Carlianne Tipsey, author of How to Draw Adorable

Hello, friend! Art is something that I have pursed on and off in the last few years. How to Draw Adorable: Joyful Lessons for Making Cute Art by Carlianne Tipsey caught my eye when I was on a recent slow sling of creating art.

This is a fantastic book to learn to draw cute art! A lot of chapters focus on human drawing, expressions and emotions and the later chapters apply these concepts to animals and things. I liked this approach and also appreciated the depth in which the author described art, going from rough sketches to cleaner final versions. There are lots of examples and concepts to learn and the art in the book makes it a fun learning journey.

When I adore a book, there is a good chance I am going to try to connect with the author about it. So, here we are today – chatting with Carlianne Tipsey, the amazing person behind this book!

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Hi Carlianne! Welcome to Armed with A Book. It is an honor to host you on the blog! Can you please tell me and my readers about yourself?

Thank you so much for having me! I am a professional illustrator that loves all the cute and silly things and I’m so excited that I’m able to help other people learn how to draw cute and silly things too! My whole career I’ve known that I belong somewhere making colorful happy art and I just left my full time job and am pursuing creating my own products and books full time now which is scary and exciting!

What does a day in the life of a book illustrator look like? How did you get into this line of work?

Well, if you asked me this a week ago I’d say that I have a pretty typical 9-5 illustration gig, a salary, a boss etc. I get my assignments. I do the work and then go home and then I do my personal illustration work and teach illustration.  

However, I’m officially self-employed now (eek!).  Luckily I’m just coming off a successful Kickstarter so I have a ton of work to do fulfilling book purchases while I set up my Etsy shop and line-up future projects.  But I’d say that every day looks a little different and requires a lot of scheduling and organization to stay focused. I try to balance my time between getting assignments done that need to be done right now along with setting aside time to focus on future projects or income. But I have total freedom in my schedule and in what I create which is so incredible that I can’t even describe it.

I got into this line of work out of a love of coloring at a young age. I really wanted to work for Disney when I was 9 and even wrote them a letter (and spelled my name wrong). I ended up going to college at San Jose State University which had a surprisingly great animation/illustration program. I had the absolute pleasure of working with Disney Interactive in San Francisco before the studio closed. At which point I decided my style and passion was a better fit for children’s media. I found myself working for KiwiCo for 7 years making children’s books, comics and magazine content as well as mentoring the team of illustrators there. About three years ago I realized I was craving the ability to create in my own style and to write my own books so after a very slow transition here I am!

Your debut book How to Draw Adorable: Joyful Lessons for Making Cute Art is one of the best art books I have read. How have your experiences as an illustrator, mentor and teacher influenced the contents and structure of the book?

Oh what an amazing compliment, thank you! When I was writing and illustrating this book I really thought about what helped me the most as a beginner artist or the books I wish that I had along the way and tried to put as much of that as I could in the book.

For me, that meant that every tip had an illustration. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gotten an art book that was mostly text and felt so betrayed and angry. So I broke down each tip as simply as I could and gave everything an illustration including lots of extra drawings just for reference.

I also always wished my art books had assignments, or would tell me how to start applying what I just learned. So each chapter in my book ends with practice pages or drawing prompts so that you learn and can start drawing right away. 

Tell me about the concept of cuteness and adorableness of art and how it affects the viewer?

Well cuteness is all about creating feelings of love and affection. So when I break down cuteness I talk a lot about cute things like babies and puppies, of course. But I also talk about what things make you feel joy and love. Like a grandma baking cookies, or a monster helping a friend. I really like thinking about it that way because it opens up the door for the artist to decide what they think is cute and share that with the world.

Can you share some of your favorite cute arts?

My friend Natalie draws some amazingly cute animals

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A post shared by Natalie Lundeen (@natlundeen)

I also really love Alexandra’s work:

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A post shared by Alexandra Thompson (@alexandraco_illustration)

And Mag’s

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A post shared by Mag Takac | kidlit illustrator (@mag_takac)

But I think my all time favorite artist is Pascal Campion

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A post shared by Pascal Campion (@pascalcampionart)

You have some amazing reviews of the book. What’s something you hope readers would take away from it? What’s resonating from How to Draw Adorable: Joyful Lessons for Making Cute Art with your readers?

