Meet Katie Mulligan | Freelance Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Katie Mulligan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
As an individual, my default setting is seeking control and security as I tend to be pretty anxious. Unfortunately for that tendency of mine, risks are an essential part of growth in any area but especially illustration. A lot of the really exciting changes and progressions come from risks taken with medium or approach or even ideas. Progression artistically without risk is possible but risk definitely increases the speed of it.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am currently a freelance illustrator and an adjunct professor, and work with clients on all kinds of projects and genres of work. Getting to where I am as an illustrator has been intensely difficult, and the field comes with a ton of challenges. Financially work as an illustrator hasn’t completely covered my bills at times: I’ve held a number of ‘day jobs.’ I am still very early in my career so there are the usual challenges of finding what I want to say, exploring what I want to create, etc.

Generally, my work revolves around nature and incorporating nature into narrative and imagery as much as I can. I’m super inspired by the natural world and capturing as much of it as I can. I also draw a lot of people; creating portraits and exploring personal narratives mean a lot to me.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’m from Syracuse New York originally and a located there again at this point in my life. There are a ton of spots to visit here! We have a super diverse natural biome here; one of my favorite hiking spots is Clark Reservation. There’s a little pizza shop named Robbie T’s that I love, and a little vegan restaurant called Strong Hearts I like a lot. There are really a ton of things to fit into a week! The art and music world here is pretty populated too.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I dedicate a lot of my progression as an artist to Ginnie Hsu! She’s a phenomenal illustrator and educator. Along with her I dedicate my initial push into art to my high school art teacher, Matthew Cincotta.

Website: https://k-mulligan.com

Instagram: ktmulligan

Image Credits
all credits are original illustrations by Katie Mulligan