused while I was studying at the University of Oregon to be a graphic designer, and figured I could do some illustration on the side. But I was aware that my skills were just not at a professional level. I started to prioritize shifting from being good for a kid to being just good, period. I still prioritize that. And because I tend to just draw the stuff I like drawing, I need projects with requirements slightly outside my comfort zone to grow and improve. So I started doing some illustrations for campus magazines to figure out where I needed to grow.

Of course, I needed to grow a lot. Learning how to guide a project and anticipate a client’s needs while also asserting your personal vision is a skill in itself, and very essential to doing creative work professionally. On top of that, I wasn’t even that great at the drawing part. I could make stuff I liked sometimes, but that outcome was the exception rather than the rule. I was too inconsistent.

So, I’ve come to think that consistent quality of work and learning how to keep a project on track are the most important skills. That seems obvious as I’m saying it, but I’ve found it can be hard to be honest with yourself when you’ve made work that’s almost there but not quite. Having a realistic view of the quality of your work, without your ego getting too much in the way, is really important. But really, the most important thing is that you don’t put out work that’s below your personal standard if you can at all help it. Thinking about all this sooner than I did might have sped up my progress.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started my career doing editorial illustration and UX design, but they weren’t quite the right fit for me. Then I rediscovered children’s illustration and got hooked very quickly. After spending a while figuring out the medium and building my portfolio, I started looking for an agent. Eventually I joined the CAT Agency, and am represented by Chad W. Beckerman who I work with to get contracts with publishers. I love working in children’s illustration, and love how much space you’re granted as an illustrator to do something idiosyncratic. I also like how the images are such an integral part of the final product, rather than being just supplementary.

Something I prioritize in my illustrations is having a distinct mood and a distinct focal point to guide your eye. I also like my drawings to have a narrative quality. I’m happy when a drawing of mine is described as “moody”. As my career has gone on, I get more and more work where the art director or editor is looking for the kind of work I do. This is great because it allows me to lean into the stuff I like making. In my personal work, I like drawing houses with lit-up windows, cats, night scenes, trees, rain, dramatic skies, moonlight, and water. When a project incorporates any of these things, I’m happy.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I made a decisive shift in my creative career around 2018. That was when I quit my full-time job as a UX designer making web pages for eCommerce. I’d been a graphic designer of some kind for around 5 years at that point, doing illustration on the side, and just wasn’t content. I got into graphic design because I have a lot of interest in and respect for it as a field of study, but by doing it all the time I realized that it being just an interest rather than a career was enough for me.

So, after working a bit longer and saving some money, I quit with not much of a specific plan in January 2018. That was a year of a lot of growth in my skills. And I was much happier working part-time jobs as I built up my illustration career and started exhibiting art in galleries. After a few years, a pandemic, and a lot of improvement in my work, I ended up signing with the CAT Agency in 2021 and was able to illustrate children’s books as my primary work.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think that a certain amount of idle time is important for creativity. When balanced with periods of work, that time where you don’t need to do anything in particular is when the creative part of your brain can really get going. Unfortunately the pressure to make money tends to limit free time. So I think our society could help creatives with more grants of money or supplies. Not that it would need to be the sole source of support, but it would allow some more time to be carved out for creative work. Because it’s not a career with consistent or predictable work coming in, a bit of money would be pretty helpful to keep it going. In my opinion, at least. Of course, artists aren’t the only people who would be helped by this.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://matt-schu.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/mattxschu
• Twitter: https://x.com/mattxschu
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattxschu

  https://catagencyinc.com/matt-schu

Image Credits

Photo of me by Ryan Warner