I think the thing that resonates the most is that my tips are simple. They really are just like a bunch of tiny simple tips that you can do and then when you get to the end you realize you’ve leveled up as an artist but it was a fun and easy process.  

My favorite reviews are the ones who comment on how my book helped them start drawing again or how they were able to draw something that brought joy to another person.  Remember when we were kids and art was fun? I want everyone to feel that way again. 

Do you have a favorite chapter in the book that you find yourself going back to? Why may that be?

I think the chapter I’m most proud of is the chapter where I break down what makes something cute. Because there are a lot of art books out there that talk about character design or drawing or expressions, but there really isn’t a resource out there for drawing cute stuff. The only books I could find about cute art were extremely simplified step by step guides (you know, draw a circle, add ears, you made a cat!) kinds of guides. Which are super fun, but none that explained why one drawing was cute and another wasn’t, or how to draw cute stuff in your own style.  As an artist I was told really loose guidelines like “make it round, give it big eyes, but when I was training artists and I gave them that advice, it didn’t necessarily work, so I had to dive a lot deeper than that. So when I wrote the chapter on cute secrets it was the most challenging by far. But when I finished, I got to say I wrote the book on cute. And that makes me feel super giddy and proud inside.  

What’s the hardest part of learning art? What’s the first step someone can take to get started?

I think the thing that trips people up the most is trying to do too much or to go too fast at once. There is a LOT to learn and juggle with art that it can feel overwhelming, but if you take it one piece at a time you can break it down so that you have easy steps to make it where you want to go.  That’s why the chapter on pencil control is so early on in the book. I found that often new artists are still struggling to get their pencil to do what they want, so then it’s almost impossible to draw anything. I have my artists take a step back, draw a bunch of circles and shapes and lines to get a command of your pencil (or pen or whatever) first. Then drawing everything else gets much easier. 

What advice would you give to people who are pursuing creativity, whether as a passion in their free time or as a career?

I think if you’re pursuing creativity as a career or as a side passion I encourage you to try and find that thing in creativity that is your spark, that brings you joy and gets you excited to create.  It’s different for everyone and it can be harder to hold onto as a professional. For me, I know that I love creating things that make other people smile – and I just really love color.  So when I was looking for jobs as a professional I wanted to make sure I was working in a field where I could do those things. And if I had a job where I couldn’t do those things, I would make sure to carve out time in my “free-time” to do it anyway. When I create art as a personal passion I just get to do that thing, and throw the other styles and advice aside.

Is there anything else you would like to share about yourself and your book?

Just that I’m so super excited for everyone to get their books and to see what people make. I know not all creators like being tagged on social media, but I LOVE it. It makes me so excited to see that I’ve inspired someone else to draw, so if anyone out there gets their book feel free to share your work and tag me @carliannecreates on Instagram.

If you could give a shout out to someone(s) who has helped in your author journey, please feel free to mention them below!

SO many people! I’m sure I’ll miss a few names, but Leslie Jonath with Connected Dots Media was the first to help me on this journey, I would not have written this book without her, she agented me just for this one book and helped me find Girl Friday Books who have been an incredible indie publisher for me. My amazing graphic designer Debbie Berne who worked so collaboratively with me and really made my book shine and my dear friend Indrani Segupta who helped me with the final polish of text edits and made the book as fun and cute to read as it is to look at. But also a huge shout out to my followers on instagram who inspired me to write this book in the first place. Their support and enthusiasm has been one of the best parts of this experience.

Thank you so much for your time! 🙂

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Thank you for hanging out with us! Connect with Carlianne on Instagram, YouTube, Amazon, Twitter and TikTok. Learn more about her on her website and check out her Etsy shop.

Many thanks to Girl Friday Books for providing me a review copy of the book through NetGalley and the opportunity to connect with Carlianne. Learn more about the publisher on their website, Facebook and Instagram.

Here’s a bit about the book.

Cover image: Photo by Ali Kazal on Unsplash